on finding old photos in the loft

It will never occur again. That kind of perfection. Faces will never look the same as they did then. The world will never feel so free or fearless. Or maybe it might, but should it do so the wave shall not sweep over me as it did. Picking me up and twisting and turning me. A wave which might be called a wave of sheer happiness. At least that's the story the photos show. In spite of the fissures present even then; three relationships which would not last the year; six faces smiling in spite of that. And all the other things besides. You could say, in that case, that the photos do not tell the whole story. Yet it seems to me they tell the true story. It is visible in the faces. Touched by the exhilaration of being in that place, in that time. Faces that are made to live in that time; sit in that theatre; on that swing; made for the moment the camera captured them. Out of that time, these photos, you can see a reason to believe in the dream of another way of living; where cares can be banished in joy; where the trappings of individuality might be subsumed and reinvented beneath a common drive towards... an essence of feeling alive.