There are all kinds of photo albums

I have a cedar chest in my room packed with photos. Occasionally, I have the energy and self-confidence to look inside and see the proof of what my life might have been and become forced to compare it to what it actually is - now. It's not often. Perhaps this is why I don't keep photo albums in public or at all. While these pictures are dear to me and I would never consider letting them go - I still can't always bear to look at them. Life passes so fast. I hate the "I should have" feeling that this activity leaves me with.
The only photo album that doesn't have quite this dramatic effect is in the upstairs attic of my parents house. It's not technically a photo album, but for me, it serves the same purpose. The attic smells of dry wood, sunshine, galvanized steel, cotton, wool, grass and dust. When you climb the narrow, tread worn stairs of this 150 year-old farm house, warmth and stale air descend over you like someone pouring them from a bucket onto your head. The solitary, confined atmosphere washes over you and soaks into your skin. Nobody ever goes upstairs, but it's ready in case they might.
The wardrobe sits in the upstairs landing - far too big for the tiny space it occupies. But it's there - very much like "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" waiting for the day when a person might want to look in or need something to take them to another place. It's filled with scraps of cloth - the past lives of clothes and the potential only visitors can see.
Sewing in my house was not a pass time, but a family tradition. We are a family of seamstresses. Some better than others, none better than my grandmother and each bringing her own perspective and artistry to the end result.
There are literally hundreds of scraps in every imaginable size, shape, shade, texture and pattern. No fewer that four generations and five families of clothing are represented. Even the smallest pieces were saved because each is attached to the memory of a specific date, an age or an event. The pieces are not cataloged or tagged with notes that describe what they were used for. Those interpretations are left to the inspector. But what I have found is that even these require perspective. Last summer as I looked through the pieces for memories that I wanted to take and literally hold, I found memories that I had forgotten about. I also found new memories. I discovered that scraps that I had known as play clothes had existed in previous lives as dress shirts or had been introduced to our textile library as drapery for a college dorm room or the lining of a travel trunk. Who'd have thought that cloth could have a vicarious life?
I brought home a bag of memory scraps and used them to patch a denim jacket that I've had since high school. I still wear it but my kids won't be seen with me when I do. Unlike the the entirely customized pieces of clothing that were made for me a child from the fabrics represented, the commercially produced pieces I wore are still usable. -All the uniqueness homogenized out of them during their mass-market styling. Mine might be the only denim jacket in the world that could potentially go out of style - because I touched it with uniqueness.
I believe the reason that this type of photo album is so much easier to live with is that the memories are still malleable. If I wanted, I could still change them into something new, something better, something useful instead of what they were.