Windows to a Memory

I’ve been messing around with my Burma pictures lately for a few reasons. Besides revising my slideshow powerpoints for new presentations, I also decided to decorate the living room in my new apartment to represent my travels, I hung a smorgasbord of pictures of the Burmese landscape. (I hope to soon hang my Burmese lanterns as well=) Lastly, I recently spent a large sum of money allotted for my physics lab at the new high school where I am teaching. While some claim I may not have had much funding to work with, I couldn’t help but think as I my wish list became longer and longer of those students on the other side of the world and the teacher in Thar Pan Gyi who managed to teach with what little she had. Perhaps the scene that remains most imprinted on my heart from that trip was this one- the faces of the children and the small basket of school supplies which was all resources the school had for its students. I plan to keep this picture on my desk at school, where I will be reminded to constantly give thanks for all the blessings we have.

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, how many words are still missing? I look at the pictures on my wall and somehow I realize their limit, the small message they convey. A picture can tell so much, but in merely looking at it, who can know the surrounding, the circumstance in which it was taken, the sights, the sounds, and the meaning behind its subject? I look at one of a sunrise in Thar Pan Gyi, and although it only shows the rays of sun emanating from behind a small hut, I remember the smell of breakfast, the sounds of roosters crowing and of the village awakening. For one of an Inle Lake sunset, I remember the motion of the boat, the spray from the water, the wind in our faces and our hair. Pictures may not be able to convey everything, but to those who were there, they are windows-instead of looking out, we look inside, and remember. To those who were not, they are a window to a message, glimpses of an experience, shared in an image.