Your daily dose of poignance

The granddaughters when they were little

Every day I get these notifications about what I was doing on this date one or five or several years ago. Facebook and OneDrive and Google Photos all want to remind me that time does fly – and that they’re keeping track. They know I can’t resist another unsolicited photo montage to top up my little shot glass of nostalgia.

I don’t mind. Used to be, you’d have to wait until a rare reunion with friends or loved ones before you’d dig out the photo albums. Now the memories arrive unbidden. No special occasion required.

Here are the granddaughters at the beach, or at Disney World, or unsteady on their Christmas skates. Here’s us with the dog we loved, that car we drove, that house wherein so many holidays came and went. Here’s Mom when she could still get around OK. Here are these friends we don’t see much anymore. 

It’s a daily blast from the past – at least the recent past. Probably a good thing these automated memories don’t predate the dawn of the smartphone camera – they only go back 20 years or so. Further than that and the poignance might get a little painful. Too much of the past might weigh on the present. My personal credo is that nostalgia is best imbibed like old whiskey: rarely and in moderation.

I’m starting to think that way about phone photography itself. Old analog photos, even the bad ones, are precious because of their rarity. Newer digital photos, even the best ones, quickly dissolve in the onrushing river of cloud storage and social media. There are just too damned many. When every moment can be effortlessly recorded and shared, and later resurrected by algorithm, none tend to stand out. After a while the montages become mundane. 

Still, they’re better than the rest of the stuff that hits my inbox: mostly spam based on recent searches like “best walking shoes” and “DIY planter boxes” and the various signs of various cancers. 

And who knows? Maybe, in the fullness of time, these daily robo-remembrances will provide some beneficial effect –something to do with self-awareness and living in the moment.  What do you think?