PrettyTiny Film Company Pic-A-Week **2022** (#52, Dec. 29)

[Alliecat]

"Hello everyone!
"Well, here we go again... another year of Pic A Week from PTFCo.  We do enjoy it and are glad you guys are all joining in again this year.
"We have no rosy hopes this New Year.  In fact, things are looking pretty bleak, and Mum said she used up her philosophical thoughts on facebook, so I should go ahead and write our first post of the year.  Sooo....

"We've been thinking about barnacles.  
"Yes, really.  Barnacles in the intertidal zone open up and feed when the tide is in, taking in what they need from the water that surrounds them.  When it goes out, they close up tight and wait, sealed in their shells against the drought and the heat and the cold and the wind, living off what they've taken in, waiting for the next round of the cycle.  There will always be another flood tide.
"Mum started the year with a vow to finally albumize the last of the old photos that have been sitting for years.  They're pictures of another life, in another world, when people went where they wanted, and did what they wanted, with whom they wanted, and friends could come and visit, friends that we've lost touch with, or have less touch with, now.
"Simon and Garfunkel sang, 'I have a photograph... Preserve your memories; they're all that's left you.'  It's true.  When everything else falls away, we have memories, of things done and places visited, and people loved.  They're like the sustenance the barnacles draw from the sea... something to nourish our souls through the dry and the cold.  
"We should be like barnacles... comb the sea of ex!perience around us for the best bits, the bits that nourish our souls, so that when the tide ebbs and we have to close our shells and wait it out, we will have those nourishing memories to sustain us until the next flood tide.  

"We wish you all another flood tide someday soon, dolly friends.

"Love, Sunsette    "