THE SCRAPBOOKER

It was in this space that she shared with me her excitement and anticipation for an upcoming ten day scrapbooking extravaganza she would be hosting. The same group of women have been carving out this sacred time from their busy lives once a year for many years now, too many to count. Curious, I asked about the history, the approach, the creative process, the ideation, the comradery, and, well, just how it all happens. She sat upon her lap a scrapbook that is very much a work in progress and explained to me her methodology.

I immediately appreciated the artistry of the pages, the positioning of the various elements – the background, the meticulously cut photographs, the mementos, the complimentary touches – and the stories they told. My friend truly is an artist, applying well her skills and sense of design and blending it with her love of family and her desire, above all else, to create wonderful memories. But what hit me most poignantly as she proudly moved between the pages was that she is not just recording history through these books; she is shaping the events and creating the opportunities for the memories that will be captured. It’s as if she is a movie director at times, storyboarding events and photo ops to fit an artistic vision she alone frames in her imagination. But this is real life! She is creating the history she records in her scrapbooks.

Her actors and extras, of course, are her family members, especially the grandkids. While certainly aware that their photos may end up one day in one of these cherished albums, they may not be aware that there is already a concept for what some of those pages may look like. She doesn’t force it and it definitely is not posed. It is so far beyond the staging of photos. Hers is the joyful realization of doing those things that create lasting memories. While she imagines into the future, she lives in the moment. It is the devotion to having fun, letting kids be kids and celebrating their kid-ness with them. This is one of those qualities about her that makes her so beloved, and not just by her family. It doesn’t matter that she may snap a picture or two along the way, or even that she may have thought about some of these photos long before they were taken.

Take the page of feet photos. She never thinks or says “do this so I can get a photo for my book’. No one yet knows there is a page just for feet. She creates the games, the antics, the fun things that enable those feet to be featured and captured on film. Everyone remembers the games, not the photos until they appear one day on her “canvas”. Her vision adds another dimension to family traditions, especially those captured for posterity in her scrapbooks. Year after year, generation after generation. Grandkids see themselves doing the same things their parents did at the same ages and in the same places.

She has an artist’s eye, sees beauty everywhere and actively seeks inspiration for what may become a theme or a design or a prop on some future page. She sees things the rest of us do not, or at least not the way she does. What word would you use to describe someone who sees memories before they even happen then actively creates them? “Scrapbooker” doesn’t come close. All I know is that the world is a more joyous place because she is in it, actively creating memories, especially for those whom she so loves.