Wall of Happy Memories
Another thought from Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan intersected with how I’ve been using Instagram. With the exception of a few family members, I only follow tourism sites, such as Visit Wales, Visit Scotland, and Tourisme Bretagne. It means my feed is filled with pictures of the ocean because all of the areas I love are connected to water. Even when I can’t be at the ocean, I can be at the ocean.
In the book, one of the characters—Edith—takes a picture before she eats anything while they’re out. She says on page 120:
Another day we got croissants and she said something in Cantonese, then translated—”Camera eats first”—as I made to pick mine up. That made me smile. I liked when she was unapologetically earnest about things, even if it was the angle of a pastry. She said Instagram made her look at everything more closely. Whenever she felt sad, she had a wall of happy memories to look back on.
Instagram with its water pictures is my wall of happy memories right now, even if they’re not my memories. I’m looking at other people’s pictures of places I’ve been and places I haven’t gone yet. It makes me happy to see so much water and the occasional rock stack or two.
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I’ve been living vicariously through friends’ Instagram photos for ages: so many of my friends have the time and money to go places I’ve never been, and may never go (including Greece, Italy, Australia, Fiji, you name it). I am actually missing seeing all of these vacation photos, as most of my friends have been forced to cancel their travel plans this summer.
I’m a member of the View From My Window FB group, so every day, I get new pictures of people’s views from around the world. It’s delightful.
Shall I send you a picture of me?
🤣
I’ve been reliving memories through my own Instagram page recently (my travellingmali page, not nokiddinginnz!), as I have been going through my photos of my trip to Japan last year. A wall of memories. Though just this week I put up a water photo of a view from a local hill of the Tasman Sea (the sea between NZ and Australia) and an island in the distance. You might like that one!
I follow mainly friends and photographers. There are a couple of European photographers who take the most divine pics of local forests, in all weathers. They are the photographers I want to be. And their photos – once I get over the envy – always make me feel peaceful.
I have a friend (in Malaysia) who posts endless photos of food. Food and travelling are her life – and when she travels she takes photos of food. For her, a wall of happy memories indeed.