to grandmother's house we go

Elizabeth and Hank Lacy









I love the smell of my grandmother's apartment. It is one of those scents that never changes. Sometimes this scent pops up in very random places and I think, I know exactly what that reminds me of. Its familiar and pleasant and brings back a lot of memories of trips to Florida, of all you can eat pancakes, of cans of giant black olives and Vernor's ginger ale and Chinese meals where my grandfather conversed with the waiters in Chinese. It is such a comfort to sit in this memory-filled apartment and breathe in this scent for a few days before returning to a house that is so new it doesn't have it's own scent yet.

Over the past few days whilst staying at my grandmother's I have been able to learn a lot about all the beautiful pieces of furniture, jewelry, art etc that my grandma has collected over her 91 years. I have flipped through dozens of old photo albums, and envelopes and starred down each and every picture frame on the walls and on tabletops until they were all imprinted on my brain. I have seen my mother in a bikini circa 1978, my uncles sporting what can only be referred to as "major" facial hair, myself around age 1 in giant sunglasses and a hot pink leg cast, and my grandparents galevanting around Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Australia. Its wondrous to see photographs of the times before you were alive. Its exciting to think about what your family was like and what they were experiencing in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's before you were even a blip on their radar. Sometimes I wish I could go experience it all first hand as a figure in the background, but then having the photographs in front of me and hearing my grandmother's account first hand is even better. I know them now, and I know them through those old prints, and from the words of my family and I can just imagine how amazing it all was to live through.

Moments like these make me realize what an incredible gift photography is. It shows its importance in an infinite amount of ways, and I am happy to be a part of something like that. Even if at the end of my run my photographs are only meaningful to my family.