Once is something of a photographic memoir written by the filmmaker Wim Wenders.
It explores and recalls the minutia of various moments in his life that have, for whatever reason, stuck with him. Some of these moments he has captured in photographs, others seem to have captured him and left photographic-like impressions on his mind that he shares with the reader through poetic fragments and pieces of verse.
It opens with a manifesto about photography that builds to this conclusion:
all of it appears in front of the camera just ONCE,
and every photograph turns this once into an eternity.
Only THROUGH
the captured picture does time become visible
and in the time span
BETWEEN the first shot and the second
the story emerges,
a story that, were it not for these pictures,
would have slipped into oblivion
for the same eternity.
Just as we want to disappear,
out into the world
and into the things,
at the very moment of taking the picture,
the world and the things now leap out of the photography
at the beholder,
seeking to survive and to last there.
It is “THERE” that the stories come about,
in the eye
of the beholder.
While many of the reflections in this book are accompanied by photographs, some are nothing but text. It is these recollections that intrigue me the most, the recollections, images, and impressions that didn’t leap in front of Wenders’ camera but, instead, leaped in front of him, a person, and somehow managed to survive and last there, in his mind.
Being filled with many of these photographic-like memories and impressions myself, this book has inspired me to begin a series that borrows its title from Wenders’ book, Once. In it, I plan to share bits and pieces of my life, in some cases nearly instantaneous bursts of time, that have found a way to live inside me for many years, periodically returning at the oddest of times and with a randomness that is similar to the way in which photographs of our pasts occasionally find themselves before our eyes once again.
In his book, Wenders describes his photographs as being the beginning of unfinished stories, stories that the reader, or viewer, is invited to complete. Similarly, I offer these moments of my life to you as if they were not my own, as if they were in no way connected to me, which in many cases they no longer seem to be. I offer these moments to you as beginnings, beginnings of stories or travels that you are free to write, live, or complete.
Once
Once, when I was walking down a sloped street in Jodhpur, the famous blue city of India, a man came walking quickly out of a house below me. He turned up the hill and walked in my direction, his head bent down over the bundle in his arms. A chorus of wailing voices followed him out onto the dry, sun-baked dirt street.
In his arms he held an infant, mostly swaddled in cloth. The infant’s arm was hanging down over the man’s arm. It swung limply with the motion of the man’s walk.
When he passed, I could hear his sobs catching in his throat.
He didn’t look up. He just walked past, his head down, focused on the child in his hands.
It was hot.
The doorway from which he had come was black, a rectangle that held no light.
I turned and looked after him one time. His long, stiff legs carried him up the inclined street. Mehrangarh, the ancient castle, stood on the hill above him.
The distraught cries of hidden women continued spilling out into the street. They seemed to be looking for him now, trying to follow him, trying to take back the bundle that he carried in his arms.