There Is No Perfect Version

So, let me take the damn picture.

I have been irritated and amused since I began taking photos to accompany my newspaper articles at the ridiculous reactions of so many women and perhaps, the occasional man, who resist having their pictures taken. The women who downright refuse and then the ones who delay the photo shoot and keep one to twenty other people waiting while they touch up their hair and makeup.

What is that all about?

Well, I think I’ve made a breakthrough in why they are so reluctant to have their image recorded for history. It centers around a lousy self-image and the belief that they are not in the perfect state, so therefore cannot be captured on celluloid – excuse me, I lapsed into another time – I mean digitized.

The ladies are always waiting to lose a few pounds or for the effects of the miracle facial treatments to take effect. God forbid that the face they carry around day after day be frozen and put into picture albums or posted online.

Do they forget WE can SEE them? Should we cover our eyes? Look away in disgust at the creature that exists before us? Lamely agree to take pictures of everyone else at a family gathering except them? I don’t think so.

Someone needs to say – get over it! This is you, the woman who exists now. We are not horrified by your appearance.

You have to wonder about the honeymoons or family vacations that have occurred with this personality type. Did they come home from Cancun with only pictures of their husbands or boyfriends? When they cruised with three best friends, was this woman excluded from the pictures? Seriously?

So, to all you readers who have done this, I beg you to reconsider your behavior. Frankly, it is silly, selfish and indicates an ugly self-image you shouldn’t want anyone to buy into with you.

Smile. You’re on Candid Camera. Now, get over it.

Invisible Wondrous Things

My mother collected the three “cones” shown in the picture. They are actually the fruit of a magnolia tree, in various stages. To the left appear the unopened fruit pods. In the middle, the actual fruit – that look like red berries have popped out and finally at the right, all that remains is the vessel for the fruit.

I find these cones and the progression they represent fascinating, and indeed, wondrous. There is so much we are surrounded by daily that engenders wonder if we let it. Our lives are so busy that I fear we miss most of what’s around us.

I was walking down the sidewalk outside the building I work in and looking around, noticing that the gutters look like they are one piece but are actually in eight foot sections and that there are drag marks on the sidewalk where the local restaurateurs have dragged their garbage, leaving a trail behind. The leaves left an interesting pattern by the front door. Suddenly, I stopped and realized that I had recorded all this information unconsciously and puzzled over it. I wondered if everyone notices things like this but just never talks about it or if I do because I’m a writer and observant by nature.

Then I thought that one of the saddest things in the world is that we are so bunged up in our daily lives – all the silly trials, tribulations and unnecessary crap that we accept as necessary without thought – that we lose touch with everything good around us. It also serves to insulate us from the bad as well. We become cocooned and unable to perceive or feel. How much of this is biological? How much environmental?

Are we driven to ignore our surroundings and the minor miracles in order to focus on getting that bonus, raise or big house? Has evolution moved us out of the constantly alert because we no longer need to fear our environment so intensely? Or is that simply a mirage, and the truth is that we must be more vigilant against attack, vehicles, and lurking financial disasters?

Interesting questions, I think. However, the bigger issue is how much alienation from all the wonder that surrounds us every single moment are we willing to accept?