Capturing joy

I’d been walking along the muddy track, avoiding the puddles from last night’s downpour, making my way way back to the village where I hoped my driver was still waiting for me. The constant hum of cicadas and occasional bird call kept me company as I trudged along through the midday heat. I readjusted the camera strap around my neck, now sodden with sweat.

I’d taken so many pictures that morning, using all five films I’d brought with me, and had just one shot left in the camera. “You always need to save one picture, you never know what you might come across,” I still religiously follow the words of my university professor, even after all these years. There was an exotic majesty to the waterfall, but something about it hadn’t excited me. I was convinced that all the pictures I’d taken, once developed, would just look like every other waterfall picture you’ve seen. At the end of the day a waterfall is just a lot of mist.

I stopped to rest under the shade of a tree, took out my water bottle and drank deeply. The cicadas continued their constant drone, the birds sang and called. Then a different noise caught my attention.

Laughter. High pitched giggling.

Two young girls ran along the track towards me. Giggling as they played, jumping over the puddles and pretending to push each other in. The first one spotted me and they both fell silent and motionless, staring at me. I couldn’t read their expressions, were they scared?

I waved and smiled at them. They turned to each other and whispered something before looking back at me. The first girl shouted something, but it was beyond my basic phrasebook-understanding of Lao. I shouted hello to them in my best pronunciation, “Sabaidee!”

Both girls looked at each other and in an instant were throwing their heads back in laughter. They took it in turns to mimic my poor pronunciation in their deepest voices, laughing and stamping their feet between each syllable “Saaaab aye deeee!”.

“Hey! I’m not very good at Lao, I can’t manage the tones!” I protested.

They laughed and called again, “Saaaab aye deeee!” repeating it half a dozen times as they flailed their arms around.

The first girl, though shorter and possibly younger, was clearly the leader and strode ahead aiming straight for me. Her friend, or was it her sister, seemed more cautious and stayed a few paces behind, smiling but slightly more hesitantly.

The first girl called out again, trying to explain something to me between excited giggles.

I think back to my childhood when I was their age. I had a happy childhood, certainly, but if I bumped into a foreign man with a camera on a quiet street, I would have legged it. Or called the police.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I smiled and gave the girls an exaggerated shrug.

The first girl only laughed and responded with lyrical tones I couldn’t follow. Their laughter radiated an infectious glow that I wanted to capture. I grabbed my camera, popped off the lens cap, and aimed it down the road. Click.

The first girl, seeing the camera, waved at me and called “Hello! Hello! Hello!”

Is it just childish innocence? Am I misremembering my own childhood? I must have had happy moments too. I laughed and sang, surely? But I can’t recall a simple, pure happiness like this.

The girls continue to wave and smile at the camera as they approach.

Something growled. There was a rustling and movement in the bushes. A tiger!? I panicked and tried to run, but my legs didn’t work. The leaves shook and a branch snapped. Were we all about to be eaten? It burst out onto the track - a small black pig, growling again – now sounding much less ferocious – before scurrying across the track.

The girls were bent over in hysterics. They tried to talk to each other but couldn’t catch their breath between snorts and cackles.

I took a few deep breaths to calm my heart rate. Looking at the girls only set them off laughing again.

The first girl said something, pointed behind me down the road, then waved. She carried on past me, on her way with her friend in tow.

I watched them as they walked away, swaying as they started to sing a song.

The second girl turned back, “Bye bye!” she waved then joined back in with the chorus of their song.

As their voices faded away I was left alone with the sound of cicadas.

I have the picture framed on my wall at home, all these years later. I often think about that short moment with those two girls, young women now, and wonder what their lives have entailed. Do they remember the laughter we shared in that moment all those years ago? Probably not.

In taking a picture, you capture a moment. And it pins everything down, emotions are captured. Happy, sad, anxious, fearful, excited, or anything in between. Whereas a memory is the opposite, it doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s something amorphous, blurring with nearby emotions and leaking into other memories. Over time they blur together so you get an average, a grey mush of half-emotions. Looking back on long stretches of life it’s easy to remember a few highs and lows surrounded by long stretches of averaged-out, grey nothing. A plateau. A shrug.

But pictures help us hold onto those highs so they aren’t washed away into the nothing. They can serve as anchors to prevent our memories from dissolving. Looking at those girls in that picture, those inquisitive smiles, I remember that joy. It’s all I knew of them. Just joy, untainted by worries or fears. A moment I witnessed and captured, and can now look back on to try to evoke that same feeling in me.

I hope my little girl will grow up knowing the joy captured here.