visited home today, saw the sea
I went home today and took some pictures of the sea.
I was visiting family and looking through a lot of old family photos with my Grampa, because my Gran died recently. There's something so lovely about old photographs. I wish my film photography was half as good. It really highlights that what's important is taking pictures of people - looking back, there's almost no interest in a photo of a landscape or some lions in a zoo (unless there's a story attached to it) but people, especially a candid photo, immediately add interest and life. My dad, aunts and uncles as children, crowding into frame with their cousins. A picture of my grand-parents on a pedalo. My mother holding a small monkey on the beach and posing for a picture her parents would have paid for. My mum walking me in a town somewhere, me in toddler reins. Me, my gran and my brother standing in my grandparents living room, me holding two Crash Bandicoot playstation games I would have gotten for Christmas and smiling.
I feel deeply inadequate trying to talk to my family, especially at this time. My grampa reminisced about the past and mentioned "no one could understand him" (because of his thick Glaswegian accent - I still have trouble with this now!) I often smile and nod or have to ask him what he means. Talking to my uncle I feel like we're at cross purposes and I have no way to ask him about his feelings. We make small talk. At one point I assume he's talking about the bad weather we've been having "with all this going on" but later realise he was probably talking about the days leading up to my Gran's death. I wish I was better at this, but I have no idea how to be. It's like the interpretation of words and thus the response that comes to other people doesn't come to me, or I take longer to process it. I'm so aware of this that I spend my time inside my own head overthinking instead of with my family, but if I don't overthink I look back later embarrassed by my thoughtlessness.
I listen to my dad on the phone making funeral arrangements with the family. He frequently mis-speaks and has to correct himself - while my Mum chips in in the background, correcting him. This makes me feel better, weirdly because I often do the same thing - use the wrong word or a close enough word or have to re-start my sentence. Maybe it's something we share instead of a flaw.
