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How to Store Your Photos or The Incredible Lightness of Being Divorced
I was thrown out of my life in 2007. He wanted the house, he said, so he could raise his new family there. So I left, blubbering something about how I was taking the photo albums. I moved 41 albums to my new place. And when I moved again a couple of years later, I packed up those albums again.
The second round of devatating fires here in Southern California coincided with the realization that I can no longer afford my current house, and I knew it was time to crack open the covers on the record of my seemingly perfect life. We don’t take pictures of the terrible times, do we? — the creeping doubt, desperation, and anger — and I suppose if we did, I’d have happily left those photo albums behind. Luckily, I wasn’t evacuated during the fires, but the sight of the flames from my windows made me wonder how much time I’d need to pack up a hundred pounds of memories.
Marie Kondo says she prefers to store her photos in albums, but I’ll bet she doesn’t have 40 of them. Or 20. Or even 10. Why do we Americans have so much of everything? I think photo albums are cumbersome for sharing in a group. Everyone has to huddle around, crane their necks, and hope the pictures don’t slip out of the pages as you pass the album from person to person. And these books weigh a ton when filled with photos so you need two hands and have to put down your drink. It seems…
