Discover more from ✨ Christine Lee Smith ✨
I’m certain I know where it’s hiding 🤦♀️ …
I’ve always been a sentimental person. Family trinkets and heirlooms hold a special place for me. I have collections of costume jewelry, art supplies, and photos all about my house.
I inherited many of these items early in life, and have held on to them through my various moves over the years. One such item was a Polaroid SX-70 camera. It had a beautiful carmel colored leather outer, and used Polaroid’s instant film. I got it from my grandfather after he passed many years ago. Grandpa Wally was the primary purveyor of the art supply heirlooms I inherited.
Somewhere along the way, the camera was lost. For a time I was certain it was in storage at my mom’s house, out of state. So years ago, when on a trip to visit her, we hunted through several boxes of my stored items she has at her home. It was nowhere to be seen. Every stone was turned over. Nada.
Coming home from that search I felt defeated. Somehow I had lost something very special to me — a camera from my grandfather. It wasn’t so much that he and I had a particularly close relationship, we didn’t, but these items were tethers to how I had come to understand myself as an artist. These were the artifacts that proved that identity true. If my grandfather was an artist — I could be one, too. Loosing this camera — as a photographer — was particularly hard to stomach.
I decided to try and find a replacement camera. I even went so far as to buy one online from someone who refurbished them. I was excited to get camera, but it didn’t work right; and more importantly, it wasn’t grandpa Wally’s camera. I returned it and tried to accept the loss.
During my summer break this year, i had some much needed time and space to recover from a few very intense work years. I had also purchased tickets to my teenage dream concert to see Green Day in September. Inspired by the space and upcoming concert I went in search of another heirloom item — this time it was my senior year backpack. It was a black JanSport covered with MxPx patches and Supertones pins.
I was *certain* it was in the box under my bed. I was wrong.
I was *certain* it was in my tall closet cupboard. I was wrong … again.
It felt like my prior search for the Polaroid camera all over again. I reached for the final box it could have been in at my house. I pulled it down off the high shelf, standing on a step stool I was nearly toppled over by its weight. I managed to get it down and set it on my bed; I cracked the lid expecting to see a black canvas backpack covered in pins. Instead I instantly recognized the matching brown leather case sitting right on top.
Photo of a brown leather Polaroid SX-70 Camera in open position
“How could it have been here all along?!” I was so delighted and confused as I gently pulled it out of the box, and opened the case. There it was: the camera I’d been searching for — and gave up on — for nearly a decade. It had been in my bedroom THE ENTIRE TIME.
It was right under my nose. I thought I had searched my own house, but I missed a spot. I perhaps gave up too soon in earlier searches. I don’t know. I never will know for sure. What I do know is that this is not the first time God has winked at me with a super coincidental situation.
Finding this camera at this moment feels timely. I’m beginning a new photo project and I have a feeling this camera is going to be a part of it.
EPILOGUE
A few weeks after finding it I purchased a pack of SX-70 film (no easy task, as it turns out). Having a film pack is the only way to test a SX-70 camera (batteries are in the film pack). It took a few weeks to locate and receive the film; it arrived two-weeks ago.
I was a bit nervous that all this lead up would turn into false hope if the camera no longer worked. I actually waited a day or two to try it out of fear of being disappointed even after the film arrived. Finally I got the courage to open the film pack. I clumsily placed it in the camera, and prayed as I pushed the shutter button. The camera responded beautifully.
I’ve since wondered, “Why now?” Why after all this time did I get to find it. Maybe God is just winking at me that all is not lost — maybe what’s good is simply temporarily in hiding — or maybe it has something to do with the new body of work I’m beginning. The senior year back pack is in hiding now (but I’m *certain* it’s at my mom’s house). But I trust that alongside the disappointment of the camera being hidden for so long, that the camera has also reappeared at the exact right time.
It brought to mind the parable Jesus tells about the woman and her lost coin. She scours her house looking for the precious item in Luke 15. Jesus tells his audience that as soon as she finds it she calls her friends to celebrate with her. Jesus concludes this story — the second of three on the theme of losing and finding — that this is how heaven parties when people turn to God.
While my experience is adjacent to the deeper meaning of turning to God — this whole experience reminded me to celebrate this find. I called my mom. I showed my husband. I told my photo critique group and a colleague. And I get to remember that Jesus celebrates with me, too. And maybe the timing of finding it was divine after all.