Coming of age everyday-we never stop growing up

      This was my first time glancing over the magazines that published in 20s, 30s. Old pictures as well as those old articles catch my eyes.  Pictures with wars, smiles and national affairs. I am more sensitive to pictures than articles. After half an hour’s research, two pages of pictures grabbed my full attention.

    There are 15 pictures. A dad and a daughter indicate 15 years, also indicate growth, mature, coming of age.

     On these pages you see the year-by–year growth of this daughter Marion who is now 16. Mr. Chadwick, changing little with the years, stands behind her. All the pictures were taken by Mrs. Chadwick at about the same time each year with the same camera-a 2A folding Brownie which cost $10.50 when it was bought in 1915.  The first picture was taken at City Island in 1922 on Marion’s fist trip to the beach.  Before anybody could stop her, she ran into the water up to her neck. When her father remarked that she looked like a “drowned rat”, her mother decided to photograph them both.  Next year, again at City Island, they took a similar picture to see how much Marion had grown. Soon the annual picture of Marion and her father, always taken their first day at the beach, became a family tradition. Sometimes it was Coney Island, sometimes Oakland Beach, lately Ocean Grove, Rye beach or Glen Island. So important did this yearly ritual become that Mrs. Chadwick sometimes exposed a complete roll of film to make sure she got a good picture.

   I think this set of pictures is very precious because photograph wasn’t that popular during that time. From the picture, we only can see the growth of Marion’s height, as well as decrepitude of Mr. Chadwick. However, we can’t see how many stories happened in between.

  Growth is pain and happy at the same time.  I want to say that coming-to-age maybe more pure at that time, or in the other words, less complicated. It can be just arriving a certain age, getting married or having your first baby.  For now, it’s hard to say when is the time that you are really coming of age. It needs patience, love, and persistence. In this set of pictures, this little girl grows up, when is her coming to age? 13? 15? Or even 25? No one knows including herself.  In my perspective, she is growing up everyday, coming to age everyday. Coming of age is about being more mature. Sometimes you think you change to another person in a certain point, through a huge change which makes you grow up to an adult in on night. For me, what I see from this picture is, we are growing up everyday, just like this little girl. Her height indicates her maturity, it will never stops. We never stop absorbing new knowledge from outside. We are always curious as a child. We keep meeting new people. We lie to people. People lie to us. We love people and people love us. We grow up in this every single day. The process of finding who we are for me is called coming of age.

  These are only 15 pictures to us, but it means much more to Marie. I want to know more pictures about her life. Those thousands more pictures that didn’t show up here. Those laughter and tears behind the pictures. We still can feel those warmth, those courage she and the information her parents want to transfer through those pictures. She is growing up, so do we. And we need courage to grow up and to face the world by ourselves.  I love the picture that this little girl changed from standing in front of her dad to standing behind him. It means one day you will grow from the little child that you need your dad to hold your back, support you to that woman or man you want to be. Then you are be able to hold you dad’s hand just like the time your dad hold you when you are small.  In the meanwhile, we never stop growing up, we never stop loving and smiling.