I spent yesterday sorting through pictures and other relics of the past, while my mom discerned which objects would be necessary in this new chapter and which could be left in the former.

In doing this, I came across a picture of me at three-years-old on my first visit to the zoo. A faded image of my grandpa holding me, him in his shirtsleeves, a cigarette tucked behind his ear. I’m chubby-cheeked and sporting two wispy pigtails, my grandma is posed next to us in the large frameless glasses she wore in those days. In the background, two nonchalant giraffes make their way across the frame.

Written on the back in light pencil, Sophi, age 3, first visit to the zoo.
There are other pictures of this outing, some with me and my parents, one with elephants in the background and one of a sleeping tiger.

It is precisely these images that form my memory of this first encounter with wild creatures in cages. It was late August, my birthday, a time when the Great Basin Desert exhales it’s dry, hot breathe. We picnicked under the refuge of a young oak. The giraffes were my favorite because they reminded me of my beloved Big Bird. I was afraid of the elephants and tossed them peanuts tentatively. I had to be told, no, I couldn’t pet that tiger, no matter how much he looked like a kitten. The image is static and yet, inspires these contours and details, that are perhaps – definitely – a reimagining of what was.

Photos deceive this way. They profess to tell a whole story, but represent merely a heartbeat. The closer a person is to that heartbeat, that moment in time, the better they are able to fill in the surrounding time and space. But, with distance from that moment, the edges of memory fray and the image becomes an impression from which an approximation is made. The picture sets off reverberations, the wavelengths of which transform with time.

It is no wonder people’s initial reaction to photography was that it was witchcraft. It sort of is.

I think this as I piece together the jumbled narrative of my life splayed out before me and wonder, of what I remember is truth.