“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”
-Toni Morrison

In 2016, I set out to digitize my family’s home videos. I worried the impending decay of the Hi-8 tapes would signal the loss of something greater—what, I wasn’t sure. The twenty-four hours of footage I ultimately salvaged spans fifteen years: the sentimental early years (1990-2001) shot by my father, the tortured adolescent years (2001-2005) recorded by me. Since 2016, I have watched the tapes amid personal, familial, and political chaos. I started to realize what wasn’t recorded interested me as much as what was, for silence is its own story. And I began to surrender to the truth I have always been queer, even though I only started owning this identity well into my 20s, when the tapes reappeared. I now understand my panic over losing the tapes underpinned a deeper panic, over losing myself. Examining how my father saw me through the videos, and how I saw myself through the videos, have helped me consider how I want to be seen today, and in the future. SEAL pays homage to that journey.