The Best Days I Have No Pictures Of
There was a line of evergreens between our house and the neighbors’. One of them had an opening in the branches big enough for a kid seven or younger to disappear into.
When we stepped beneath the trees, it was a restaurant some days. A military fort on others. Once in a while, the passage to Narnia.
Nobody knew which one it was going to be until we got there. None of it was manufactured for an audience.
There’s minimal proof of this magical dimension. If there are any pictures of it, they’re buried in a box somewhere, not circling the internet for anyone to find. All we have are the memories of it and the feeling it gave us.
We had no idea what a camera was even for yet, not in the way we do now. Whether it looked good, whether anyone else would think it was cool, none of that crossed our minds. We were each other’s audience, and the only one that mattered.
There was no other option back then. Now there’s times where you re-stage the laugh because the first one didn’t look right on camera, or you wait to eat until the photo’s taken (guilty), or you do the whole thing twice, once for you and once for the version of it you’ll post. There’s an audience on the other side of a screen for anyone who wants one. We started tailoring our activities, hobbies, and joys for that audience instead of for ourselves.
I find myself soul searching for the moments that have brought me raw, unfiltered joy. That started way back before I could even spell my name.
circa 2002
Dad built a treehouse over several weeks, working on it after we were sent to bed or while we were at school, so none of us actually saw it being built. There weren’t any permits or plans taped to the fridge. No one filming the reveal. For a kid, it seemed that one day it was suddenly finished, like it had been growing alongside the trees the whole time. As far as we were concerned, it was the best treehouse to ever exist.
The backyard turned into whatever we wanted it to be. An obstacle course that ran through every part of it, the slide, crawling through the small spaces, and the finish line was a 40-yard sprint to the hose. The relays somehow always ended in a tie because nobody wanted to be the one who lost. If we did lose, we’d throw a fit until the next day when we’d get our redemption. We learned to pump our own legs on the swing, falling off more times than I’d like to admit , before it all clicked. I’m glad there isn’t a reel of me learning how to swing out there. I just learned how to swing, and it was done without being put on public display.
Everyone has one of these. A place or a moment that was ordinary to anyone walking by and completely sacred to you.
We had Perler beads spread across the kitchen table for hours, making ornaments, gifts, or new bedroom decor. Baking with Mom, flour everywhere, “helping” in the way a six-year-old helps.
Some weeks, one of us got to plan dinner. We would write out the whole menu in a Word document, print it, take it to the store with Mom and pick every ingredient ourselves. Then cook it and serve it to the family like they’d had their reservation for months.
These moments didn’t take much money to pull off either, and that might be the part I’m most grateful for now. Nobody handed us a finished product and said, “have fun.” We had to build it ourselves, which meant we got good at creating anything from our own imaginations. We grew up pretty traditional, middle class. There wasn’t a lot left over for the newest electronics or rooms full of toys. What we had was more than enough: supplies, imagination, and the space to make anything we wanted come to life.
Somewhere in your own childhood there’s probably a version of this. Something you did on repeat because you loved it. Not because it would get a lot of attention. See if you can still name it.
As far as my siblings and I? All of us love to cook now. All of us love to host. All of us have built our lives from the dream life that once only lived in our imaginations.
I’m aware of the irony of writing that to an audience (you’re on the other side of a screen right now). But there’s a difference between making something because you love making it, and making something because you’re picturing the attention you’ll get before you’ve even started.
Little Syd didn’t create her perfect dinner menu because she wanted the whole family to tell her how good it was and how impressed they were with her. She did it because she loved cooking with her mom and caring for others. That’s the part I’m trying to get back to.
The Perler beads, the dinner menus, the obstacle courses created in the treehouse. All of it was impressive to me because they were things I loved doing. It didn’t need to be trendy or the most interesting thing anyone had ever seen. It didn’t need an audience to be worth doing.
Right now, everyone online is trying to look like everyone else online. Let yourself love whatever you’re doing enough to be the reason you do it in the first place. The things that uniquely bring you joy are worth sharing.
♡ Syd