You know how on Oprah when she’s interviewing someone who just dropped 150 pounds, she’ll ask, “What was your ah-hah moment, the moment you decided to take action?” Like Jeopardy, I shout out the answer before the contestant: “What is a photograph!”
Sure enough, The Photograph taken of her at a party, wearing stripes that go the wrong way, and spandex stretch pants that accentuate the plate of food on her lap, is plastered on a giant screen and the audience gasps and then applauds. The interviewee sensory overloads, first from visual humiliation, then auditory congratulations, and dabs her giant tears with a tissue.
Sometimes I walk around my house with a camera and take pictures. I’m running my own little HGTV before and after movie in my head. I photograph pockets of what my friend Ann calls House Blindness — when you get used to living with something ugly. Then I clean them up and take “after pictures” and feel good about myself.
Ann’s boyfriend, Dana, solved a problem to the unfinished deck in her backyard by putting an upside down bucket to make a temporary step. She said, “Don’t put that there.” He said, “What? Then when people go in and out they don’t have to strain themselves climbing up onto the deck.” Ann said, “I know, but that’s how people get house blindness. Next thing you know, we’ll get used to using the bucket as a step and it will seem like the deck is finished. We’ll become blind to it. Subconsciously, building the step will get scratched off our to-do list.”
Nothing like still photography to open your eyes to what you or your house or your life has become. I clicked on the “Photo Booth” software on my Mac that sits on a table in my bedroom. I hate how I look through that tiny little lens on my monitor. It’s never flattering. When did I get all these wrinkles that make me look angry when I’m not?
But this time, it was what was behind me that made me feel old. Over my shoulder was a section of my bedroom. My unmade bed exposed a heating pad I slept on last night to loosen up my stiff shoulders that rebel against cold weather louder and earlier each winter. On the nightstand was a tube of arnica ointment for sore muscles and joints, a jar of progesterone cream, a bottle of chaste berry tablets that I’m supposed to take in the morning to balance my hormones, and a box of Q-tips, because somewhere between 40 and 46 my sinuses started leaking into my eustachian tubes at night while I sleep. It’s not as sexy as it sounds.
It’s the only thing that leaks so far. Maybe I should post this picture on the internet. One day I’ll look back and say, “Wow, I had it good back then.”
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