Little Bethany Taco Stand

Memory is a charlatan.

Perhaps that’s too harsh, though, at worst, memory is indeed conniving. At best it is enlightening. Always it is unstable. Blank space emerges as distance collects between a happening and a happened. Our mind fills that space with a peppering of recognition and desire. We form our own “based-on-a-true-story” cinematic scripts. Sprinkle in a seasoning of reality, add some half-truths, and finish it with a wallop of never-happened, and you have the basis for the struggle for meaning. Reality is the acceptance of meaning and if we didn’t recognize that meaning is a frustrating game of whack-a-mole, surely we are learning that now. The last twenty years have done nothing if not point out that what one may deem to be true, someone else may perceive as completely false.

That is what i think about when I revisit this photo.

Sometime around 2011 I was wandering Highway 1 with a few photographer friends. They were from out of town and wanted to explore the backroads of the Mississippi Delta. That was common. I often explore the backroads on my own, and felt I knew them well. I enjoyed sharing that knowledge with visitors. The Delta is best explored when you get off the tourist maps and allow serendipity to be a part of your journey. I’d gotten pretty good at that.

On this particular day we stumbled across a prefab building that sat alone alongside a soybean field. It had been converted into a taco stand, that was operated by a Mexican family. Their English was scattered. Te food was amazing. I still remember it as the best Mexican food I’ve ever tasted. That may be because it was the best or it may be because I want it to have been the best. Memory is complicated that way.

What stands out even more, however, is the abruptness of this location. I’d explored that same area many, many times before, including a week or so prior to this excursion. I’d never noticed that taco stand before. I went back a week later (or so my memory tells me) and the stand was gone. Vanished. Only a slab of concrete remained.

I’ve always felt I knew the Delta better than most. I felt that I’d explored it, examined it, questioned it, and considered it as deeply as one can do. I felt I’d purposely placed myself into experiences that were both comfortable and comfortable. I felt I was gaining understanding of my home, and if I was gaining understanding, I was shaping meaning.

And then I am reminded by photos such as this, that I my memory plays tricks on me, the same way it does you, and even when I am certain, I must admit the possibility that my mind has tricked me.

I suspect this taco stand existed for at least a few months if not a few years. I suspect I passed it may times, but never noticed it. My memory only feeds back to me the moment that was convenient, and dismiss those that were not.

Yours does, too.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.