My Scrapbook

It was about three or four years ago on a Thanksgiving night when I found myself sitting on a 50 year old baby blue couch in Grandma’s living room. Finally being alone, I nonchalantly stretched out my gut and started picking at turkey scraps stuck between my teeth. I decided to rest my eyes for a while from an exciting and long day of Macy’s Day Parade watching, relative/friend visiting, and 40 degree weather backyard football. I let out a loud groan then lay down to sleep off some of the tryptophan. After about a half hour I finally arose and sat for a while, zoned-out, staring at the wooden coffee table and its embellishments. There they were: four large scrapbooks of my family’s history; a countless number of Polaroid’s and portraits just sitting there waiting for someone to look at them again.

I loved coming to this room in my grandma’s house; I loved staring at these pictures over and over again for hours on end, thinking about what it would’ve been like to stand at the Grand-Canyon forty years ago with my aunts and uncles beside me and at the same age I am- I wonder was life was like back then. I wonder what it would’ve been like, saying goodbye to my Grandfather as he caught a train to be sent off to basic before being sent off to France. I wonder what it would’ve been like to stand next to my mom and dad as they huddled around their first and newborn son- my oldest brother- 26 years ago. These thoughts may seem odd but they’re what get me going; they are the thoughts that make me think about what my family scrapbook is going to look like 60, 70, 80 years from now when my grandson walks in to my living room to better understand his heritage.

Late that night, after all the goodbyes and after the last of the Apple Crusty was gone, I headed home. I couldn’t get it out of my head; I even turned down my music to think clearly about how awesome I wanted my scrapbooks to look. My creative side was bangin’ on all cylinders at this point; I not only wanted scrapbooks with pictures, I wanted photo montages, video montages, journal entries from anyone in my family who has a journal. “It’s gonna be big, it’s gonna be ridiculous” I kept telling myself. I wanted it to consist of thousands of pictures from eighty years ago today, as well as tens of thousands of pictures from today on out, so, starting on this project as soon as possible would be the best idea.

I decided for the first chunk of my project, I wouldn’t be making a scrapbook but rather a scrapbook/photo and video montage/movie clip DVD. I started off easy; my mom had thousands of pictures from the last 20 or so years stuffed in several old shoe boxes under her bed- it was my job to start sorting through them all. I woke up late Friday morning, brewed together a large bowl of corn-pops and got to work. With the radio blastin’ and a stomach now full of Pop’s, I was makin’ progress. I was sortin’ pictures, left and right like no tomorrow to whatever beat of “today’s best music hits” was giving me. After finally sorting through the never ending mound of still frames I took a break and sat back for a while.

“What am I getting myself into,” I’d been building upon my so-thought ingenious ideas for the last 12 hours and hadn’t really stepped back to take in the enormity of Project: Scrapbook until now. When I had finally stepped back to take in the big picture I sighed; it was an incredible idea but seemed almost impossible to finish- or at least in the next year or two that I had planned. I realized I just didn’t have the time. I would have to scan every single one of these pictures on to the computer, crop them, maybe tune them up a little bit and then organize them. Then, I would have to go through all of our home video cassettes, find some way to covert and upload them on to a computer, and chronologically organize, edit, cut, and paste everything in the way I wanted it to be. Next I would have to search for certain clips from good, inspirational and loving movies that would fit well with the Scrapbook genre, and find a way to legally incorporate them throughout my show. I figured the last step would be the organizing, the cutting and pasting of photos and videos and movie clips and songs- and then of course the credits. This would by far take the longest amount of time. All of this could only be possible with the use of a computer that was somewhat new (2004 and up), had a lot of space, a lot of memory and had its own video editing software program, none of which I had (at least until recently). I remembered hearing about how long it took my friend to make a 15 minute movie for his history class, he had a month to work on it and he said he worked on it for about 9 hours every weekend until it was due, and he was used to making movies, I wasn’t; I didn’t stand a chance.

I realized I had better think this whole thing over again, but for some reason I couldn’t; I couldn’t bear the thought, the thought of making just another boring old photo montage with a cheesy Five for Fighting song playing in the background, like everyone everywhere has done already. I just couldn’t drop this assignment. I was sick of starting things I couldn’t finish, and this was just too big to not finish. I wanted to finish this, I needed to finish this. I also later realized I wasn’t doing all of this for myself, I wasn’t doing this to impress anybody or for any grade, I was doing all of this for my family, past, future and present; for the people who mattered most in my life. I knew that they’d appreciate this movie so much if I put in as much time as I knew it would take, and more importantly I wanted to show them that I cared about every single one of them (which I admit I’m not the best at showing )- uncle, aunt, cousin, sister, brother- as much as they cared about me.

It’s been 4 years since I’ve started the project and I’m hardly anywhere near done. I can’t say that’ll be done anytime soon either. All I can say is that it hasn’t been completely forgotten about, just as family shouldn’t be forgotten about. Every day I think of something new to add in; another song, another movie clip. I just keep building and building, thinking of ways to make it perfect because in my mind It needs to be perfect. Plus I’m older now, technology is getting easier and easier to use (even for me), and my motivation and commitment to complete this undertaking hasn’t ceased. I’m representing what matter most in my heart by doing this, my own family, not a close group of friends, not the people I work with, my own loving family…