Revive From Archive: Meaningful Moments

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away yesterday. When moments occur that mean something to me, I love to revive memories relating to these events.

Her passing reminded me of the last time Queen Elizabeth visited Toronto in 2010. This was a time in my life when I didn't say...maybe I'll go next time. I had been to the Vancouver Olympics a few months before and wanted to continue to pursue my passions (and interests). 

When I learned that The Queen would be in Toronto, I decided to go with my SLR camera in hand. I am grateful that I did since she never came back and I love the photos I captured.

 

I'm thankful that I wrote a blog post about my day because it is reminding me of details that I had forgotten. You can read it and see more photos here. There was a lot of luck (or synchronicity) and resourcefulness involved in capturing the photos. Looking through the photos on my current computer, there is one that I included on my blog that I don't have. This reminds me that I still have photos from that day on an old computer that I want to revive.

The other thing I want to do is to connect moments with this story. I haven't figured out how I want to capture these connected stories yet. Do I want to put everything together in a video format? A photo album? Memory box? In an app/website? For now, I am just making a list of the moments I want to connect like:

• Seeing Prince Charles (now King Charles III) and meeting Camilla (now Queen Consort) at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in 2009 (click here for my blog post)
• My first time seeing Buckingham Palace in 1992
• Tower of London visit including view of Crown Jewels in 1992 with the guard saying "Move along; they're just diamonds" that made us laugh.
• Diana death (where and when I heard the news); Diana memorial fountain in London; exhibit in Toronto (where I bought an English Rose tea cup and maybe a program? - I want to revive that memory of the exhibit)
• Seeing Buckingham Palace July 7 2005 (the day of the London bombings)
• Royal York Hotel - my visit for a meeting
• Buckingham Palace tour in 2018
• Growing up in a town she visited as a Princess (in lieu of her ill father King George VI)
• Queen anniversary cards to my parents and parents-in-law
• Queen Jubilee Morning Melody I composed 
• Queen Elizabeth II death (where and when I heard the news); interviewed by CTV News

As I remember other moments that fit in this category or experience more, I can include them to add even more connections. I love the idea of putting all these stories together somehow. It adds more meaning when they are all together.

Revive From Archive: Physical Prints

A few weeks ago it was World Photography Day. I found out a little late in the day, so rather than taking a new photo that wasn't that meaningful, I thought it was a perfect time to revive one of my photos that had been a little lost in the archive.

On that day, it was also opening day at the CNE and it reminded me of a photo that has been described by my hobby photographer husband as one of the best photos I have ever taken. It was taken in 2004 after a mother and daughter day at the CNE where we went to see the Canadian Idol top 5 perform. While leaving, my daughter paused at the fountain. I had a zoom lens on my camera for the concert so had to step back quite a way, but with a quality camera (Nikon SLR) I captured a beautiful photo of my daughter. The lighting and the colours were perfect. In my photo album, I framed it with blue and pink paper to match my daughter's outfit.

We got an 8x10 print and enjoyed seeing it on the plate rail of our dining room for years (top left below). 

When I purchased very long Monet prints at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris a few years ago, I replaced the framed photos with it. Sometimes when we keep the same photos on display, they become part of the background that we don't appreciate them anymore. I thought that putting the photo away for a while would make it more special when I revived it.

I took it out of my photo album to scan it, so now I have a digital copy. I changed the date of the photo in my photos app so that I can find it by going back to 2004 (years from now, it will be easier to remember approximately the date of the photo than the date I scanned it). If I had my photos in folders on my computer, I would have added it to a 2004 folder to find it again more easily.

When I was trying to find the photo in my photo collection before realizing that it was pre-digital camera, I found another photo from 5 years later when we tried to recreate the moment.

I love connecting these two separate days together to notice how much taller my daughter got and that her love for blue hasn't wavered, even to this day. Unfortunately we didn't recreate it this year, but this is a reminder if we're ever by that fountain, to replicate it to add more meaning to this location and these moments. I love "then & now" moments.

It can feel overwhelming to think of reviving every meaningful moment. I find that I'm more excited about reviving moments when there is added meaning in the present. Reviving moments one at a time makes it a more manageable process.

AGO Exhibition: I Am Here

It’s a song

Nothing’s wrong

Everything is clear

I am here.

(I Am Here by David Wall)*

I'm happy I learned that the exhibition I Am Here: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces was at the AGO, less than a week before it was leaving. I missed the original (and subsequent) announcements.

This exhibition speaks so much to my love of memories and documenting our lives. This is how the AGO presented the exhibition:

The exhibition was divided by theme. I took a photo of each title sign and put them in this collage.
The themes included Our House, We Are Family, Food Glorious Food, Fight The Power, Dance To The Music, My Favourite Things, On The Street Where You Live, Life Is A Highway, Everyday People, and Panorama.

In the middle of the Home and Family areas, was a collection of lost albums that really had me thinking about how photo albums have changed over the years. For almost a century, people have told their life stories with photo albums. How will the next generation tell their life stories?

The exhibition included many home movies including "baby's breakfast" which may be the first home movie ever recorded by Louis Lumière in 1895. This reminded me of seeing another Louis Lumière film of workers leaving a factory at a previous exhibition. 

I Am Here also showed how home movies have changed since its inception with a special focus on protests captured on our smart phones in the past decade. This part of the exhibition was very insightful and thought-provoking.

I was inspired by the "Mixtape Diaries" by Glynnis Grant-Henderson. I create yearly playlists of the songs I love each year. I have often blogged about them, but I loved the journals that Glynnis created. My husband has made over 200 mixtapes (back in the cassette days). It would be amazing to have some thoughts to transport us back to what he was thinking when he made them.

Another exhibit that had me thinking was one of Andy Warhol's 600 memory boxes. It contained 595 objects that the gallery described as falling into the category of the everyday like Christmas cards, newspaper clippings, doodles and tax forms. As fascinating as it was to see a glimpse of an art icon; it's a reminder to me that as much as I love memories and memorabilia; less is more meaningful and I prefer curating my memories.

I love connected moments, so I especially appreciated this graphic showing the timeline from cave paintings to Tik Tok.

The exhibition ended with a collection of vignettes representing themes of "home-movieness". The 26 themes were titled alphabetically and included a song, I Am Here by David Wall that really resonated with me. You can see a few examples of the themes and here I Am Here in this video posted by the AGO. You can also read more about the Panorama compilation by clicking here.

I saw this exhibition at the perfect time, as I am focusing on Revive From Archive and organizing memories like art galleries curate exhibitions.

*Lyrics as I hear them. Apologies if there's a mistake

Revive From Archive

If I end up writing a book, I may call it: Revive connected moments From Archive for a meaningful present. (Revive From Archive for short)

The types of memories that I love are those that connect to others and that become more meaningful because of that connection.

Chronological photo albums are a great resource like a library, but we don't necessarily want to read every book. Chronological albums are like our photo library on our computers or on our phones. The meaningful moments can become lost in the clutter or what I like to call: the archive.

The Archive includes:

• photos - digital and printed
• videos - digital, cassettes and reels
• stories - written or remembered
• mementos

Just like a museum or gallery curates a collection for an exhibition; we can enjoy our memories better when we curate our collection or archive. 

Revive From Archive doesn't mean organizing our whole collection. Maybe you think that you have to organize your whole collection, but it's overwhelming so you procrastinate. Maybe you think that once you're retired or kids grow up that you'll get to it, but chances are that if you haven't done it yet, it will never be high enough priority for it to get done.

Let me offer a mindset shift. Rather than organizing all your photos, revive your most meaningful ones. 

I love going to the art gallery when they have exhibitions where they display pieces of art from various places in the world and connect them in a meaningful way. One of my favourite exhibitions was Impressionism in the Age of Industry at the AGO. They showcased all kinds of art dedicated to the theme of industry from the 1850's to early 1900's.

Although there is a timeline on this exhibition, they still focused on certain themes. They even made a connection between the Eiffel Tower and the CN Tower.

A few questions you can ask yourself include:

• Like a gallery or museum - which memories are part of your permanent collection? 
• Which are brought out for special exhibitions?
• What is front and center - first thing you see in your house? 
• What is the first story you tell when you meet someone and you want to tell them about your life?
• Which are private collections just for you? 
• Which are more obscure and kept on a top floor...for your biggest fans?

I hope to inspire you to revive some of your photos and memories and not let them be forgotten in the archive.

Lullabies & Legacies

I received an email in the spring from Massey Hall & Roy Thomson Hall that caught my attention. The subject line was "Help share a lifetime of memories. Donate to the Lullaby Project today".

The word memories always catches my attention. I had missed a few earlier emails that described it: "The Lullaby Project pairs expectant parents with artists to write, record, and perform a personal lullaby – a bond and connection to last a lifetime."

I couldn't resist donating to the campaign since music is a large part of my life and my memories. I loved the idea of composing a lullaby and wish I had when I was expecting. Interestingly, the first songs I composed were 11 months prior to the birth of my fist child, but they weren't melodies that I would sing or hum to my kids. They would have heard me play them on the piano though.

I remember singing Yellow by Coldplay to my daughter. 

🎵Look at the stars; look how they shine for you

And everything you do Yeah, they were all yellow

I came along I wrote a song for you

And all the things you do And it was called Yellow🎵

It's memorable because I had a friend over who liked that I wasn't singing typical "baby" songs but songs I loved. And my daughter liked it so why sing songs I don't like to her?  It's funny looking back that my daughter's favourite colour was yellow for a while and it still is one of her favourites. Coincidence?

I love lyrics and have often used lyrics to introduce my blog posts. Since I donated to the Lullaby Project, I received Supporter Newsletters. A few weeks ago, the newsletter highlighted the Lyrics & Legacies Project. This project pairs songwriters with seniors in a long term care home for them to write their life story in a song. I had goosebumps and happy tears reading about this project and listening to the songs they composed. You can hear them by clicking here. The lullabies can be heard here.

I donated to this project without hesitation. During the summer, I was participating in a Passion & Purpose Summer Series hosted by Brenda Jasmin where we were reading the book Passion To Purpose by Amy McLaren. I donated to Lyrics & Legacies after the 4th week of our 7 week series. The following week on our zoom call with the theme "Make an Impact", I told the group about this project and how it excited me. With two weeks to go before our last zoom call that would have the theme of Legacy & Vision, I decided to write a song to share with the group. 

I will write more about Passion To Purpose in another post but for now, I will just say that finding what moves us makes our lives more meaningful. Happy tears are a sign that I have found something that is meaningful to me. In her book, Amy believes that channeling our gifts and our giving (whether donating time or money) with causes we're passionate about will have a bigger impact.

It has me wondering about how I make donations. I like that I have automatic monthly donations set up so that my giving is more proactive, but I'm not passionate about many of the causes that I donate to. I believe they are important issues but they're not what I'm passionate about.

What if rather than having given my "regular" amount to the Lullabies & Legacies projects, I had given a more meaningful contribution?  Sometimes, we can have a bigger impact and involvement when we give more. Reading Passion To Purpose has me re-evaluating my donations.

Music and memories move me in so many ways and finding projects to support that include both made my heart sing.