When I was a wee lad, my mother told us not to roughhouse in the front room because we might break the figurines she had purchased for decoration. She had said it before, probably many times, but that didn’t stop my brother and me from throwing pillows around the room with wild abandon.
Eventually we broke one.
I think it was just the fingers that broke off, and Mom glued them back on with superglue. Luckily, it was my brother who actually threw the pillow, although apparently being an active participant in the stupidity was enough to get me in trouble too.
I’m pretty sure the figurine survived. It just had previously detached fingers holding on with superglue.
Which I suppose is one definition of surviving.
I’ve been thinking about fragility lately and how much time we spend pretending things are more permanent than they actually are. Relationships, careers, health, plans, confidence, family routines, the people around us, even our own understanding of who we are.
Of course, we kind of have to pretend they’re permanent. Walking around constantly thinking about everything that could change or disappear would drive us fucking crazy. I have enough things occupying my brain already.
Photography has an interesting relationship with fragility. The whole purpose of taking a photograph is to preserve something that isn’t going to stay exactly the way it is.
A wedding, a child, a horse and its owner, a family, a sunset, a person, even a landscape. I press the shutter because, whether I’m thinking about it at the time or not, the moment is already disappearing.
I’ve spent more than thirty years trying to stop time. At 1/1000th of a second, I’m actually pretty good at it.
Unfortunately, the effect only lasts inside the camera.
The longer I’ve been a photographer, the more I’ve realized how temporary almost everything I photograph really is. The light changes. An expression disappears. Kids grow up. People age. Buildings get torn down. Landscapes change. Animals get older. Relationships change. Eventually there are people we love who aren’t standing in front of the camera anymore.
But the photograph is still there.
That’s a strange thing when you really think about it. The photograph survives because the moment didn’t.
I think we tend to use the word fragile as another word for weak, and I’m not sure that’s right. A wine glass is fragile, but there’s nothing wrong with the wine glass. A printed photograph can be damaged pretty easily, but that doesn’t make the photograph less valuable. If anything, its value is the reason I’m careful with it.
People aren’t much different.
Trust can be damaged. Confidence can get knocked around. A career can disappear because somebody several levels above you decided it was time to reorganize the company again. A life that seems completely settled can change with a phone call.
I’ve experienced enough of those things now to know that the backup plan doesn’t always have a backup plan.
That doesn’t mean I stop making them. Come on. I’m still me.
I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to make things less fragile. Build the stronger system. Have a backup. Fix the weakness. Protect the people I love. Figure out what could go wrong and prepare for it before it does.
I’m probably always going to do that to some extent. It’s how I’m wired.
What I’m starting to understand is that some things can’t be made permanent no matter how much planning I do. People change. Relationships change. Bodies change. Careers change. My boys grew up despite nobody asking my permission. My parents got older. I got older, which frankly seems unnecessary. Moments happen and then they’re gone.
Knowing something is fragile can also make me want to protect it too much. Don’t say something that might cause a problem. Don’t ask the uncomfortable question. Don’t admit something that makes me vulnerable. Don’t rock the boat.
But maybe that’s not what handle with care actually means. It doesn’t mean don’t touch it. It means understand that it matters.
That’s different.
I’m learning some of that with my girlfriend too.
There are times when I catch myself wanting to be careful with what we’re building, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. She matters to me. Our relationship matters to me. Of course I want to protect it.
But protecting something and being afraid of damaging it aren’t quite the same thing.
If I become so careful that I don’t say what I’m feeling, don’t ask the difficult question, or don’t tell her when something is rattling around inside my head, I’m not really protecting anything. I’m just avoiding the possibility of being uncomfortable.
We’ve already had some of those conversations. I’ve written about a few of them here. Sometimes they’re awkward. Sometimes I don’t know exactly how to explain what I’m feeling and have to take another run at it. Sometimes she says something that makes me stop and think for a while.
But we’re learning each other. And I really like that.
We’re not trying to make what we’re building indestructible. I’m not sure that’s even possible. We’re learning how to take care of it, and part of that means trusting each other enough to talk about the things that matter.
I think there’s something kind of beautiful about that. Something doesn’t have to be indestructible to be strong.
I can’t keep every person I love safe. I can’t guarantee a relationship will never have a difficult moment. I can’t make my kids stop getting older. I can’t keep my parents from aging. I can’t make a career permanent, stop my own body from changing, or make a sunset wait five more minutes because I haven’t found the composition I want yet.
And apparently I can’t stop two dumb kids from throwing pillows around their mother’s fragile figurines.
What I can do is pay attention while these things are here.
Maybe that’s why photography has stayed with me for so much of my life. I’ve always thought I was preserving moments, and I suppose I am. But maybe I’ve also been reminding myself to notice them.
I can’t actually stop time. Turns out I’ve just been collecting 1/1000th-of-a-second pieces of it. And maybe that’s enough.
They’re proof that something fragile existed long enough for me to notice it.