October

Why do we take pictures? Why do we keep them in our wallets, collecting lint, earning enough creases to make them ancient, reminding us just how old we really are. Why are we obsessed with the past? Because we made the wrong choices? That given the same situation, we would have done something different?

Perhaps. But probably not. I think keeping pictures is our way of dealing with the cruelty of time. We keep pictures because sometimes, something good happens, and we can never take it with us. We keep old photographs because the best things in life are the ones that end too soon. Like the first day after the end of the school year. Or the resounding applause at your first performance. Or the first morning you woke up in the arms of someone you love.

For me, October would always mean a lot. My girlfriend and I were born in the same month. October usually meant loud parties, nights spent wandering outside, hand in hand with someone I adored, drunk in the intoxicating breeze of a young winter. But last year, something changed, and October would now forever be remembered as the time we stood together at an empty airport terminal. Each not wanting to, but eventually forced, to say goodbye.


“October (Say Goodbye)” will feature in Sandwash’s 2nd album.