dispose after use.

I've just come home from an 8 hour long drive with one of my dearest friends: I felt the weight of my eyelids as we were driving southbound on the starry 5 highway, but they have since perked up at the sight of my laptop. They'll stay open for the chance to write and to share--every key typed, tinkers the drowsiness away.

San Francisco was beautiful yesterday: the sun was bright and the sky was clear--I could have sworn SoCal weather was following me. :) It made SF and Berkeley about 100 times more enjoyable than it would have been, had the usual foggy weather accompanied us; 100 times more enjoyable minus the cost of a dehydrated Nancy, of course. Fail.

As I should have expected, I couldn't find my camera as I was grabbing things on Friday, so I was forced to buy a disposable camera. Yes, you heard me. A DISPOSABLE CAMERA--the ones that use film and have a rotating dial that goes clickety-click. That one. 27 Frames, and you can't even see them until you print them out--oh, how digital technology has spoiled us. Some will be great, some not so great and the rest down-right terrible. Maybe one of them will be picture perfect-if you're lucky. And as I was fiddling with the thing, something in my mind clicked: this is what life is. I held the model of life in my hands.

Life is a disposable camera: you go along, with however many frames allotted to you, and that's it. You pick and choose which memories, images, people, places you want to capture within your number of frames, and it eventually ends. When you run out of frames, you look back in retrospect, not knowing at the time how the memories turned out-not knowing what the outcome would be when you went into it. Then the camera is gone, and all that is left is the pictures: the moments you chose to capture, the decisions you took. You look back and find that some were greater than others, some didn't turn out the way you expected them to, and others that were flawless, unforgettable moments. All captured because you wanted them to be, because you chose carefully which ones to bet your frames on.

After all, we only have so many.

Digital cameras really distort this notion: it gives you the power to unlimited frames, leaving us the option to attempt and seize all opportunities (all that we can hold onto) without really making choices. Because after we hoard all the opportunities, we can go back and pick-and-choose which ones we want based on the outcome.

Thank you, $5.99 Kodak camera--I might have lost six dollars, but I just gained a new perspective.

( P.S. It's quite a selling point, Kodak people. If you decide to market it with your camera-please don't charge me extra--like: face value $5.99+$100 epiphany-about-life-fee.)

But, when I'm out of frames and out of time, put them together for me in a book and judge me based on those: because I chose each one carefully. Dispose of me, but keep the book, and I'll be a happy camper.

And finally, this frame is dedicated to the mini road trip.