Smile! Big Smile!

I had to get a head shot.

It had been a very long time, so long that I look like a different person in my last head shot. And the one before that, I looked like I was in kindergarten.

But something happened – a good thing – that required that I have a new head shot and so I called the photographer that I’ve known for thirty years. She insisted that the shot be outdoors. She had a favorite spot downtown. I wanted it to be in a park so there would be leaves in the background. She said it had to be an hour before sunset but those hours were always cloudy and sometimes rainy.

Finally, there was sun. I gave up the park idea and met her downtown. It was very cold – 35 degrees – and windy. I wore a blue sweater because my daughter who is learned in these things and never takes a bad picture told me to wear blue. “Don’t wear black, Mom,” she said, knowing that my closet is full of black clothes.

I met the photographer downtown at her favorite spot but the parking meter wouldn’t work and then she realized she’d forgotten a card for her camera and had to go fetch one and then the time was getting short because I had to go get my new implant turned on. But it was all okay because we were talking about everything, having known each other for so long, and she was telling me what to do, where to look, and always, again and again, to smile, which I never do in photos. But there was something about the sun and the wind and her telling me to smile more that just made me forget about myself.

There were a lot of great photos but this is one of my favorites. It isn’t terrible to be 75, sometimes it’s a joyous, beautiful thing. I’m glad that feeling, fleeting as it often is, got captured on film.