Dear Photo of My Grandmother in Which She Scratched Out Her Own Face,
You lived in a shoebox on the top shelf of my grandmother’s closet in the senior living apartment. One day my sister and I were visiting her there and she brought the whole box down and while the box was full, you were the one I remember, Photo.
You held both her and her sister, you captured a moment in which they were young women standing on a sunny doorstep somewhere in Boston. The sun slanted in a little too strongly – am I getting this right, Photo? – and long before that moment in her tiny apartment, maybe just after you were snapped, she had taken a pin and scratched out her own face. When she saw you she ran her arthritic finger over your bald patch and said, “I did that,” before moving on to the next.
Did it hurt, Photo? Maybe not so much in nerve endings but in betrayal? Do you feel a kinship with your subjects, a protective responsibility for their image, do you cringe when they can’t even look at their own face? Does a photo feel shame or grief when people can’t bear to look at them and turn them to a wall or a tabletop? Do you wish people could just appreciate the truth of what you show, own the moment for better or for worse?
Most importantly, can you tell me why she did that? Was it the moment she hated, was it a memory, was it the photographer, was it something she saw in her face? Do all people go through a period when their face repulses them? Do all women? All women I know, all women who share my last name?
I should have asked her at the time, though I doubt she would have told me. I don’t know where you went, Photo. I don’t know where any of your kind went. I would have loved to have you. I would put you in a beautiful box and keep the box somewhere safe.
Stay mysterious,
-e.