Gathering Stories

There is a photo of my dad and me. I have no idea where it is anymore, but I can see it clearly — a series of two or three shots. I look to be about two years old, and my dad has placed his glasses on me. He has such a big, beautiful smile on his face, and I'm just a giggly two-year-old wearing Dad's glasses. I wish I still had that photo. But it’s in my head, and the need to share it in any way I can, even without the actual image — that’s the thing. That’s my need to tell stories, so it can be as real for someone else as it is for me in my mind’s eye.

My dad passed away recently, and my mind hasn't stopped since. Memories, ideas, reflections — all of it running together.

I think about the stories I have of my dad — the ones he shared, the ones told to me by others, and my own stories with him. There was a time I wanted more. The other day, going through my drawers, I found a book entitled Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story — a book full of questions that your father would fill in, his answers becoming a record of his life. I never got to give it to him.

I was afraid of my dad, but that's not quite right. I wrote once about this quiet space between my dad and me — it wasn't really anything you could name. It was just this power he had over me, one that enabled him to put the fear of God in me, even as a teenager living thousands of miles away, him on Guam and me in Sacramento, California.

But here's the thing — maybe the book wasn't so much for him as it was for me. I knew my father, even though I didn't really know him. I did know him. I was his son, after all. There were moments he would share stories of his childhood, and I remember the stories Grandma would tell me about Dad. I had the pieces. So maybe now it's time I tell those stories — not so much of Dad, but of me and Dad, and how it all comes together now, here in my life.

My life has been an amalgamation — jobs, interests, detours, stories. I've been told I was scatterbrained, and now that I think about it even more, maybe I was. But I wasn't. I was gathering stories. God, the universe, the fates — whatever you ascribe to — pointed me in the direction I needed to be. Telling stories. Not just in written form, but in every way I'm able.

It started visually, with photography. For more than forty years I've been taking photos — mostly of people. It started as me attempting to photograph women, then evolved into photojournalism, then editorial work. But it was always about people. Always about trying to understand their stories, even if I didn't have the language for it yet. That evolved into videography and cinematography, which I'm currently pursuing further, gaining more knowledge to sharpen that craft.

And somewhere in all of that, I realized the craft was never the point. The stories were. And once you see it that way — once you understand that telling them and gathering them is what you’ve been doing all along — you begin to recognize it in the people around you. We all have stories to tell. But you have to break through the noise to get to the right ones. Not that there are wrong stories, but the right stories for the right time.

On the way to dinner one evening, my wife and I decided on seafood at a local hotel restaurant. We started telling each other stories, the way you do on a drive when it's just the two of you. She told me about her dad and her brothers on one of their bike rides — they do these rides every so often, and they'd always make it a point to stop at a place called Pan de Manila for a snack and something to drink. Their dad told them to remember moments like those. Those were stories for them to tell one day.

It hit me, because that's what I do with my own kids. I've always told Chloe and Tim — take advantage of every opportunity. Travel. Learn something new. Gather your experiences and your own stories, so one day you can bore your own children with them.

Storytelling is a wonderful thing. The ability to share what once was, to hand an experience to someone who wasn't there — that's beautiful. And maybe that's what I've been doing all along. Gathering stories. Not scattered. Not scatterbrained. Just gathering.