Looking for the summer
“Remember love how it was the same
We scratched and hurt each other’s growing pains
We were looking for the summer”
This song has been haunting me since forever. It always made me long for something but I had no idea what that something was. I think now the time has come to finally put a name on it: my childhood.
I’m writing this a few days after we celebrated Children’s Day in Romania. Social media was filled with content that reminisced: photos, texts, songs, anything that reminded people of who they once were. Many of them took the day as reason to change the way they see their complicated childhood; they feel empowered at the thought that childhood is something they conquered as they are now well-adjusted adults. Others saw the day as gateway to how good they had it as children; how life just doesn’t hit the same today. I too wanted to post a story with a photo from my childhood. How was I going to caption it? Was I going to add a song that I enjoyed as a kid? Was I going to make a self-deprecating joke about how I was a klutz and my knees were always scratched and bruised? Or was the joke going to be about how genuinely happy I looked, not knowing I was developing trauma at that very moment? By the time I finished thinking about it, it would have been too late to post.
The truth is - until recently - I used to think that my childhood was happy. As people, we tend to do this; reminisce about the positive and deeply shove down the negative. Yeah, my parents split when I was 3, but I got to live with my grandparents; and yes, there was a lot of yelling, but my grandma used to braid my hair every morning before kindergarten. Sure, we didn’t have much, but what we did have was good; and yeah, the house was small and crowded and we didn’t have a bathroom, but we did have a garden. Ahhh, my beloved garden… My grandpa cared for the garden as if it was his child; that thing gave him food, pride, happiness, joy, sometimes frustration and a sore back. The garden was always special to me; it was my playground, my hideaway. I took some of my first portraits in there.
A few years ago I started documenting the garden. I took photos of it every time I had the chance to visit my grandparents. This year’s Easter holiday was no different. The garden was in full bloom and my grandpa was so happy to show it off to me. He looked so proud that I felt like including him too. As I was taking the photos, I kept thinking about how that garden became such a special place to me. It didn’t just magically transform from a food source and a playground to my safe space. No, my grandpa kept it that way. He was the one to carefully work it; he was the one who always did his thing in silence and allowed me to run, shout, sing, talk to my imaginary friends and just be a kid. No interrupting, no judging, no controlling. He made me feel safe in that garden. He was that man. He is that man.
My grandparents aren’t that young anymore. I know what’s to come, I’m not an idiot. I can’t stop the surest thing we have in life: death. Lately, I’ve been feeling protective of my garden. Maybe that’s why I keep photographing it: to freeze it in time just like my lovely memories.
I’ll always be looking for the summer: a child running carefree in the magical garden, playing make-believe, crying, shouting, eating dusty strawberries straight from the ground, and picking up Colorado bugs from the potato plants. But the summer will always live rent free in my heart and in my photos.
*These photos were taken back in April with my Fujifilm GFX50SII paired with the GF 55mm F1.7, edited in LR using the Classic Negative recipe