Recently I have been getting lost in old family photos, like really old. I am a sucker for these things. I don't even care
who's in them sometimes, I just want to see them all. I'd look through a stranger's old family photo album with just as much enthusiasm. But in this case, for these photographs, they are mine. My ancestors.
I sometimes think I can see myself in the faces of my great grandparents.
I cannot BELIEVE the series of events that had to happen for me to exist, from out of this vast history of people crossing paths. They didn't have to meet! But they did meet, and so here I am. I'm at the bottom of a long, long funnel. In just the three or four generations before me--whose faces I can see in photographs--there are a whole host of humans working toward my existence. Three generations ago I am Steiner and Zuercher and Miller and and Brubaker and Newcomer and Nussbaum and Hersh and Falb. Somehow I have all of this distilled in me.
...What even is that, and how do I not take it for granted?
I sometimes think I can see myself in the faces of my great grandparents.
I cannot BELIEVE the series of events that had to happen for me to exist, from out of this vast history of people crossing paths. They didn't have to meet! But they did meet, and so here I am. I'm at the bottom of a long, long funnel. In just the three or four generations before me--whose faces I can see in photographs--there are a whole host of humans working toward my existence. Three generations ago I am Steiner and Zuercher and Miller and and Brubaker and Newcomer and Nussbaum and Hersh and Falb. Somehow I have all of this distilled in me.
...What even is that, and how do I not take it for granted?
You have essentially summed up my love of old photos--particularly family photos. I am so glad I am not alone!
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