Sepia Saturday 305 : A Journey To The Meaningless

Only other Sepians will know what it is like: that journey you are taken on almost every week. It starts on Monday when you see the weekly prompt image and a series of strange and rusty cogs start turning in that part of the human brain devoted to images and memories. The theme image features a French balloon and you know that somewhere you have an old image that just might fit in. So you search through that database that all lovers of old images carry around in their brain, looking for the match. By Tuesday you have abandoned your mental database and returned to those old suitcases, cardboard boxes, books and albums that contain the real thing, the hard copies. You start with the obvious - those collections you know well, those family albums that are seeped in DNA.  

By Wednesday you have widened your search, flicking through galleries of unknown men and women in the hope that one of them might just be holding a balloon.  By Thursday you are getting desperate. Your nearest and dearest are beginning to notice behavioural changes, you are not sleeping and you tend to jump up in the middle of meals proclaiming an urgent need to revisit Uncle Frank's 1952 photo album.  By Friday you have combed through your collection of old postcards, cigarette cards, banknotes and share certificates - searching for that elusive balloon. As your Sepia Saturday deadline approaches you contemplate the alternatives - you could abandon the theme, play the Google card, or head for the Spanish sun. And then, late, late in the evening, you suddenly remember your old bound copies of Punch Magazine. You open the first volume and look at the first page. And there is Mr Punch, flying high over Paris in a balloon.

So you scan your image and write your words and feel pleased with your choice. But then, before the digital ink is dry and you have pressed the "Post" button, the non-Sepia world turns and the awful realities of the world are brought home to you. Sepia Saturday become meaningless and all your thought are reserved for the people of Paris and the horrendous events that have taken place there. At a time like this; themes, photos, and blogs don't really matter: all that does matter is the solidarity of all those who hate violence of all kinds. Let the image of the Eiffel Tower stand for that.