freeze frame.

“It's surprising how much of memory is built around things unnoticed at the time”
- Barbara Kingsolver

“Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.”
- Albert Einstein

For five seasons that began in the spring of 1989, Scott Bakula starred in the smart, influential, sci-fi-dramedy Quantum Leap as time traveler Sam Beckett, who bounced through time following an accident during testing at an experimental test site. Each episode found him leaping into the body and into the life of someone else, consistently losing elements of his own memory - a phenomenon referred to as Swiss cheesed in the show.

I get it now. I once had an amazingly detailed memory full of tons of family history, complete with correlating dates for even the most innocuous things, streams of random facts, an endless recognition of actors and actresses at the ready to kick ass at the Kevin Bacon game, and a perfect recall of life events and birthdays.

Christmastime is around the corner. For as long as I can recall this is the time that production companies re-edit, re-package, and re-align band and artists' old material into shiny packages. Without my conscious effort, my brain has been doing similar things with my past. It seems to prefer the Elvis Costello bent of filling itself with B-sides, outtakes, and other randomness. In the stir I find the strangest memories floating to the surface. These are insubstantial lost moments that now have resonance.

In amongst the small amount of bits and bauble I have lugged into my current life is an undeveloped roll of film dating back at least six years, on the inside. For a moment I think it might have been something that may have been way down a to-do list.

Image is an interesting thing, and one that has fascinated me since I was young. Life hits the retina upside down. In time we adapt to seeing it right side up.