Memories

One of the perks of slaving away trying to save and organize old photos is the memories it brings back! 

My days have been quite full recently with working my way through old photo albums, removing the photos, labeling them and organizing them into boxes that take up much less space. The process has been slow..but then that is partly because I am constantly being drawn down memory lane, and often to my bookshelf of journals to relive the adventures behind those photos! 

With so many winters spent in Arizona, there are a lot of memories to be relived! Many of those involve the adult learning classes I took at the local college with my AZ friends Lois and Audrey. I had forgotten a lot of the fun things we did there and on our own too... art classes, travel lectures, book club, author talks, and field trips, lots of field trips!..to the police drug-dog training facility in Casa Grande, to science and art museums, cultural events, Hoop Dance Championships at the Heard Museum, quilt shows, the Chihuli glass exhibit at the desert museum.. I list goes on.  I had not thought of those fun days for a long time and as a result I got sidetracked a lot from the task at hand!

One outing I came across in this latest album I have been working on was a visit with Pedro E. Guerrero, Frank Lloyd Wright's photographer at his home in Florence.  What a treat that was. We had been, of course, to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's beloved home and desert laboratory in Scottsdale, so this was the perfect follow-up. And what a charming gentleman was Pedro...and what a lovely home. 

Sometimes I forget just how fortunate I have been to have had all these wonderful experiences and travel adventures and every so often, I need a reminder. At times I have been asked, "Why all these photos and journals? Why preserve them..for whom? All this work for what? Will anyone want them after you are gone?"  I guess the answer is that it is not for someone else, it is for me. It is because they  remind me of what a good life I have had...and often just when I need to be reminded!