"The souvenir speaks to a context of origin through a language of longing"
This is an old photo of my sister and I. I literally have no idea why tiny Rory was so happy to pose in front of the Florida sign. We have a lot of photos throughout the years standing in front of this sign, ironically we both hated coming here. Definitely cannot smile as big as that now.
"The souvenir exists as a sample of the now-distant experience that only the object can evoke."
Once again my sister and I, Circa 2017 at Hershey Park. We used to go there as a full family, but now my parents are divorced and my father takes his new family there. Now my mom refuses to leave the south. I cant even remember the last time we've been able to fully dress up for cold weather, I miss it a lot.
"The souvenir reduces the public, the monument, and the three-dimensional into the miniature, that which can be enveloped by the body"
This is a photo my sister took of me last year a few days before college started. We have now made it a tradition to go to this same pizza place an hour away every year, right before school stars to eat this mediocre pizza. But now she's graduating this year and will hopefully move to a place with better pizza where I can go visit her.
"Nostalgia cannot be sustained without loss"
This is a photo of my sister, my great aunt and my uncle. We probably haven't seen my uncle since this photo was taken, and we used to visit our grant aunt at least twice a year when we lived in New Jersey, but now we never visit and her health isn't good enough for her to travel here. We miss seeing her a lot, she's the only family we like.
"The place of origin must remain unavailable in order for desire to be generated"
This is a photo of my mom, my sister and I. She was a stay at home mom until we moved, she was always scary to us and now she doesn't like our company. Its mostly just my sister and I now, except for when college is on break and we have to go home, but now we try to stay as out of the house as much as possible. It's rare to see us all enjoying time together now.
