India

 

“India is still hard for you isn’t it?” Stan asked rhetorically, from behind the computer screen.

I knew he was sifting through our photos of Rajasthan with a nostalgia that will continue to elude me. The photos have barely seen light of day since we returned seven years ago. Seven years... I breathed a deep lung full of air, remained where I was flopped on the lounge, and allowed several heartbeats to pulse through me, before I whispered back “Yes.” almost inaudibly.

I know I will always have difficulty looking through those photos of India. They represent the last days, the halcyon days. A time when we were all happy. When we were all well. When we were all still alive.

Its complicated. I never had time to process what we experienced in India. The woman I was, who experienced India, doesn’t exist anymore. I don't know what to think about the squalor or the beauty. The history, the dust, the begging, the colour, the smells. The aching poverty. The cremations. Especially the cremations. I thought I understood.

I had no idea.

Stan took a photo of me on a rooftop in Jodhpur, smiling back at the camera, so sweetly unaware of the days ahead when my life would unravel. I can’t bear to look at it. My insouciance nauseates me now. Six weeks after that photo was taken, my life cleaved in two.

Stan took this photo of me too, in Agra at the Fort. The warm light slanting in through the gritty haze of the late afternoon. The day is fresh in my memory. The pervasive smell of wood fires. The Taj, barely visible from the terrace, squirrels darting across stone paths and scampering up the trees. The local women happily posing for us in their colourful saris. I was always at my happiest, in a foreign country, with my camera slung across my shoulder.
I remember the click of Stan’s shutter. I heard him take this photo.

I came across it today, unexpectedly. Stan had left it in a folder he created and romantically named “Alison in Wonderlands”. I look upon the photo now, with a sadness that did not exist that day. I look at myself in the centre of this image with a strange detachment. And I unfairly attribute the loneliness and loss I feel now, to that wonderful timeless afternoon.

I will remember you, will you remember me? Don't let your life pass you by, weep not for the memories...

I type the four letters into the search field on my computer.

g a b e

Then press “return”, the irony not lost.

And I take a deep breath as the photos cascade down my screen.

104 Folders, over 1800 photos.

Of course there are lot of duplicates, but then are a lot more don’t have his name in the filename either...

There are 50 photos we took of him (them) modelling as supporters of the FIFA world cup. The perfect All American couple, except she was, and he just looked the part. I had to slightly lighten the colour of his teeth in all the photos to match his, to her all American smile. How happy they were. What fun we had that day with our shiny eyes. Gabe painted a USA flag on his cheek, but he painted it in the mirror and it was back to front. So we had to flip all the images of him before we sent them to FIFA.

I decide to open all 50 and flip him back, for the sake of prosperity. To restore the balance.

The familiar photos are easier, the ones I remember or see every day. Like one of him bare chested, wearing a fur-collared leather jacket and looking like a film star, that I have on my phone cover. He was 21, fresh faced with an honest open smile and eyes that engaged so intensely with the camera, that it still feels that he is looking right at me. “Is that Justin Bieber on your phone?” someone asked me once. I said “Yes”, and laughed anxiously, because the truth can’t be told in a throw away comment. “Its a long story” I added, “I tell you about it over a whiskey some time.”

There are photos from the parties, and from his childhood, his school photos and his baby photos. Stomping in rain puddles or building card houses at Grandma’s. Many of the photos collected on my computer when I was compiling the slideshows for his funeral. His funeral. What a bizarre thing to put into words. I prefer to say his “service”. Seven years on, I know that a part of me is still in denial.

I’ve noticed that in the group photos he is invariably in the middle. In group photos with his mates they always looked like they were making promo pics for a boy band.

I scroll past pics of him pulling silly faces and photos of him wearing a Santa suit or a Pirate costume. The one of Katie hugging him when he dressed as a giant pink rabbit. Or the ones from primary school when the boys all painted their hair blue for a dance performance. Or the time he donned Katie's hot pink wig. As a dear little boy in preschool looking up at Santa with innocence and wonder. The series of him “swimming with the sharks” at the Sydney Aquarium.

And photos of that cheeky boyish smile, when, as a toddler he challenged my parenting skills. There are photos of his adult muscled torso, posing with weights or flexing them to full effect. The shape of his long frog-like toes, the strawberry blonde stubble on his cheek, his strong jawline, his well defined six-pack. There are photos of him with teenage acne and 17 year old awkwardness. Or the time his picked up an uncooked chicken schnitzel and pretended it was his tongue. And that sweet photo of Katie kissing him on the cheek when they were 5 and 4 years old.

I took all of those photos, so they are memories we all made together. I don’t have to look too deeply into those images, I remember taking every single frame.

There is a photo of him at Fitzroy falls speaking Spanish with a couple of tourists from South America. It feels recent, real. It feels like last week and yet it was taken eight years ago. I am standing next to him. We are both alive.

Its the forgotten photos that are harder, or the ones that were taken by someone other than me. The ones of him in love, the blurry B&W iphone pic of their first kiss. The one of him crouched down between the stacks of a bookstore somewhere, intently scanning the titles. The one where he is staring back at her on a weekend away. I feel like an voyeur when I look at that one, but I love its purity. Photos at parties I never knew he attended and places I never knew he visited, with people I didn't know he knew. Photos of their trip to the States. Random photos I found on his computer, or have been given to me by his friends. They are the ones that I find the most difficult to engage with. The ones I feel compelled to dwell on, and to wonder where and when they were taken. To search into the corners for anything that will bring a little of him back to life. They are the ones that bring a stabbing pain to my chest, but I like that there are welcome surprises there, little unknown pieces of him regained.

...of course I am crying. These little snapshots. These little glimpses into a life that is lost.

I’ve been asked if looking at the photos makes me sad. Its not the photos that make me sad.

Its that is he’s gone.



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