Found memories

Coming back from Maui last month, Yumi picked up this memory card off the floor of the plane (she found it under her feet and just assumed it was hers). Several weeks later, upon closer inspection, it turns out we are in possession of somebody else’s vacation memories. We didn’t look through all the shots, just enough to determine whose pictures we’d ended up with. Nice couple. Looks like they had a good time.

I can’t say it wasn’t tempting, though — like coming across somebody else’s diary on the sidewalk. Which nearly did happen to me a year or so ago. I was just finishing my run when I notice a pile of stuff scattered about the base of a utility pole. There, spilling out of several plastic bags (one from the UH bookstore), is the flotsam of someone’s life: notes from Spanish 202, text books, cell phone user manual, handout about when not to make eye contact, case for compact earphones, clothing, CD soundtrack for RENT (empty), and a whole bunch of other things I don’t feel comfortable investigating further.

It was like stumbling upon a crime scene. A disappearance. The remnants of a sibling blowout. A literal throwing away of one’s past life. But no matter the cause, why had it ended up here on public display?

On top of the pile are a couple of matted, high school senior photos that put a face to the story lying before my feet. In one, a brown-skinned, Asian girl (your typical local girl here in Honolulu) is posing with a volleyball in front of a giant cut-out of a star. (This is just the type of school photo that Yumi says is so “American”.) The photo is dedicated “To Mike”, in gold ink. The other photograph shows the same girl on a beach; it’s more of a snapshot but is likewise secured and protected in a matted frame. (This one is made out to Alfie.)

She’s pretty, and I feel somewhat ashamed that I’m standing there, gazing at this smile obviously intended for other eyes. But I can’t just walk away and leave those pictures there on the ground, staring and smiling up at all passers-by. So I take them home. Exactly why, I don’t know. I’m not about to cart all that stuff off (though I’d feel better covering it up), but there’s an indignity to having all these personal items strewn about — especially when the circumstances of their origin are unknown to me. By removing the likeness of this girl I feel as though I am, in some small way, protecting her.

This reminds me of another picture I found not long after coming to Hawaii, when I was living on Kaiulani Ave. in Waikiki. I came across this picture of two girls one day and was compelled to pick it up off the ground. It had already been stepped on several times but wasn’t damaged too badly. In the photo, two girls — maybe 4 and 6? — stand together for a photo outside an apartment building. They don’t look like sisters, but the way the older one has her arm wrapped around the younger girl suggests a closeness. They squint into the sun, don’t appear to be in a cooperative mood, but each has colorful new hair wraps streaming down alongside and offset from her black hair, which I take to be the reason for the photo in the first place.

Call me weird, but I like looking at photos of people I don’t know, trying to figure out who they are and what their story is. Get me at a garage sale with a box of loose photographs and it may be some time before you pull me away.