Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Face Time
I looked at every picture a dozen times. Scrolled right then left, trying to find one that was more flattering, as my mother would say. “That dress is very flattering on you.”
I wanted a flattering picture but there wasn’t one in the bunch. We’d even had a professional photographer come and take pictures of all of us, my four children and their kids and loved ones. It was a tremendously rare event, all of us in one place, and, for once, I wanted it captured. I wanted us to be all together in a family picture, a nontraditional family in a traditional photograph that would hang on my wall until the movers came after the estate sale.
I thought I looked great that day. In the way that I always think I’m thinner and better looking than I actually am, I went to the park thinking I look pretty good, I feel great, these are going to be great pictures. We are all, my whole family, so ‘smart and good looking’ as my father would say. It was his ultimate compliment. Words to live by for me. I want, wanted nothing more than to be smart and good looking.
So when I saw the pictures of me and my husband, I was disappointed. Not only did reality not line up once again with my foolish mind’s eye, I seemed, for the first time, I seemed old.
Right away, I thought to myself, why couldn’t the photographer have taken a more flattering shot. Why couldn’t she have positioned me somehow so my deep wrinkles weren’t so obvious, couldn’t she have smoothed them somehow, made me look less worn, made the photograph match who I think I am?
Then I looked again and thought, looked.
This is who you are now, Jan. This is who you are. There isn’t a thought or worry or decision that didn’t leave its tracks on your face. The million times you laughed at your husband’s songs are there, too. The rebukes and returns of your children, the thousand raised eyebrows, none of it passed without leaving a trail. What did you think would come of all these years?
This is who you are now, Jan. Take a good picture so you remember.
11 Comments on “Face Time”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I will copy those last two paragraphs on a piece of paper and tack the paper to the bulletin board on the wall above my computer.
<3
i think it’s such a beautiful shot of each and every one of you, including you, yes, you.
You all look like a family who are happy to be together.
What I love is the touch that is so clear in both pictures, no one is afraid of touching each other, comfortable being with each other.. family!
Reblogged this on Red's Wrap.
You are beautiful! You are human. I envy the deep wisdom that comes along with age. Thanks for sharing!
I hate the need to feel pretty, to constantly reinforce and be reinforced in it; this constant and now futile searching for a picture that tells us we look like we once did — or like Helen Mirren does now after a really good makeup and lighting job. We get old. Our flesh falls into ruin. But still it gives and receives pleasure and carries us through work and love. I don’t trust what we think we see when we read character into the faces we see. But oh, we can say, she’s lived.
I think you’re beautiful! And very photogenic. I’ve found that pictures of me that I dislike at first viewing often appear flattering after a few years have passed. Like you I always have this image of myself as being much younger, thinner, lovelier than I end up looking in my photos. Aren’t we lucky to have such positive body images? Again, you are beautiful!
Before I read your words, I looked at that photo and thought, “I want to be like Jan when I grow up,” because your face is just so beautiful – yes, visually lovely, but also as Vanessa said before me, full of strength and conviction, and wisdom and humor. Then of course, all of that comes through in the words as well.
And your family? Wonderful. That’s a fantastic photo 🙂
When I look at your photo, I see your strength and conviction. I see your certainty in what is right and what is good. I one day wear I my own strength and convictions as well as you wear yours.