Our family didn't used to have a big screen. We watched movies on an Ipad, or laptop, and huddled close under a quilt. It was cozy. 

 

But John and our oldest son orchestrated the installation of one above the fireplace. As someone who grew up with a twelve inch black and white screen and three channels I am astonished.

 

In between movies, which are less cuddly in that we can actually sit in different chairs, the slideshow plays a continuous stream of photographs. They move in that magical flip flop way, such that a picture of Lukas and Amy in New Zealand appears next to one of him ten years younger in Paris. The twins show up as Raggedy Ann and Andy next to an image of them at their sister's wedding. The other day there was one of Olly in the bathtub, her hair a soapy tower, next to one of her mother when she was a small girl smiling over the same trick. 

 

Time becomes of little consequence, as I behold the minute gaps separating decades. In a peripheral way I know that there were indeed heartaches jimmied in between the shots of our family at Christmas, on a sandy beach, breaking gluten free bread. But in the wider view of a thousand pictures, it is all good. 

 

One of the effects of an over arching sense of time is how the annoyances fade, while the joys reverberate. Heck, I can hardly remember a week after an argument what had me riled up, much less five years. Yet the sweetnesses, like the effort John made to bring these very memories into my daily routine, replay on a continuous loop. 

 

All it takes is for me to turn my attention.