impressions of yesterday
by Elouise
impressions of yesterday
captured by accident
a remarkable mistake
turned into a keepsake
hopes and dreams
yet to be realized
outer signs of internal graces
made strong through
the tempering heat
of life lived wide awake
in person and together
the beauty of two souls
bound together in one image
The photo was taken by a friend. We were at Tybee Island Beach near Savannah, Georgia. D had just taken the photo of me with the old roller rink in the background. He forgot to advance the film before our friend took a photo of us together. So we ended up with this dream-like double exposure.
The day was momentous. This was only minutes before D proposed to me as we walked down the beach. If it had been today, I might have proposed to him many months earlier. But that was then—August 1963, weeks before D left for the West Coast, and a year before I graduated from college. I was almost 20 years old.
Don’t miss the prices on the side of the pavilion. You can have a good laugh at how ‘cheap’ things were back then. The pavilion, with its roller rink, is long gone—doomed because of building code upgrades. A good thing, yet looking at this double exposure makes me long a bit for the good old days.
Impressions only? I don’t think so. Memories are dear, and now make up the majority of my lived world. They also capture reality—along with a healthy dose of nostalgia.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 May 2017
Double exposure taken by DAF and a friend, Aug 1963
Response to Daily Prompt: Impression
A lovely mixed image – I had – I may still have – something similar, very evocative of a time and place. You look very happy and beautiful. 😀 xxx
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😊💕💜
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I love this/these photo(s)! I found it hard to believe that you were 20 years old in them (except for D’s presence)! Sometimes it is sweet to revisit ourselves/our lives through photos, because the pictures can remind us not only of a moment, but of a story as it was unfolding…thank you, Elouise!
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You’re welcome, Debbie! 💜
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What a beautiful piece.
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Thank you so much, Herminia.
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a happy accidental image, I did that once too, but it was a friend whose head turned out to be ‘in the oven” in the next clip…it was bizarre and funny at the same time, yet not as sweet as this memory keepsake you’ve got here. Blessed gifts.
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Head in the oven was yet to come….:) And yes, I understand bizarre and funny at the same time! Also a keepsake photo, I’m sure! 🙂
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I’m not sure how it happened, roll got jammed and we pulled it out expecting to lose all the photos, did it in a very dark closet and put it back in…hunting pics from deer season, hence the guy, and a kitchen shot….not especially looking to take one of the oven….I don’t have it anymore, it was the exs friend, so I gave those ones to him😊
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Awww….too bad! It sounds like a winner, too! 🙂
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I LOVE it! It was no “accident’, this image! Thanks so much for sharing, Elouise! I have been, I guess I’d say, sort of ‘sensing’ eternal life recently…like when I read the OT, I find myself really loving the people in the stories as my ancestors, part of my/our Story in Christ..and, connected to that, the young people in the photo (you and D) were with us, are still with us, part of your/our family line, somehow eternally…so not gone or lost in a certain very real way. Such a quietly glorious mystery…
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Yes! Definitely a “quietly glorious mystery….” Thanks, Nancy, for this comment. It rings so true.
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What a wonderful picture to have, that really is something I’d treasure if it were mine,
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Thanks, Brian. It is, indeed, a treasure–even though it caused a bit of consternation back then. Even so, I’ve always loved it!
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and why wouldn’t you?
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