For The Love of Home Movies
I've been absent from the blog for a while, taking care of life, but I've really been missing it. I figured that the best way to end the slump would be with a subject close to my heart.
Like most people, I can pinpoint a few defining moments in my life that helped make me who I am. Sometimes it's even amazing to think that huge parts of my character can, in fact, be mostly attributed to one particular thing.
One such moment occurred when I was five years old. I'm pretty sure I was five because I remember spending my kindergarten year obsessed with it. I was sitting in the living room, most likely with Tracy, and my mom was doing...whatever mothers of two small children do. I couldn't have cared less. I was five. Anyway, my mom was messing around above the washer and dryer (which were in the hallway of our small townhouse) and I heard her exclaim that she had found something. All of a sudden, I was a little more curious about what my mother was doing. Rather than answer my questions, she simply put a tape in our behemoth VCR and pressed play. Immediately I was met with the vision of my father with a limp perm talking to me
"Today is Saturday, July the 14th, 1979. You may wonder why I'm sitting here like this with my hair wet. Well, the fact is, I have just taken a shower. Now you may ask yourself, 'Why has he taken a shower?' Well, aside from the fact that I was dirty, there's a very good chance I may be going somewhere today, and that's what this video tape is all about."
Now, I may have only been five, but I knew the significance of that date. It was the day before I was born. The shot on the TV screen immediately changed to that of my vastly pregnant mother. This was amazing to me. This tape had only been lost for about two years, but at my age, that was a really long time - nearly half of my life! I never even knew this tape existed. You see, my parents didn't have a video camera. They had borrowed one that belonged to a friend to capture my first milestones, which I'd never heard about. To say I was enchanted was an understatement. Events I had only witnessed in pictures were now coming to life before my eyes. As I watched, I witnessed my coming home. I got to see my self as a wiggly little newborn, I got to see my cousins as toddlers, and eventually got to witness my first two birthday parties. It's the sort of thing that seems so blasé these days, but being able to witness yourself in your first few days of life, or being able to hear your tiny voice as you were first learning how to speak, was an unreal experience. Even though home movies had been around for a little while, they were the old 8mm film with no sound. In fact, it's pretty safe to say that I was part of the first generation of videoed babies.
We didn't have access to a video camera again until 1989. My grandmother saw one on clearance at Best Products and thought it would be nice to have around for family functions. Of course, she didn't know how to use it, so she made my dad the camcorder steward. The deal was, we could use it as much as we wanted as long as we had it at her house when she wanted it. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to create more home videos that we could enjoy later. I even buried some in the backyard so we could experience the excitement of rediscovering them. (Just kidding about that last part.)
After I got married and moved out, my first birthday present from my husband was a camcorder. He jokes that he spent more on that camera than he did on my engagement ring because he knew which one was more important to me. I won't go so far as to say that I consider having a camcorder essential, but I wanted one as soon as possible. I've learned how much having them has meant.
You buy the camcorder for the important moments in life: Jimmy's band concert, Kimberly's first dance recital... but you'll realize later on that the video moments you cherish the most are the ones that were meaningless at the time. You'll spend 45 minutes taping that concert to find that the most treasured moment is two seconds before you stop it, when you whip the camera around and catch a glimpse of the family sitting there next to you. You'll see Grandma and Grandpa who traveled an hour to get there, maybe a little brother wearing that green t-shirt he insisted on wearing everywhere. It was a moment captured on accident, one too mundane to ever be intentionally recorded, but the one you'll be most thankful to experience again.
You take the camcorder on your family's vacation, hoping to capture the sights to show your friends back home. In the future, you'll find yourself commenting less on the scenery you taped from inside your car as you will the car itself...remembering the things you loved and hated about it, how long you had it, adventures you had from that very seat. The family vacation you took for granted then will become precious when you look back on it, when you can relive, even briefly, the time before your kids moved out and you saw them every day as opposed to a handful of times a year. You'll find yourself delighting in watching the quirks of your kids that at the time you couldn't wait for them to grow out of.
You think you're taping your baby's first birthday so you can remember the way your baby was, and I certainly won't dispute that, but in twenty years you'll find yourself much more appreciative to hear the voices and see the faces of those who are no longer with you, brought back to life for just a moment. I speak from experience on this one. When I left home, my mother entrusted me with that tape, and as tradition I watch it every year on my birthday. What used to just be fun has become almost poignant as more and more people who shared my first birthday in 1980 pass on. When I pop in that tape, it's like getting a chance to celebrate my birthday with all those people again, if only in spirit. It's powerful for me to think that I may have children of my own someday who will be able to watch that with me and see in action relatives that died long before they were ever born.
Now, here I am. My favorite hobby is video editing. I've garnered a sort of reputation in my family as the archivist. I'm getting really good at putting together people's wedding videos, mostly because I balk when I hear people say they aren't having a videographer and say, "Don't worry, I'll bring my camera." I'm sure I owe most, if not all of that, to that day in 1984 when I realized what a powerful medium video could be. Some people see video cameras as an extravagance. Certainly it doesn't rate high when compared to the necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter, etc. And if you're a rather unsentimental person, reliving your past in video isn't going to have as significant an impact on you. I have albums full of two-dimensional photographs, which I also love and cherish,
but it's just not the same as having a moment of time completely captured - the sound, the movement, the voices, the actions that would be otherwise forgotten - like a little time machine in a cassette case or tiny disc.
See, I told Best Buy I should have sold camcorders, but they wouldn't listen.
Like most people, I can pinpoint a few defining moments in my life that helped make me who I am. Sometimes it's even amazing to think that huge parts of my character can, in fact, be mostly attributed to one particular thing.
One such moment occurred when I was five years old. I'm pretty sure I was five because I remember spending my kindergarten year obsessed with it. I was sitting in the living room, most likely with Tracy, and my mom was doing...whatever mothers of two small children do. I couldn't have cared less. I was five. Anyway, my mom was messing around above the washer and dryer (which were in the hallway of our small townhouse) and I heard her exclaim that she had found something. All of a sudden, I was a little more curious about what my mother was doing. Rather than answer my questions, she simply put a tape in our behemoth VCR and pressed play. Immediately I was met with the vision of my father with a limp perm talking to me
"Today is Saturday, July the 14th, 1979. You may wonder why I'm sitting here like this with my hair wet. Well, the fact is, I have just taken a shower. Now you may ask yourself, 'Why has he taken a shower?' Well, aside from the fact that I was dirty, there's a very good chance I may be going somewhere today, and that's what this video tape is all about."
Now, I may have only been five, but I knew the significance of that date. It was the day before I was born. The shot on the TV screen immediately changed to that of my vastly pregnant mother. This was amazing to me. This tape had only been lost for about two years, but at my age, that was a really long time - nearly half of my life! I never even knew this tape existed. You see, my parents didn't have a video camera. They had borrowed one that belonged to a friend to capture my first milestones, which I'd never heard about. To say I was enchanted was an understatement. Events I had only witnessed in pictures were now coming to life before my eyes. As I watched, I witnessed my coming home. I got to see my self as a wiggly little newborn, I got to see my cousins as toddlers, and eventually got to witness my first two birthday parties. It's the sort of thing that seems so blasé these days, but being able to witness yourself in your first few days of life, or being able to hear your tiny voice as you were first learning how to speak, was an unreal experience. Even though home movies had been around for a little while, they were the old 8mm film with no sound. In fact, it's pretty safe to say that I was part of the first generation of videoed babies.
We didn't have access to a video camera again until 1989. My grandmother saw one on clearance at Best Products and thought it would be nice to have around for family functions. Of course, she didn't know how to use it, so she made my dad the camcorder steward. The deal was, we could use it as much as we wanted as long as we had it at her house when she wanted it. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to create more home videos that we could enjoy later. I even buried some in the backyard so we could experience the excitement of rediscovering them. (Just kidding about that last part.)
After I got married and moved out, my first birthday present from my husband was a camcorder. He jokes that he spent more on that camera than he did on my engagement ring because he knew which one was more important to me. I won't go so far as to say that I consider having a camcorder essential, but I wanted one as soon as possible. I've learned how much having them has meant.
You buy the camcorder for the important moments in life: Jimmy's band concert, Kimberly's first dance recital... but you'll realize later on that the video moments you cherish the most are the ones that were meaningless at the time. You'll spend 45 minutes taping that concert to find that the most treasured moment is two seconds before you stop it, when you whip the camera around and catch a glimpse of the family sitting there next to you. You'll see Grandma and Grandpa who traveled an hour to get there, maybe a little brother wearing that green t-shirt he insisted on wearing everywhere. It was a moment captured on accident, one too mundane to ever be intentionally recorded, but the one you'll be most thankful to experience again.
You take the camcorder on your family's vacation, hoping to capture the sights to show your friends back home. In the future, you'll find yourself commenting less on the scenery you taped from inside your car as you will the car itself...remembering the things you loved and hated about it, how long you had it, adventures you had from that very seat. The family vacation you took for granted then will become precious when you look back on it, when you can relive, even briefly, the time before your kids moved out and you saw them every day as opposed to a handful of times a year. You'll find yourself delighting in watching the quirks of your kids that at the time you couldn't wait for them to grow out of.
You think you're taping your baby's first birthday so you can remember the way your baby was, and I certainly won't dispute that, but in twenty years you'll find yourself much more appreciative to hear the voices and see the faces of those who are no longer with you, brought back to life for just a moment. I speak from experience on this one. When I left home, my mother entrusted me with that tape, and as tradition I watch it every year on my birthday. What used to just be fun has become almost poignant as more and more people who shared my first birthday in 1980 pass on. When I pop in that tape, it's like getting a chance to celebrate my birthday with all those people again, if only in spirit. It's powerful for me to think that I may have children of my own someday who will be able to watch that with me and see in action relatives that died long before they were ever born.
Now, here I am. My favorite hobby is video editing. I've garnered a sort of reputation in my family as the archivist. I'm getting really good at putting together people's wedding videos, mostly because I balk when I hear people say they aren't having a videographer and say, "Don't worry, I'll bring my camera." I'm sure I owe most, if not all of that, to that day in 1984 when I realized what a powerful medium video could be. Some people see video cameras as an extravagance. Certainly it doesn't rate high when compared to the necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter, etc. And if you're a rather unsentimental person, reliving your past in video isn't going to have as significant an impact on you. I have albums full of two-dimensional photographs, which I also love and cherish,
but it's just not the same as having a moment of time completely captured - the sound, the movement, the voices, the actions that would be otherwise forgotten - like a little time machine in a cassette case or tiny disc.
See, I told Best Buy I should have sold camcorders, but they wouldn't listen.
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