Say Cheeeese

Point made.

My phone rang tonight, and of course I didn’t reach it in time.  I never do.  I’m not one of those people who carry their phone on their person, so by the time I got up to find it the Apple crickets had stopped chirping and the missed call notice displayed on my home screen.  This time the missed call was from my son’s high school and the ensuing voicemail from the principal told me tomorrow is picture day.  My son may wear whatever he wants on top but adhere to the uniform policy on the bottom.  And, I was instructed by the mass message, he is to show up with a smile on his face.

I called upstairs and asked him what he wanted to wear so I could at least iron one item of clothing for him this semester, and it took him about 30 seconds to bring me his favorite t-shirt.  Thirty seconds.

For me school picture day was about as stressful as going to the eye doctor.  And if you know me in the very least you know the eye doctor is about as stressful as it gets for me.  Probe me, prod me, smash me, stick me, I can handle it.  But pull up a chair on the other side of the blue light and I get cold sweats and have to breathe deeply.  Yeah, that about sums up how I felt on school picture day.

The idea of having to sit on a stool while a strange man told me where to look and tried to convince me to smile by saying a silly word, well, I was having none of that.  Who was he to think he could get me to speak out loud?  And it was all so fast.  There was never a second chance.  In the early years I needed all the second chances I could get.  I never had very many new clothes and the haircuts were homemade.  And why were pictures always taken right after lunch or recess?  This mouth-breather looked a fright in most every shot.  See above.

In later years I agonized over my clothes and hair, because those pictures were published in an eternal yearbook to be dragged out at every high school reunion, and those intermittent years when you can’t put a face to a name.  Those years were a little better, but never quite right.  Like I said, no second chances.

What is it about getting my picture taken that is so unnerving to me?  Candid snapshots or group photos aren’t nearly as distressing as portraits, but even those make me want to retch.  I’d rather look in a mirror than at a picture of myself.  My brain can distort the mirror’s fleeting reflection to my own advantage, but a picture is honest and permanent.

And let me not forget about the dreaded trading of pictures.  Dare you ask someone you favor for a picture?  Do you have enough confidence in your own picture to give one to someone else?  And, just how many pictures can you give away before your mother finds out and realizes she has to pay for all of them?

I’m just glad that tomorrow is my son’s picture day and not mine.  I’d rather have a root canal.  No, that will be on Wednesday.  Yep, one step closer to recovering my smile for good things, but even silly words will not part my lips for pictures.