Preserving the previous
Emily Lanter
Hillsboro Excessive College
I am 9 years outdated, standing simply behind a velvet rope, and I am staring up on the skeleton of a dinosaur that’s inconceivably outdated.
I am 11, unable to tear my eyes away from the mushy colours in a gilded-framed panorama.
I am 14, the farthest away from house I’ve ever been, and I am one pane of glass from the prop of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber (and severed hand!).
Museums fascinate me. They’re collections of the previous which humanity deems significant, worthwhile sufficient to protect. What goes in a museum will probably be remembered.
It is not significantly shocking then that when sophomore 12 months rolled round, I volunteered to be the band and choir historian. My cellphone’s digital camera roll is full of images of our musicals, concert events and parades. The very best of these images make it into the slideshow that performs at our yearly banquet. Surrounded by far too many sorts of potato-based dishes and cookies, the music program says farewell to the seniors. Generally dad and mom cry. For me, it is bittersweet: Although the 12 months is over, I am content material understanding that I’ve performed its reminiscence justice. I’m making my private file of the previous, my very own museum. And I’ll grasp the band and choir slideshow proudly on its partitions, as a result of the power to mirror on fond reminiscences is a treasure.
Equally, I am a historian of my private life. The scrapbook I’ve made has a black, pretend leather-based cowl, and the letters caught to the entrance spell out “Emily’s Junior Yr,” although they’re starting to peel off. I theorize that I began it in a unconscious effort to grow to be extra like my grandma and her seemingly infinite picture albums, however consciously, it is one other try of mine to protect the previous. I’ve acquired a web page for the festivals I went to that summer season, the place the evening images are lit by carnival neon, and a web page devoted to the time my cousins and I went to a captivating nation pumpkin patch. Our chosen pumpkins have lengthy since rotted away, however the pleasure of that day stays captured between the covers of my scrapbook.
My efforts to avoid wasting my very own previous are motivated by a need to have some tangible illustration of my reminiscences, to protect them past the grasp of time. If I do not preserve a file of my previous, who will keep in mind it for me? In saving the reminiscences I’ve, I can acknowledge the that means that they maintain and the way they’ve formed me. Although my pictures and scrapbooking would not fairly belong within the Smithsonian, they share a typical objective: Preserving the previous is critical to make sure that it is not forgotten, however as a substitute held expensive.
