Month: October 2014

A few years ago, while looking through old video footage, I found this:

I love this clip of my son Fletcher, shot by Scott. Fletcher is three and a half in this video and he’s just learning to use the phone. I can’t decide what I like best. Is it his hair? Fletch has very thick hair. When he was little, and it was just starting to grow, it would stand up in the back, like this:

Maybe it’s the giggle? As he’s grown older, Fletcher is a lot more solemn and reluctant to express enthusiasm for anything…except Clash of Clans. It’s rare that I hear him laugh, much less giggle. It’s not that he isn’t having fun, he just doesn’t want others to know it.

As I prepare to move from the home that I’ve lived in for the past 10 years (the longest that I’ve ever lived in one place), I’m inspired to create some stories documenting the house. Over the next few weeks, I’m looking through old footage and collecting stories from family members.

A lot has happened in this house, including the birth of my daughter Rosie, in 2006. She is now 8 and a half. I don’t have that much footage of her over the years, but I do have some of her taking bath when she was 8 months old. So, I created a brief digital story/video from it. I want to put it beside a bath story that I created from footage of Rosie’s older brother Fletcher taking a bath when he was 15 months at another important home space, the Farm:

It’s fascinating to put these two stories together and think about my choices as a storyteller. The Fletcher story is much more reverent and nostalgic–both for the farm and for baby Fletcher. While the Rosie story is playful and celebratory (?). Why? I want to think about that question some more.