some people ask me sometimes how i fell into photography, and why i chose to make a life out of it. usually, i only reply to the how, it’s the easiest one to answer. my dad. he taught me. then he said that he’d better have broken his leg than teaching me. and that was it.
i used to want to be an astrophysicist. or just a physicist. or a horse vet. or a doctor to go to africa for humanitarian organizations. that kind of stuff among other things that were a lot less mature. then one day, about a year before i finished highschool, i decided that i wanted to be a photographer. it was all for the wrong reasons, of course, but when you’re sixteen, the worse reasons always seem like the best.

i still dream about her. less often than back then, but regularly enough. and just like in those days, i always remember my dreams with her. i used to dream about the present, things as they were then, now it’s all mixed, now when i arrive there, i’m back.
and i’m back, and everything is about to be finished. there’s nothing to do about it, no complains, no turning back, we do what we have to do, the last rituals before the end of the last day, not knowing how or even if the sun will rise after that. it’s just the same departure that i live again and again, only our age and situations change. i’m back and i notice that nothing will ever be the same, the sun begins to blend with the top a small hill and our shadows grow until the horizon as we walk on the paths that have subtly taken another shape and that i’m not quite certain to recognize anymore.

now i know that i’d made a good choice back then. not the right choice, there isn’t always a right choice, and there never was one in this case. i don’t regret it, i look where i’m standing now and i see where i want to go for now, it all seems clear enough, and i wouldn’t want to be anything else. one morning when i woke up, i was interested in photography, and when i came home after a freezing day of february, maybe march, i wanted to be a photographer, as to…no, as not to…
but after i left, and after i left my photo school, i knew that i would never attain my original goal. it doesn’t really matter anymore.

i’m back and we’re in her car. i’m back and we’ll never have any place to go anymore. she stares at the wheel and i stare at the emptiness outside. the night is falling early, as usual, it’s a sunny cold day of winter, it always will be. she looks at me, and i’m immensely sad for her, i take her in my arms and she holds me strongly as if she’s afraid of collapsing, i feel her crying on my shoulder. i’m back and i’m older, it’s a strange thing to be older, it’s a strange thing not to be sixteen anymore. i hear her mutter, i hope that you don’t mind, now. i smile, i’m fine with it, you have nothing to worry about. and she cries ever louder, and holds me even stronger.

one day, we had a talk, a serious talk, she talked to me as if i was an adult already and not another teenager lost and confused by feelings and an idea of the world as it should be. in just a few minutes, she made me escape the life that i would have embraced only because i wanted to be like her. at first, i’d thought that it was because she thought i wasn’t good enough and didn’t want to hurt me by saying so. now i’m not that sure. she was probably only very honest with me. that and she knew considerably more about life than i did.
when i wake up and remember my dream where she’s in, i realize what she pushed me out years ago. i don’t think that she has any idea about where it really led me, or how grateful i am. i don’t know if i’ll ever track her down to let her know. i don’t know if i’ll ever be back for real, and i don’t know if it would feel like being sixteen again.

i decided to be a photographer for all the wrong reasons, but when you’re sixteen, the worse reasons always seem like the best. then again, the reasons that look rationnally wrong can bring out some good sometimes.

and i remember that it’s her birthday soon, but i’m not sure that she would understand why i still care about that…

soundtrack : arab strap – automnal