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Illustration by Drew Shannon
How did this happen? I have 2,500 photos saved on my phone.
I am one of those annoying people who uploads, sorts and files photos. But in the past two years I fell off the habit. I look up “how to get my photos under control.” The first step? Go through them on your phone, before you think of uploading – say, while you’re waiting in line or in a virtual meeting – and erase all the ones you don’t actually want. Good advice.
What I wasn’t prepared for was how those photos would hold the story of “my” pandemic.
Based on the first photo’s date stamp, I got my new phone early in April of 2020. The picture shows a colourful heap of rocks painted with smiley faces. Oh yes, I remember. So many people walked by (locked out of gyms and looking to get out of the house) that it became popular to decorate your yard or windows for passersby. Remember that? Well, I didn’t, until I saw this photo. Ditto one of the cowbell I rang every night at 7:30 p.m., to let health care workers know I support them. What happened to that trend? Did our wrists get tired?
Here are screenshots of recipes upon recipes, some for things you can make with limited ingredients such as dinner rolls that don’t require yeast. There is also a series I’ll call “pandemic hair-dos.” Enough said. Many more images of near-identical date-night walks with my husband down to the river where apparently I thought it was cool to take countless near-identical photos of a solitary, stock-still Blue Heron which we named, of course, Mr. Big. He seemed stoical and calm. We could be, too.
Oh, the redecorating. We stripped old carpet and painted our basement to make a home office. I also started to crochet. If you’d told me two years ago that I would take up crocheting I would have said you’d lost it. But a subscription box changed all that and I’ve got complicated granny squares (and photos of them) to show for it.
Flowers and puppies. More flowers and puppies. It seems I grew new varieties of blooms in spring as well as took a photo of every flower I happened to walk by. And friends lucky enough to find pandemic puppies got them. Because who doesn’t love flowers and puppies.
I think in June, 2020, I started to seriously dream about life going back to normal, illustrated by photos of clothes I saw in magazines which I intended to buy and never did (and never will). Life looks better here too: outdoor get-togethers, campfires. Sadly, there is then a series of photos of children I hadn’t seen in – what? A year and a half? Because, instead of Thanksgiving, we got photos.
I scroll past several screenshots of new pandemic restrictions. One features Doug Ford; his masked face brings my heart rate up in a Pavlovian response. What happened to Christmas? Doug Ford replaced Santa.
Snow. More snow. From here I notice a randomness creeping in. Now it’s jewellery I would supposedly reward myself with when this was all over. And a large toad. It must be spring. But why? Oh yes, he got stuck in the window well, washed in by torrential rain, and I had to fish him out. Not feeling overly blessed with imagination, I gave him the same name as the Heron. His face is stoic but insistent, both. Waiting for a rescuer. I feel you, Mr. Big. I feel you.
There is a photo of me in a clinic with a Band-Aid on my arm, then immediately after, several of me on the couch looking pretty sick with my dog draped over my legs, sympathy seeping from his eyes.
Another summer. Beers on a patio. An overdue porch visit to my great aunt. A camping trip. Memories of a friend of a friend who died. A stolen weekend at the beach.
And another of the toad, down that damn window well again.
Fall leaves on a lonely gravel path. Christmas photos of families in matching onesies, saved off Facebook. Books to remember to read in the new year. A jigsaw puzzle in progress. A rapid test: negative. (I got COVID-19 anyway.) New Year’s Eve: Champagne, and halloumi cheese in a frying pan. Was there nothing else to take a photo of? Then we have snow, more snow, and me in a mirror wearing various summer dresses. A girl can dream.
Chairs I mean to refinish (but probably never will). Meditative colouring exercises I completed.
Muffins I baked. Because who doesn’t love muffins. And photos of muffins.
I’m finally there. Five-hundred blurred, duplicate or work-related photos: gone. Ditto screenshots of receipts for things I’ve forgotten buying online. But I kept the rest, mundane as they might be.
When I piled those smiley-face rocks by the sidewalk I had no idea what was coming. But I do remember I envisioned a party when it was all over, a marker of the end. I still want that but if I don’t get it, these photos are like a Boy Scout badge of how I survived. Even while remembering those who didn’t and others who survived so much more, I want this record.
The last photo? A bulb in a pot that I started at Christmas, finally getting ready to flower. I swear I didn’t plan this as the end of the album. But I feel you, bulb. I feel you.
J.E. Hewitt lives in Elora, Ont.
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