Thursday, July 26, 2012

Pleasure was a confirmation

I was traveling with the children the last few days, driving the car for about 1440 km, and taking 1872 photographs on the way. The weather varied a lot, one minute we had sunshine and the next it was raining heavily.

I had a deal with the children that they wouldn't ask the question "Are we there yet?" too many times. The youngest daughter promised that she would ask less than ten times, and I think she hold to the promise.

I don't like driving the car hours and hours. The average speed was well below 80 km/h, because we used smaller roads and there were a lot of roadworks on the way. However, it was nice to travel with the children because they are old enough to invent (non-destructive) things to do in a car, and I had the pleasure to be observing their outlook on the world.

We attended a confirmation event at the church in Orivesi, and visited my sisters family afterwards. We also drove all the way to my father, who hadn't seen the grandchildren for some time.

Here is a first installment of photographs from the trip. I have gone through only half of the photographs so far. I didn't always have much interest in photography, but it is almost a reflex to take photographs, so I got plenty of them.

(Posting title is from the poem Articulation by Rae Armantrout.)

2 comments:

James Weekes said...

These little family rituals are the glue of our lives. Dull at the moment but eternal. Your children will remember.

Juha Haataja said...

@James: Indeed, and the photographs will help also... they are memories. I think some of my earliest memories come from photographs, by looking at them I am able to remember things from childhood, they are a key.

What was good is that we didn't have much hurry, except in the beginning when we had to get to the church on time. Later, we could suit the schedule to our interests, and even though sitting in a car for five hours each day is not a treat, it wasn't too painful either, I didn't get back or neck pain as has happened sometimes.