It's amazing, all the things you've said about us
It's amazing, and true.
And it's amazing that I can still sing this song so simply about you.
Because, after all, it is just one of those things.
I remember the snapping feeling and the flood of understanding. I remember the bitter and cynical power it afforded me, the power to look back and scorn my own actions and yours. For a few days, I stayed that way, confident that this was the new me and that I'd finally struggled off of the plateau I'd been bogged down on for so long.
And all it took was one song and one sermon to shake me, one song and one sermon to call attention to the beautiful flaw in my reasoning: I am not that person. I am not that cold, I am not that harsh.
If you are like me, admitting that you were mistaken is no easy task. I admit that I fight against it at times, struggling to retain some sense of right even if I'm proven wrong. And so I struggled against myself, saying that I was reverting and I couldn't go back to this. But the seed was planted, and I couldn't ignore what grew from it.
I realized this: anybody can be a cynic. Anybody can harden themselves to others and scoff at cliched and gooey memories, thoughts, and actions. Anybody can criticize, anybody can hurt. There's no challenge in that for many of us.
The challenge lies instead in knowing our mistakes and accepting ourselves and each other anyway. The challenge comes in letting go without burning what's behind you. The challenge is not to hurt, but to heal.
"You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember. Think of the vine that curls from the small square plot that was once my heart. That is the only marker you need. Move on. Walk on into the light."
Because, after all, it is just one of those things.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
For our musicians
I wrote this about a year ago, on a random spur of energy. I rediscovered it earlier this afternoon and thought, what the heck, why not post it. Hope you enjoy.
The great pacific beast hulked blackly in the center of the room, gleaming superficially. Regality permeated the air around it, causing visitors to the room to fall into a hushed reverence upon setting foot on the highly polished ash floor. The beast bore a hunchback; its smooth lid was held in the air by a single, delicate stalk. Its veins and spine were visible below this sloped cover. The brass on them twinkled in anticipation for what was to come. Its teeth glittered in the bright sunlight, ebony glimmering faintly and ivory shining gaily. Three solid legs, two at the front and one at the back, held the beast up to stand proud. In front of the teeth sat a plain black stool, expectant for its master.
A young man entered the room and walked slowly to the beast. He was tall and slender, with long arms and large, slim-fingered hands. His dark brown hair was untidy and looked slightly damp, like he had just taken a shower. His face betrayed his youth; it was the face of 17-year-old, close to manhood but not quite. He had a roughly oval face with a high brow, straight nose, and almost pointed chin. The teen’s wide eyes were a dark peat brown. His gaze was thoughtful and distant but became more focused as he approached the great being and ran a single, gentle hand along its teeth, preparing himself. He sat on the bench and centered himself before the beast, closing his eyes to take a preparatory breath.
He bent his head toward the keys and began to play.
He began quietly, his notes and chords soft and gentle. But after only a moment of peaceful build-up, his playing began to escalate. Slowly, his hands moved faster and faster, arpeggios and crescendos rolling off of the keys like rain off a leaf. Below his capable hands, the beast trembled and shook, its inner hammers beating upon the veins like so many hearts. The bass notes thundered like the steps of an oncoming army, the treble notes quivered in the air to be quickly overcome by more. His quick hands flashed from one end of the piano to the other, and his knees shifted subtly below the keys as he pressed the pedals expertly.
The song he played was fast and fierce, anger swelling and ebbing within it like a storm-tossed ship. It alternately calmed and infuriated itself, one second full of pounding chords and notes and the next ambling along sweetly with a few simple presses of a key. But the overall impression of the song was one of power and beauty. Perhaps a fuming beauty, but a beauty nonetheless. The power within it was unconcealed; it even lurked behind the slower, softer parts.
Above the keys, he moved back and forth with the music, his shoulders hunching during times of tension and slumping during times of release. His face showed hints of concentration and focus, but at times it was impassive. Only his eyes belayed any sense of feeling during these random periods, sometimes staring blankly at the piano in front of him and sometimes looking down to the keys for confirmation.
An indeterminate amount of time later, the youth’s hands slowed, bringing the music to a soft, near-reluctant halt. He held the last note until it had nearly faded away completely, then pressed a pedal and pulled his hands from the piano. His previously slumped shoulders straightened, and he passed a pale hand over a face that looked more tired than it had before playing. He stood up slowly from the bench and shuffled sideways to be free of it, exiting the room without a backwards glance.
Behind him, the great black beast seemed to sit forlornly in the middle of the room, its booming voice silenced. It gradually drew its stately cover over itself again to sit in cold glory.
The great pacific beast hulked blackly in the center of the room, gleaming superficially. Regality permeated the air around it, causing visitors to the room to fall into a hushed reverence upon setting foot on the highly polished ash floor. The beast bore a hunchback; its smooth lid was held in the air by a single, delicate stalk. Its veins and spine were visible below this sloped cover. The brass on them twinkled in anticipation for what was to come. Its teeth glittered in the bright sunlight, ebony glimmering faintly and ivory shining gaily. Three solid legs, two at the front and one at the back, held the beast up to stand proud. In front of the teeth sat a plain black stool, expectant for its master.
A young man entered the room and walked slowly to the beast. He was tall and slender, with long arms and large, slim-fingered hands. His dark brown hair was untidy and looked slightly damp, like he had just taken a shower. His face betrayed his youth; it was the face of 17-year-old, close to manhood but not quite. He had a roughly oval face with a high brow, straight nose, and almost pointed chin. The teen’s wide eyes were a dark peat brown. His gaze was thoughtful and distant but became more focused as he approached the great being and ran a single, gentle hand along its teeth, preparing himself. He sat on the bench and centered himself before the beast, closing his eyes to take a preparatory breath.
He bent his head toward the keys and began to play.
He began quietly, his notes and chords soft and gentle. But after only a moment of peaceful build-up, his playing began to escalate. Slowly, his hands moved faster and faster, arpeggios and crescendos rolling off of the keys like rain off a leaf. Below his capable hands, the beast trembled and shook, its inner hammers beating upon the veins like so many hearts. The bass notes thundered like the steps of an oncoming army, the treble notes quivered in the air to be quickly overcome by more. His quick hands flashed from one end of the piano to the other, and his knees shifted subtly below the keys as he pressed the pedals expertly.
The song he played was fast and fierce, anger swelling and ebbing within it like a storm-tossed ship. It alternately calmed and infuriated itself, one second full of pounding chords and notes and the next ambling along sweetly with a few simple presses of a key. But the overall impression of the song was one of power and beauty. Perhaps a fuming beauty, but a beauty nonetheless. The power within it was unconcealed; it even lurked behind the slower, softer parts.
Above the keys, he moved back and forth with the music, his shoulders hunching during times of tension and slumping during times of release. His face showed hints of concentration and focus, but at times it was impassive. Only his eyes belayed any sense of feeling during these random periods, sometimes staring blankly at the piano in front of him and sometimes looking down to the keys for confirmation.
An indeterminate amount of time later, the youth’s hands slowed, bringing the music to a soft, near-reluctant halt. He held the last note until it had nearly faded away completely, then pressed a pedal and pulled his hands from the piano. His previously slumped shoulders straightened, and he passed a pale hand over a face that looked more tired than it had before playing. He stood up slowly from the bench and shuffled sideways to be free of it, exiting the room without a backwards glance.
Behind him, the great black beast seemed to sit forlornly in the middle of the room, its booming voice silenced. It gradually drew its stately cover over itself again to sit in cold glory.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Selective Hearing
When I found you, there was nothing to hold tight to. You left me adrift.
You'll only bleed me dry, so I'll ask you kindly to make your way.
You think it's alright--can't you feel the knife?
Pressing matters bear
If it's all or nothing, then let me go.
There is time, so much time
When push comes to shove, this is getting old.
You pray for rain, I pray for blindness
But now he lives inside someone he doesn't recognize,
We say goodnight from our own separate sides
and I'm not who I used to be.
Just because you've forgotten, that don't mean you're forgiven
I'm living in an age that calls darkness light--
Though my language is dead, still the shapes fill my head
Now that I'm older, my heart's colder,
I guess we'll just have to adjust
And I can see that it's a lie.
I try to write, but it's wrong
No one to leave the lights on
No answer
Search my face
A hopeless embrace
Let's start over again
Why can't we start it over again?
This time, we'll get it right.
I can't talk to you anymore,
and I miss you.
Set my spirit free
Set my body free
You'll only bleed me dry, so I'll ask you kindly to make your way.
You think it's alright--can't you feel the knife?
Pressing matters bear
If it's all or nothing, then let me go.
There is time, so much time
When push comes to shove, this is getting old.
You pray for rain, I pray for blindness
But now he lives inside someone he doesn't recognize,
We say goodnight from our own separate sides
and I'm not who I used to be.
Just because you've forgotten, that don't mean you're forgiven
I'm living in an age that calls darkness light--
Though my language is dead, still the shapes fill my head
Now that I'm older, my heart's colder,
I guess we'll just have to adjust
And I can see that it's a lie.
I try to write, but it's wrong
No one to leave the lights on
No answer
Search my face
A hopeless embrace
Let's start over again
Why can't we start it over again?
This time, we'll get it right.
I can't talk to you anymore,
and I miss you.
Set my spirit free
Set my body free
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Quentin
The stopgap thinking has me going again, and I'm jumping from scene to scene, skipping like a perfectly pitched stone over the smooth surface tumbled underneath pool of memory.
Sometimes, the divided walls of order fall down in my mind. Thoughts carry me from association to association suddenly, easily, and then I'm reeling back, falling in, lost again.
It was dark and humid in that room. You could smell the summer, warm and heavy, making you sticky with sweat and giving everything a damp feel. Outside, the frogs were peeping and bellowing and trumpeting in competition with the whirs of crickets and the whisper of the wind. I laid there in my bed, watching the stars from my window, waiting for the blessed breeze, and I was perfectly content, filled with a deep, quiet happiness that didn't seem to gel with the mind of a 12-year-old.
We buried her out in the back corner of my yard, right between the blackberry and blueberry bushes. Dad dug the hole deep so nothing could get at her after, and he laid her down in it wrapped in the towel she had died in. At 8 years old, death means nothing to a little girl. I knew only that she wasn't moving and her body was stiff, unnatural, all of the spark gone out of her. I wasn't crying, but my parents were. Dad loved that cat. We put lime, white lyme, on top of her first. I still don't know why. And then she was gone, only a brown dent in the ground to show anything had happened at all. I swore I could see her out my window for days after that.
I woke up in the middle of the night, my breath misting in front of me. I could feel it in the air; the charged atmosphere revealing that something had happened. I didn't have to look far. Snow hung heavy on the tree branches outside my window, frost forming lacy outlines on the glass. I didn't care that the floors were freezing on my warm bare feet. I crept downstairs and, trembling a little, opened the back door. There is no silence like the silence of snowfall. Everything was cast in blue light outside, and I caught my breath at the beauty. Only the distant voice of the wind and the soft hissing patter of snowflakes could be heard around me, and it was beautiful, the most beautiful thing I have seen yet.
We had walked for over an hour, up and down hills, pushing through bushes and around trees on the little-used path Dad had somehow found. For once, it was just the two of us. Skeleton trees danced around us, their dead orange and brown bounty crunching underfoot. The forest has a kind of noisy quiet. It feels muffled, like you're removed from the outside world. When I was younger, I would always think of the Native Americans and how they used to creep through these very woods. Echoes of that sounded now. We climbed a rise, and then we were finally there. An open field of cattails stretched the length of a football field in front of us, all two or more feet taller than I was. In a twist of picturesque fate, the sun had just begun to sink below the horizon to the west of the field, and the sky was brilliant pinks, oranges, golds, and purples. A chill in the air heralded the winter that was to come. The two of us stood there without speaking, taking in the sight of the field. "Look," my father breathed, and I followed the tip of his finger to see the arched antlers of a buck, zigzagging wildly across the field and away from us. We didn't stay long enough. I took a cattail home to show my mom, a proud trophy of what felt like an unreal adventure.
Happy trails.
Sometimes, the divided walls of order fall down in my mind. Thoughts carry me from association to association suddenly, easily, and then I'm reeling back, falling in, lost again.
It was dark and humid in that room. You could smell the summer, warm and heavy, making you sticky with sweat and giving everything a damp feel. Outside, the frogs were peeping and bellowing and trumpeting in competition with the whirs of crickets and the whisper of the wind. I laid there in my bed, watching the stars from my window, waiting for the blessed breeze, and I was perfectly content, filled with a deep, quiet happiness that didn't seem to gel with the mind of a 12-year-old.
We buried her out in the back corner of my yard, right between the blackberry and blueberry bushes. Dad dug the hole deep so nothing could get at her after, and he laid her down in it wrapped in the towel she had died in. At 8 years old, death means nothing to a little girl. I knew only that she wasn't moving and her body was stiff, unnatural, all of the spark gone out of her. I wasn't crying, but my parents were. Dad loved that cat. We put lime, white lyme, on top of her first. I still don't know why. And then she was gone, only a brown dent in the ground to show anything had happened at all. I swore I could see her out my window for days after that.
I woke up in the middle of the night, my breath misting in front of me. I could feel it in the air; the charged atmosphere revealing that something had happened. I didn't have to look far. Snow hung heavy on the tree branches outside my window, frost forming lacy outlines on the glass. I didn't care that the floors were freezing on my warm bare feet. I crept downstairs and, trembling a little, opened the back door. There is no silence like the silence of snowfall. Everything was cast in blue light outside, and I caught my breath at the beauty. Only the distant voice of the wind and the soft hissing patter of snowflakes could be heard around me, and it was beautiful, the most beautiful thing I have seen yet.
We had walked for over an hour, up and down hills, pushing through bushes and around trees on the little-used path Dad had somehow found. For once, it was just the two of us. Skeleton trees danced around us, their dead orange and brown bounty crunching underfoot. The forest has a kind of noisy quiet. It feels muffled, like you're removed from the outside world. When I was younger, I would always think of the Native Americans and how they used to creep through these very woods. Echoes of that sounded now. We climbed a rise, and then we were finally there. An open field of cattails stretched the length of a football field in front of us, all two or more feet taller than I was. In a twist of picturesque fate, the sun had just begun to sink below the horizon to the west of the field, and the sky was brilliant pinks, oranges, golds, and purples. A chill in the air heralded the winter that was to come. The two of us stood there without speaking, taking in the sight of the field. "Look," my father breathed, and I followed the tip of his finger to see the arched antlers of a buck, zigzagging wildly across the field and away from us. We didn't stay long enough. I took a cattail home to show my mom, a proud trophy of what felt like an unreal adventure.
Happy trails.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
(Untitled)
I rang, but you were not there, so I walked. Before I knew it, I settled into an easy cadence: left, left, left right left. The 5 count step I've known for years now.
The cadence was natural. It echoed effortlessly in back of my thoughts, ordering them, keeping them as short and simple as the sound of my feet on the sidewalk. 1, 2, 1 2 3. Trees, sky, green wet grass. Kids, bikes, happy young shouts.
When I walk that way, I feel like I can go on forever. My mind shies away from setting a destination--do not pass--or thinking how far I have left to go--you're always going home. I ache for the tunneled backroads of my old home, silent trees pressing in on both sides, faded yellow stripe. They gave the illusion that escape was at least possible. Here, among the identical houses and manicured lawns, I don't even try to pretend I can get away. I just count cadence.
Left
left
left right left
I pass over drain covers (Russco--cruel joke) and through puddles, my feet slapping solidly against the wet ground. 1, 2, 3 4 your left. The frown is between my eyes again, my brow drawn low. Brooding, it would seem. But the cadence keeps me from dwelling, keeps me moving straight ahead. I turn the plastic rectangle in my hand off so its silence doesn't bother me so.
Somewhere around halfway through my aimless walk, I realize that the steady cadence is a trick to keep me from thinking too hard. To wonder what I'm hiding from runs me up against a steel wall in my head, my own mind pushing back my probing conscience.
So this is denial.
I pass the street she always stopped at--left--the spot we saw a hot air balloon--left--the gazebo I cried in--left right--the gorged and rushing creek--left.
And I wonder if this looks more like sanity or insanity, dementia or control.
Still I count cadence. Still I walk forward.
The cadence was natural. It echoed effortlessly in back of my thoughts, ordering them, keeping them as short and simple as the sound of my feet on the sidewalk. 1, 2, 1 2 3. Trees, sky, green wet grass. Kids, bikes, happy young shouts.
When I walk that way, I feel like I can go on forever. My mind shies away from setting a destination--do not pass--or thinking how far I have left to go--you're always going home. I ache for the tunneled backroads of my old home, silent trees pressing in on both sides, faded yellow stripe. They gave the illusion that escape was at least possible. Here, among the identical houses and manicured lawns, I don't even try to pretend I can get away. I just count cadence.
Left
left
left right left
I pass over drain covers (Russco--cruel joke) and through puddles, my feet slapping solidly against the wet ground. 1, 2, 3 4 your left. The frown is between my eyes again, my brow drawn low. Brooding, it would seem. But the cadence keeps me from dwelling, keeps me moving straight ahead. I turn the plastic rectangle in my hand off so its silence doesn't bother me so.
Somewhere around halfway through my aimless walk, I realize that the steady cadence is a trick to keep me from thinking too hard. To wonder what I'm hiding from runs me up against a steel wall in my head, my own mind pushing back my probing conscience.
So this is denial.
I pass the street she always stopped at--left--the spot we saw a hot air balloon--left--the gazebo I cried in--left right--the gorged and rushing creek--left.
And I wonder if this looks more like sanity or insanity, dementia or control.
Still I count cadence. Still I walk forward.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
It's not retreat, it's walking away.
We are here again, and this time, it's dark. That awful wind tears and claws at my skin and clothes, invisible whips lashing us mercilessly. Overhead, the moon is sickly and thin, but it casts an unnatural light, pallid and stark. There are no stars. The sky is the color of blackest charcoal ink, the eerie moonlight my only illumination.
The surface we stand on is solid shale, slate-blue and unyielding. The precipice hangs suspended over a yawning canyon, as dark as the sky overhead. There is no returning from a drop so final. Your heels are only an arm's length away from the edge, your back to the gaping abyss. The wind shrieks and howls, furious at everything and nothing.
Your eyes are lifeless. You do not look at me, but through me, as if I do not exist. Your face is blank, not written with anger, sadness, sobriety, or anything else at all. It is the face of a dead man.
And I'm screaming I'm yelling I'm shouting at you, waving my arms and shaking my fists and contorting my face, rooted firmly to the spot but aching to move anyway and shaking from the strain of holding still. The wind, the angry, hate-filled wind, snatches the words from my mouth as soon as they're formed, scattering them everywhere to rest in pieces at the bottom of the trench you balance so precariously on. My words fall like so many useless matches, meant to ignite an argument or a discussion or anything, but burned out before they even get going. They fall as if they mean nothing, for, truly, they do. You do not hear.
My anger gives way to a sadness so deep and complete that I don't know what to call it, much less where it came from or what I should do. I cannot bear this, not anymore. I bury my head in burning hands as my shoulders shake, and I am lost. You're still unmoving, though I am gone for many long moments. I mourn the past, the present, and what I now know cannot be. I mourn the future I can't have and all the effort I spent trying to reach it. I mourn you, even though you're a yard away. The wind buffets my immobile body. The moon looks on in cold disregard. And still, you look through me.
When I finally look up again, it is to see that you haven't changed, and now, at last, resolve hardens within me. I say your name a final time, and now you're moving. A single step back.
We lock eyes in the final instant, and in that split second, I think I see a flicker of something--remorse? anger? relief? guilt?--but then you are gone, disappeared, swallowed by the gaping maw of the abyss.
The wind suddenly halts, the newfound silence complete, broken only by the sound of footsteps as I leave the jagged point and unsettling night behind.
The surface we stand on is solid shale, slate-blue and unyielding. The precipice hangs suspended over a yawning canyon, as dark as the sky overhead. There is no returning from a drop so final. Your heels are only an arm's length away from the edge, your back to the gaping abyss. The wind shrieks and howls, furious at everything and nothing.
Your eyes are lifeless. You do not look at me, but through me, as if I do not exist. Your face is blank, not written with anger, sadness, sobriety, or anything else at all. It is the face of a dead man.
And I'm screaming I'm yelling I'm shouting at you, waving my arms and shaking my fists and contorting my face, rooted firmly to the spot but aching to move anyway and shaking from the strain of holding still. The wind, the angry, hate-filled wind, snatches the words from my mouth as soon as they're formed, scattering them everywhere to rest in pieces at the bottom of the trench you balance so precariously on. My words fall like so many useless matches, meant to ignite an argument or a discussion or anything, but burned out before they even get going. They fall as if they mean nothing, for, truly, they do. You do not hear.
My anger gives way to a sadness so deep and complete that I don't know what to call it, much less where it came from or what I should do. I cannot bear this, not anymore. I bury my head in burning hands as my shoulders shake, and I am lost. You're still unmoving, though I am gone for many long moments. I mourn the past, the present, and what I now know cannot be. I mourn the future I can't have and all the effort I spent trying to reach it. I mourn you, even though you're a yard away. The wind buffets my immobile body. The moon looks on in cold disregard. And still, you look through me.
When I finally look up again, it is to see that you haven't changed, and now, at last, resolve hardens within me. I say your name a final time, and now you're moving. A single step back.
We lock eyes in the final instant, and in that split second, I think I see a flicker of something--remorse? anger? relief? guilt?--but then you are gone, disappeared, swallowed by the gaping maw of the abyss.
The wind suddenly halts, the newfound silence complete, broken only by the sound of footsteps as I leave the jagged point and unsettling night behind.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Stolen Memory
I have this picture that I found a few weeks ago that feels important to me, even though it doesn't have anybody I know in it, even though I had never seen it before I set eyes on it under the humming florescent lights of a Wal-Mart in Lisbon, Connecticut. I wasn't even alive when it was taken.
It's a clumsy, all-American Christmas shot in black and white, three little girls and their teenage brother next to a squat, heavily tinseled tree. The boy is the only one not looking at the camera, his head tilted at an angle, his eyes not fully open. Judging by the half a smirk on his face, he wasn't completely ready for the shot. He looks awkwardly sincere in his plaid button down and crew cut. The martyred expression on his face is one I've seen a thousand other times in a thousand other family shots, almost always worn by the oldest child. I wonder whether he was exasperated by his parent's insistent behests--"Put your arm around your sister, there we go. Now smile and say 'Merry Christmas!'" I can almost hear them in the background, timeless.
Right below him is the smallest of the sisters, her face split by a huge grin and her brown hair in a bob. She holds a baby doll in her lap, maybe her first present of the morning, maybe her treasured companion. She looks like she could be someone's kid cousin; that innocent cuteness and infectious smile.
In the middle is the oldest of the sisters, but she looks the least like the others. The lower half of her face is obscured by a small doll, only the slightest corner of her Mona Lisa smile showing. She's pale in the eye of the camera, and her hair looks like it could have been light brown or dark blond. She's wearing some sort of shawl over her head, white to match her simple dress. She fits and yet doesn't fit in the picture, different from the others but still part of the family.
And finally, the 4th sibling half kneels to the right, her mouth puckered as if in speech and a Ponytail Sewing Kit held out proudly in front of her. She is my favorite part of the photo. Her eyes are alive and excited, her pose as if she's about to jump up and show Mommy--look! look!--her new sewing kit. She looks like the pictures of my mom I've seen from when she was younger. Maybe that's why I was drawn to this snapshot.
Or maybe it was its crinkled, soft edges and uneven cut, or the fact that all four family members sit off-center, slightly to the left of the frame. Maybe it was the faded 1960 penciled on the back, without any other names or a place or a date. No "Mark, Suzie, Karen, and Joy, Columbus, OH." Just 1960. The carpet they kneel on attests to this date.
Maybe it was just impulse that led me to pick it up in the first place, but the harder I looked at it, the more I loved this picture. It recalls countless Christmases I've experienced from more than one angle. I was once the little girl holding my favorite present out like a trophy, satisfied and triumphant. I was once the littlest person there, bottomless glee overtaking me just at the sight of the colored packages under the tree. And now I look on in an amused way as my brothers (really only Will anymore) tear through their presents, intent on opening the biggest first, then the smallest.
Over it all--the nostalgia, the curiosity--was an overwhelming sense that I had just gotten a glimpse into the past lives of these people; people who, in all likelihood, I would never meet or see as they are now. People who had gone on to grow up and get married and have children, to fulfill their dreams and meet their own failures. But I would and will never know.
And so I slid the picture from its place in the Lost and Found Photos album and into my pocket. Maybe I should have felt guilty, but instead I just felt pensive, like something greater than me had just brushed past and I missed it.
It's a clumsy, all-American Christmas shot in black and white, three little girls and their teenage brother next to a squat, heavily tinseled tree. The boy is the only one not looking at the camera, his head tilted at an angle, his eyes not fully open. Judging by the half a smirk on his face, he wasn't completely ready for the shot. He looks awkwardly sincere in his plaid button down and crew cut. The martyred expression on his face is one I've seen a thousand other times in a thousand other family shots, almost always worn by the oldest child. I wonder whether he was exasperated by his parent's insistent behests--"Put your arm around your sister, there we go. Now smile and say 'Merry Christmas!'" I can almost hear them in the background, timeless.
Right below him is the smallest of the sisters, her face split by a huge grin and her brown hair in a bob. She holds a baby doll in her lap, maybe her first present of the morning, maybe her treasured companion. She looks like she could be someone's kid cousin; that innocent cuteness and infectious smile.
In the middle is the oldest of the sisters, but she looks the least like the others. The lower half of her face is obscured by a small doll, only the slightest corner of her Mona Lisa smile showing. She's pale in the eye of the camera, and her hair looks like it could have been light brown or dark blond. She's wearing some sort of shawl over her head, white to match her simple dress. She fits and yet doesn't fit in the picture, different from the others but still part of the family.
And finally, the 4th sibling half kneels to the right, her mouth puckered as if in speech and a Ponytail Sewing Kit held out proudly in front of her. She is my favorite part of the photo. Her eyes are alive and excited, her pose as if she's about to jump up and show Mommy--look! look!--her new sewing kit. She looks like the pictures of my mom I've seen from when she was younger. Maybe that's why I was drawn to this snapshot.
Or maybe it was its crinkled, soft edges and uneven cut, or the fact that all four family members sit off-center, slightly to the left of the frame. Maybe it was the faded 1960 penciled on the back, without any other names or a place or a date. No "Mark, Suzie, Karen, and Joy, Columbus, OH." Just 1960. The carpet they kneel on attests to this date.
Maybe it was just impulse that led me to pick it up in the first place, but the harder I looked at it, the more I loved this picture. It recalls countless Christmases I've experienced from more than one angle. I was once the little girl holding my favorite present out like a trophy, satisfied and triumphant. I was once the littlest person there, bottomless glee overtaking me just at the sight of the colored packages under the tree. And now I look on in an amused way as my brothers (really only Will anymore) tear through their presents, intent on opening the biggest first, then the smallest.
Over it all--the nostalgia, the curiosity--was an overwhelming sense that I had just gotten a glimpse into the past lives of these people; people who, in all likelihood, I would never meet or see as they are now. People who had gone on to grow up and get married and have children, to fulfill their dreams and meet their own failures. But I would and will never know.
And so I slid the picture from its place in the Lost and Found Photos album and into my pocket. Maybe I should have felt guilty, but instead I just felt pensive, like something greater than me had just brushed past and I missed it.
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