The Dirt Track

27/04/13

This was drawn from a picture I looked at in detail during a seminar.

I flicked through the photo album, hoping to gather some sense of my parents. They’d been so dedicated to raising me, yet I knew little of their lives before me. They never discussed their childhoods or adolescence, never indulged in stories of their youth. I had not pushed them to enlighten me, I was more concerned with my own life I guess. The album I had found whilst searching through the loft in their house – it was mine now, my inheritance, something I shouldn’t have received this young. They had always kept photos of me in albums, documenting their proudest achievement, but it surprised me to find one full of their memories. It wasn’t exactly hidden, just boxed separately from the other albums and covered in a layer of thick dust, which had clumped together in places. They clearly had never looked through it, which was strange considering the photographs had meant enough to save and preserve in an album.

The images were nothing unusual or extraordinary: a family birthday, a dog walk, school year photos, Valentine’s day, Christmas – the usual couple keepsakes. Rolling my eyes at the baby in the bath snapshot, I flicked to the next page. As I did, a photograph fluttered out and landed by my feet. Reaching down, I picked it up, tentatively grasping the edges – Mum hated fingerprints.

I was immediately drawn into the picture. It was mainly black, like the camera lens cap had been on when it was taken. But in the centre was a triangle of white, illuminating some of the mystery picture. The effect of this distant area was reminiscent of a black hole, drawing me further and further into the picture’s depths, wanting me to discover a secret that lay within. In the centre of the photo was a dirt track stretching into the horizon. On both sides, maize plants towered high blocking any view and any light from the path. The camera operator had stood in the track – possibly at its beginning, but the track seemed so desperately endless in both directions this could have been taken from any point on the dusty trail. I got a real sense of journey from the photo, like this was a pivotal moment of discovery on a massive quest. It seemed for once my parents had lived and had some sort of adventure before they’d had kids and settled. I liked to think they’d led full lives.

The scene was almost apocalyptic, like the answers or salvation lay in the light, the eye of the storm. I felt a real pull to the white triangle, a sense of destiny drawing me to its questionable source. Although I got an ominous feeling that no matter how long you walked for, you could never reach the light. I turned the photograph over, hoping for some written clue to date and set this picture. In the top left corner scrawled in tiny writing were the words, ‘And that’s how far I got’ and the date of my parents’ deaths.