The Brown Paper Bag

It was a brown paper bag. One that would have been given at any grocery store back in the day (before they started using plastic bags or reusable ones).

Anyone looking at it would probably have seen just a tattered and worn brown bag, not giving much thought to it. But for me, this bag was so much more.

The brown paper bag in this picture is not the bag of which I am writing about. Yet, as I hold this bag and close my eyes, I am taken back to my childhood and it is all so clear.

I'm standing inside the tiny one bedroom apartment my Grandma lived in. I can see the layout of the space, the white doillies placed in various spots on the couch, the mixed smells of chinese food we brought along with that of fresh perogies Grandma was getting ready on the stove - because no meal was complete without her handmade perogies!

After the meal was done, I would go to the closet, slide open the door and look up expectantly to what was sitting on the top shelf. Because I was too short to reach the item myself, my Dad would help in bringing it down. I can still feel the weight of the full bag as he gently placed it in my outstretched arms. I would make myself comfortable on the floor, with my back against the side of the couch and the bag placed between my legs. With great care I would run my fingers over the wrinkles and crinkles on this softened and time worn brown paper bag. Then, slowly, I would raise the folded and torn edges to reveal what I knew was inside.

On some occasions, I would dump the contents on the floor in front of me, while other times I would dig deep into the bottom of the bag and pull items out. So what was inside this bag? Pictures. Pictures from my Dad and Grandma's past. Pictures of people I didn't know and places I had never heard of. Pictures of their life that I would not get an understanding of until many years later. Pictures that to me held awe and wonder, but to my Dad and Grandma, along with good times, held hard and painful memories.

Each time I opened the bag it was like I was opening a portal into another world. Although the pictures were black and white, in my mind they were full of vivid color. The ink that had written names, places and descriptions on the backs in Polish was beginning to fade, so I didn't understand any of it. But that was OK, because I would attach my own stories to them. My imagination would run wild as to who these mysterious people were, how they knew each other and my Grandma, and what adventures had brought them to this point.

I enjoyed looking at images of my Grandfather in his army uniform - how dashing he looked in it. He died when I was a baby, so I never got to know him. But looking at his picture made me feel like I did. My favorite pictures to sift through and find were those of my Dad and Grandma's years in Africa. Especially the few that included my Dad's pet monkey, Kubush. (How many people can say their Dad had a monkey as a pet?)

Little did I know at the time, but the years I spent with that brown paper bag planted a seed deep inside me that grew into my passion for photography and travel. When I take a picture, I want the person looking at it to feel like they are right there beside me. To see the story that goes along with the image; or to attach their own story to it - like I did as a child. Each picture that had it's place inside the brown paper bag, and the pictures that I take in my journies are all a part of my history, my legacy. Long after I am gone, I hope that there is a young child who looks at them as I did all of those years ago, and imagines their own stories to go along with them.

After my Grandma passed away, I'm not sure what happened to that brown paper bag and all of those pictures. I am lucky to have copies of some of them, but not all. As I think back on these times, my one wish is that I had taken the time, when I was a little older, to sit with my Grandma and go through those pictures and get her memories associated with them written down.

A simple brown paper bag, that to this day brings back memories from my childhood - curiousity, wonder, awe, excitement and the power of stories, those that are real and those created with my imagination.

What are items that are associated with your legacy? or childhood? that bring back memories of times past? And what items can you leave as your legacy for future generations?