Moving On

When we were kids, an infrequent but favorite activity was watching family movies together. Dad was both filmmaker and projectionist in the Devitt family. He'd set up the projector in the recreation room and after dark, often on a summer night, we'd all grab a chair or a place on the floor in front of the screen and watch the movies of our lives. We'd laugh at brothers in bow ties and matching plaid jackets and sisters in crinoline dresses, Easter bonnets and gloves. Sometimes an old neighbor or a younger version of my parents' friends or our great aunts and uncles would work their way onto the screen and a chorus of voices would rush to identify the mystery person.

I thought about these days yesterday when I tossed out a box of the photo slides Katz and I used to archive our early life together. There were slides of our wedding faded (and not very clear), of my dog Jody, of Katz with lots of facial hair and me wearing a fall (the 1970s version of extensions), of old friends who are no longer in our lives, and younger versions of my brothers and sisters.

It often takes a crisis to light a fire under most of us when it comes to checking off those projects we put on our mental "I Need to Do This Before It's Too Late" lists. You know, things like writing or updating a will, getting those Medical Power of Attorney documents witnessed and distributed, or signing up for an off-site, online backup for your my-life-as-I-know-it-will-end-if-I-lose-these computer files. I had just such a crisis when the floods came and a single box of slides got wet.

So, after two-plus weeks of schlepping a combination of the utilitarian, junk, memories, documents, and equipment out of the damp down under, then cleaning, drying, tossing, and organizing the basement of our lives,I finally had time to look at the wet box of slides. They were from our Partners in Crime days, a period of seven years that Katz and I consider to be one of the high points of our life. Part business and all pleasure, the mystery weekends we created at local resorts and on two Caribbean cruises came at a time when we were starting our family and stretching our creativity. The business helped me start my writing career, gave Katz a fresh audience nine times a year, made us a little money, and established friendships that have lasted upwards of 20-some years. When I found the slides weren't damaged, I trucked them over to the local Walgreens for a consult. Two days later, they were on a CD, preserved (hopefully) forever.

Over the years, we've shown the slides on a couple of occasions to the PIC group with the same results as family move night. The soundtrack is always voices shouting out, recalling specifics of a night or a group or a resort or a script or a performance, a cacophony of memories. As I tossed out the original slides, I knew I would never have to worry about losing them again, which made me happy. But I suddenly realized that the joy of sitting around a movie screen in a darkened room, sharing memories with people I love to the click click click sound of slides dropping in front of the light, will also never happen again. Like family movie night, those days are gone. And that's a little sad.