all i want for christmas...

iNsTaNt gRaTiFiCaTiOn. the very first camera i owned was a christmas gift from my parents. it was a polaroid, or more accurately, it was my polaroid. my entire childhood is captured on polaroid film - mostly 600, with a fair share of spectra, and also some 8mm video tapes. this is because my father worked for polaroid. we did not go anywhere, we did not do anything, but either my father or my mother, though usually both, were armed with a polaroid camera and film up the ying yang. as an adult who cringes each time i'm told the total when i purchase polaroid film, i now appreciate how valuable my father's hookup was, but, like so many other things, as a child, i didn't fully understand its value. monetarily or emotionally.

it's funny the things you remember with such unmistakable clarity and, for me, unwrapping that camera on christmas morning is one of them. as i often seemed to do with things, unintentionally getting things backwards or spoiling them somehow, particularly on christmas mornings, i opened the film before the camera, giving the surprise away. regardless, i was thrilled. it was a camera. it was mine. and in that instant i felt accepted, as though i had grown up five years in those past five minutes. it was like being initiated into a club, or graduating into a brand new realm. my relationship with my parents reached a whole new level as i opened that camera. it's gifts like those i have always most cherished receiving. my mom has always had a knack for that, finding that thing that takes me by surprise when i open it and somehow gives me a new sense of who i am or where i'm from. i don't like being asked what i want. i am no good at wish lists. i don't know what i want. i want that thing that i don't know right now, but when i receive it, is going to somehow make me feel a sense of peace or love or security or hope. there is no gadget or shoe or accessory or piece of clothing or anything that i really give a flying f*ck about, i just want something that makes me feel like i am julia lowrie henderson and i have come from somewhere and i am loved somehow and i will go somewhere, no matter how bumpy that path has been or will be.