I played a game with my children and now with my granddaughters where during an unusual or scary or interesting event we pretend that the event has already taken place.
One of my favorite examples of this is what we now refer to as the Brooklyn Bridge in New Orleans. Brooklyn is my step-granddaughter. We were in New Orleans, in heavy traffic, and she got very sick in the car. We were on a bridge and pulled over onto a very narrow shoulder and Brooklyn preceded to be very sick all over the side of the bridge. As a 6 year old child she was mortified.
Arielle, recognizing Brooklyn's embarrassment, started - "Do you remember the time we were in New Orleans and Brooklyn got sick all over the side of the bridge? We were all really worried about her but she was fine."
"Yeah," chimed in Emily, "she messed up that bridge - it was Brooklyn's bridge."
"After that I felt fine. " concluded Brooklyn with all three girls laughing and the embarrassment of the situation was gone.
The simplicity of this game makes it very powerful. It removes the fear, drama, confusion, embarrassment from a situation. In unique situations, it provides an opportunity to deliberately record an event as it is happening. But most importantly, with children, it gives them an opportunity to identify and express their feelings.
Even when I am on the road by myself and something happens that is making me uncomfortable, I find it comforting to write myself out of the situation - like "remember the time we were on the way to Tennessee and we were in a really bad storm and we thought that we were going to drive right off the side of hill but we didn't and when I finally stopped I got out of the car I kissed the ground."
I offer you this today because I have been looking at old (printed) photos all days. I remember some of amazing, exciting, scary, delicious, touching, surprising... times that are documented by these images and I look forward to making sure that I don't miss any of the "Do you remember the time" moments ahead.
Z
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