I usually take photographs when I travel with the idea that they will help me remember a place. Then I come home with several hundred photographs and discover that the moment I keep talking about is something I did not photograph at all.
A conversation. A wrong turn. A lunch that continued until nobody could reasonably call it lunch anymore.
Meanwhile, I have seventeen photographs of the same staircase. Apparently, I was very concerned about forgetting the stairs.
Coming from fashion, I understand the instinct to capture what looks beautiful. I notice the light, the proportions, the way a table has been arranged. Sometimes I am already composing a photograph before I have properly looked around.
There is pleasure in that. But I have started noticing how differently I experience a place when I am looking for a picture and when I put my phone away.
With the phone in my hand, I am making decisions. This angle, that corner, perhaps wait for that person to move. Without it, I might notice that I am enjoying the conversation with the person who is apparently ruining my photograph.
I do not always get the balance right.
Before a trip, I can become quite attached to an idea of how it will unfold. There are places I want to see, things I want to do, and usually more restaurants than there are meals available. I have occasionally planned a day for a woman with considerably more energy than myself.
Then I arrive, and something changes.
I want to stay where I am. Someone recommends a place I have never heard of. The weather makes a decision on behalf of everyone.
At the time, I may be disappointed about what I am missing. Later, the unplanned afternoon becomes the part I remember most clearly.
That interests me, especially when I think about how much effort we put into choosing experiences in advance. We read reviews, compare photographs, save recommendations. By the time we arrive, we may already know what we are supposed to find special.
I sometimes wonder whether I would have noticed a particular detail if nobody had told me it was important.
And what would I have noticed instead?
There are places I have wanted to love because everything suggested that I would. Beautiful surroundings, a good reputation, all the right reasons to be impressed. I could appreciate them. I could explain why they were considered exceptional. Yet afterward, I had surprisingly little to say about being there.
Other places return to me unexpectedly. Something in the light reminds me of an afternoon. A song brings back a room and the people in it. I remember how long we sat talking, although I could not tell you what we ordered.
The people matter more in these memories than I sometimes account for when making plans. So does the mood I bring with me.
I can return to the same place and have an entirely different experience because I am with someone else, worried about something, or finally able to relax. A place becomes part of whatever is happening in our lives when we encounter it.
Perhaps that is why recommending somewhere can feel so personal. When I say, “You have to go,” I am remembering a particular version of being there. I cannot send someone the weather, the company, or the relief I felt that week. Although it would make packing considerably more useful if I could.
I still make plans. I still want the beautiful room and a table somewhere I am excited to try. But I am learning to leave a little room in the day before deciding it has been wasted.
An afternoon does not always need another reservation.
Sometimes I only understand what mattered about a trip when I get home and hear myself telling the story. I begin with where I went, but soon I am talking about someone I met, something that made me laugh, or a moment when I felt unusually at ease.
The photographs help me remember what was there.
The stories I keep telling help me understand why I wanted to stay.