Snapshots

In the observation car, ringed by picture windows, an Indian couple sits leaning forward like they're ready devour the mountainsides.  The woman, in an orange sari that brings a bit of color to the train's blue and white retro aesthetic, holds a video camera at chest level.  Every now and again they look down to make sure the camera is pointed in generally the right direction, and then they stare forward again, back out of the windows, camera rolling and entirely disregarded.

I think about the sunset I saw while heading west on the Empire Builder.  Swirling clouds, the roiling pinks and yellows, the reflection in a perfectly smooth pool - you know the type.  I whipped out a camera and snapped one shot, two, three, messing with the settings to try to get one striking one - and then I turned the camera off and set my forehead against the window.  The photos never turn out well with the glass in the way.

Who knows why we take these pictures?  To prove we were here, to make our friends and family jealous, to remind ourselves later?  We record these visions like its an obligation, something to get out of the way before we get back to the real work of staring. And staring.  And staring.

We won't print these pictures out and put them on our wall.  We won't turn to them in times of trouble or nostalgia.  We'll pack them away, and barely ever look at them again.  The photos are like stones we drop to mark our way - someday in the future, if we need to retrace our steps, these small and otherwise worthless artifacts will be there to show the path we followed.  For now we take snapshots, Hansel with a digital camera - snap, snap, snap, here's where we went - but keep our eyes, restless, on the tracks before us.