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I make a homely photo each time I reformat the memory cart in one of my digital cameras. These are just quick snapshots - scenes around the house or out the window or in the garden. One shutter click and a quick peek to confirm that the card is working and that the image is the only one in memory.
This image then becomes my virtual backstop. On a busy day in the field, I can scroll through a collection of fresh captures and when I arrive at the homely photo, I know I'm home. Sometimes it's a klinker and just tells me to stop scrolling. But when the photo is a satisfying image, it becomes a comfort and I'm back home of Cashio Street.
This is a particularly nice homely photo because it has elements of many personal treasures. The scene is the pendulum box of my grandparents' clock, where over the years I have collected this and that, a photo of Kate the dog in the yard on Cashio Street, a "genko" leaf rubbing made by young Cullen Baker, a now-cracked Pyrex custard cup that held a little kerosene when the clock hung in Grandma Jones's kitchen, the clock key close at hand, one of Alice Baker's lace angels bearing an American flag, a sheet of Saguaro National Park patches gifted by Nan Hoskins. I don't know how three 10¢ postage stamps appeared here but I suspect I needed a place to store surplus stamps and since they bear a clock face...
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