Today is a fabulous day in the Glenn household. It is Picture Day!! The girls and I both love picture day it's almost like playing dress-up. We pick out clothes the night before, decide on the pose together, and sometimes sleep in curlers or braids for a more flouncy hairstyle. Then we get up early to make sure we have enough time to get it all right, practice our smiles, pin-up our hair, and throw on a little lip shimmer for good measure. We love being girls. I have to admit the girls were quite glossy and smiley when they pranced out of the house this morning and I can't wait to see the results in a few weeks. Only if we could be assured that the camera would capture our best moment and leave our worst undeveloped.
It was 1987 I am ten years old. I was such an adorable ten-year-old; a few missing teeth, and others (of the adult variety) that were too big for my face, but overall a fifth grade hottie. Also, I had a rockin' closet due to my mother's diva issues. She took my sisters and I major overhaul shopping at the beginning of each school year- you know the purging and rebuilding of a wardrobe. So my cuteness was only enhanced by a very "Modonna-ish" au courant attire- you know leg warmers, bangles, jellies, and oversized shirts with funky belts the whole nine yards. Predictably, I received several check yes or no love letters since the start of fifth grade. Ahhh, this was a good year... that is until the "incident" a picture day never to be forgotten.
I loved being a Girl Scout, learning clever songs, doing silly little tasks to earn badges, and camping. It was during a Girl Scout camping trip that I happened to share a hiding place with a cozy batch of poison ivy. And it's just like this plant variety to be true to its reputation. My hands and arms became covered with oozing blisters that itched so bad I had to scratch although I was warned not to. This, of course, caused the rash to spread to my face. My mother and all her "education is the most important thing" ideas left me to a merciless fate. I showed up for school with my face looking as if I had participated in a failed medical study and lo and behold all my admirers vanished. You can't depend on those fickle ten-year-old boys. My face was covered in pink splotches (calamine lotion was supposed to help dry up the oozing) that hardly concealed the crusty blisters surrounding the features of my face. The eruptions had spread to the corners of my mouth, which made it difficult to open my mouth wide enough to speak. Not only was I a freak, I was a mute freak. Oh, but to make matters worse I am able to remind myself of this experience any time I choose. As it so happened, this day was picture day and the photographer did a brilliant job of immortalizing this memory onto film then paper for all remembrance. A class picture, to be exact, and I was ushered right to the front lines, another consequence of my short stature, looking very flustered with a crooked smile. The truth is that memory along with the name-calling and teasing that followed is one of my worst. I hated that picture for years, but now at age 31 I love it. It reminds me truly of what it was like in the fifth grade and how fragile my girl's egos can be. I wish I had a scanner and I would post it for all to see. That picture captured a moment in my life, but it did not define it. We all grow and change through the years and we must take the good with the bad and appreciate all the experiences, because they collectively make us who we are.
That is why my girls and I love picture day and even if they come out bad we never do a retake we relish in who we are today and who we were yesterday. Jon loves looking through the lens of a camera, and he has always taken many pictures of me some are beautiful and some torturous. I used to beg him to destroy all the "ugly" ones and he would look at me with disgust and say, "No, they look like you." I would get red in the face and my feelings would be crushed, but I understand now that he meant he wanted to look back and remember me "real me", "everyday me", and I can't always hide behind a pretty smile. The truth is I don't smile everyday- somedays I have an oozing rash.
Ciao, Areli
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You write nice stuff, hon. I didn't know all this about you. more please.
ReplyDeleteGeez, I get to writing and grammatical law is thrown out the window. There must be 50 run on sentences and misplaced commas in this piece. Good thing no English majors will be reading it... Oh wait a minute. I love you Cinta; be gentle.
ReplyDeleteI have no English comments as I, happily, am not a grammarian. I do however love the story of your poison ivy misery since I had a similar experience. Except on my butt and inner thighs which was an absolute joy. I am sure your girls are old pros at the picture thing. I want one.
ReplyDeleteThat was a really cute post. I have had some crazy picture incidents too.. There were two that I remember that were particularly bad. I was warming up before a softball game and a girl (that I wasn't playing catch with) threw a wild ball and it hit my face. It broke my eye socket.. you can feel the divet in my socket later if you want ha. Anyway.. I played the game anyway after some ice.. I slid. So I had some red stains.. I had some grass stains as well. So of course it was picture dayand for some reason it was after the game. So.. I had a black eye, a fat lip, a sore on my leg and red dirt from sliding, and some grass stains.. what a great memory from 5th grade softball.
ReplyDeleteThe second picture I don't remember too much about it.. I look pretty cute tho. I think I was in second or something like that.. It was early 90s so I of course had my hair in a pony-tail pulled to the side with a huge yellow scrunchy and a purple shirt on. Very Very mismatched.. ha.
I love pictures. Even "bad" ones. (We just won't print those haha)