"THE FORGOTTEN" VOL. 2: KAY

nine of clubs, dedicated to california

Over the summer, I took my first train ride on the Amtrak from Flagstaff to Santa Barbara, stopping in LA along the way. This was the most magical trip I had ever taken. Driving from Phoenix to Flagstaff showed me the most beautiful aspects of Arizona — from rainy pine tree forests to red clay mountains I had only seen in vintage postcards.

This was the first time I had ever truly traveled alone.

Sure, I moved to Arizona by myself and lived on my own, but that trip was only for me. I had the chance to get a sleeper car and cross state lines, imagining myself in White Christmas and Some Like It Hot. I pictured Bing Crosby peeking his head around the corner if I were to look outside my door, walking down with a cup of hot chocolate in his hands. Each night, I changed into my silk matching pajama set and put in my curlers. The attendants both took a liking to me — I felt a motherly instinct from them all.

I would wake to the sunrise in California and watch as the terrain changed constantly. I had never seen such beauty as I did in those few short days. I only spent a few hours in each city that I stopped in. I had enough time to walk down the street in LA outside of the train station (terrifying, but gorgeous), and once I made it to Santa Barbara, I had to haul my bookbag on my back just to stick my feet in the water. There was something so serene and surreal to see the mountains and the trees and the ocean all in one place.

The West Coast will always feel like the 1950s to me. It will always give me a sense of nostalgia for a place I had never been or a year I had never lived. I've only been out here for less than a year, but even Arizona makes me want to play Rosemary Clooney and order room service while I watch an old feature film in Technicolor. This is something I know that my soul needed. This is something that continues to leave me in awe and to bring me much-needed joy.

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For my 2nd piece in my series titled "THE FORGOTTEN," I have decided to focus on a woman I have named Kay. I don't know the identity of the woman in the photo that I found at Camelback Antiques in Downtown Phoenix, but I know her. I see her dressed in a nurse's uniform, and I see her hopeful face. She may have seen some tragedies in her life, but I know she has not let the world deprive her of her joy.

When I see these pictures left for strangers in antique stores, I always wonder where their lives led them after the flash went off. I feel an overwhelming motherly connection to these absolute strangers, because they, too, were somebody's baby, and now their lives are only forgotten.

To me, her name is Kay. She's a nurse in California in the 40s, maybe 50s. She's very type A and a little more on the anxious side. She's unmarried because most men find her odd, but there's nothing wrong with her—she's exactly who she's supposed to be. Her patients always remember her as being kind and being able to easily explain whatever medical jargon the doctor spewed at them.

Everything around her in this piece are things that would be at the bottom of her purse. A 9 of clubs that accidentally fell in her purse after a night game of poker with her other nurse friends. A clock face from her father's old pocket watch that fell apart in the war, but she still holds onto it for sentimental value. A piece of wood she picked up on her hike up a mountain—she always likes to take something with her. A washer off the chair in her living room that she's been meaning to tell her uncle about so he can fix it. A pack of flower seeds that she likes to sprinkle at the front of the hospital because she swears it will help the patients heal faster if there's something out front that will bring them joy. A few buttons she keeps in a little bag, along with other emergency sewing utensils for all of the "just in case" moments. A gold bracelet she received from a promising suitor before he was deployed—she doesn't know if she'll ever see him again, since it's been 5 years since he left. All of this sits on top of a handkerchief she keeps in the side pocket of her purse that her mother embroidered for her when she first became a nurse.

These photos of strangers in antique stores leave me equally joyful and melancholy. These people, whom I may never know, lived full lives, or perhaps they didn't. They got married, or they didn't. They had a bunch of kids, or they were barren. They had a fulfilling job, or they went into a 9-to-5 every day on the verge of making that day their last.

I may never know, and that's okay. I gravitate towards the people who seem so American, who seem so normal. I'm sure they never thought this picture of them from nearly 70 years ago would end up in a second-hand store and be labeled "vintage." At the time, they were simply capturing their life at the time.

And then I think of my own life. I take pictures on disposable cameras just so I can print them off and one day, my family might not even care to look at them. I might not even end up having a family to look at them. I may get married like I've always wanted, or I may die before I get the chance. I may be in love and stay in love for 50+ years, or I may get divorced and never be truly happy.

I have no idea what my life holds. I have no idea what the future is after I take the pictures that I take. And neither did they.

Here's to Kay, card No. 2, my nurse from California.