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| Some of my favorite Polaroids |
It was a Saturday afternoon and I happen to be in Grapevine. I saw a house in the middle of the street hidden to the side with a sign that read estate sale. There were no cars I saw a white truck get close as to stop but just kept driving. I got out of the car and went through the garage door that was opened. I went inside and found people talking. They were a few decades older than me. They were talking about what they were going to do with so much stuff still in the house. Cabinets that had not been opened in years. I saw this glass bookshelf in the kitchen filled with cookbooks. I began to look at things on the floor and drawers that still had things in them. I made my way to a room in the back. The room was a huge bathroom with closets. Strange to find closets in the bathroom. To my left his cloths to my right were hers. I like to find unusual things. He loved wrangler shirts and had boxes filled with memories. Her closet had shirts with flowers. I could see how she was his flower. As I'm wandering inside the house from one room to another, I hear them worried about what they were going to do with so many things still in the house. One suggested getting some college kids to help and pay them with money and pizza. When I go to an estate sale, I always leave something behind that I regret not getting. I told myself that I was not going to do that anymore. I had been looking for a cheese grader I know silly right. To my surprise I found one hiding in a top shelf. I've been wanting one to put my earrings on. I'm going to paint this forgotten kitchen ware to place my earrings. He gave it to me for free. As I was leaving, I asked if I could buy a box of photos I had come across. When I went into his closet there were boxes of memories, papers, notes, and photographs. Something that I do in my own home. He asked if I could show him what I was talking about. He followed me and I opened the shoe box and grabbed a box of polaroid film. He gave it to me. I said, "are you sure"? He said he had no use for them, and they would probably end up in the trash. I was a little sad but really excited that he was giving them to me. I like collecting photographs. People I do not know, I try to make out their story in the photos. My parents did not have the money to capture our photos when we were little. I grew a passion for photography. People do not print them as much anymore. I still print mine. Of course, I do not print every single one but at the end of each year I save my most favorite ones and get them printed. I know one day I'll get older, and I'll want to sit and look at them. I liked taking pictures and not knowing what they were until I got them developed. Now in my possession I own a box of twenty-six polaroid film photos of strangers I've never met. As I'm looking through them, I start recognizing the things I happen to see from that day I stepped foot in that house. I remember the fireplace, the couch, the end table. Some decades later the photos I'm looking at are people in the same living room opening their Christmas presents. On Christmas day 2021 I would be in my living room looking at their photos. They never would have known a person like me would be in their living room. It is just a story but not just any story It is my version of a Christmas story.
Merry Christmas, Gabriela
