Get in the picture
(You're worth it).
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In college, a new friend of mine asked when my mom died.
I was surprised by the question because my mother wasn’t dead at all, she was very much alive in Minneapolis, or so I assumed (I could only call her a few times a week with my phone card).
It was an honest question, explained by the fact that in all my framed family photos, my mother was nowhere to be found. She was taking the photos, capturing the evidence of the holiday magic she’d orchestrated. We didn’t have smartphones to take selfies, and maybe her camera had a timer but who could risk the cost of wasting a few shots on a roll of film? Gas was over a dollar a gallon!!!
In nearly all the photos from my childhood, my mother was behind the camera, out of the picture like so many other women. Someone has to take the picture, right?
Last weekend in Vegas I made it a point to ask everyone taking a photo of their family if they wanted me to take the picture. Sure, you might be able to get a good selfie with most of your faces in the Bellagio lobby, but wouldn’t you rather hand your phone to a complete stranger who will tell you all where to look and when, and leave you with 10-15 options to choose from?
The answer was yes, 100% of the time.
I took photos of elderly couples, families with several children, newlyweds, a couple single guys, and lots and lots of women who had been trying to get photos of everyone else in their family.
What can I say? I’m the hero everyone1 has been waiting for!
On Thanksgiving night, as I was struggling to fit our family of 6 into a selfie, the valets at the MGM grand asked if they could take a picture for us, and I was thrilled. They took at least a dozen photos, cajoling our youngest to stop hiding behind my legs and our oldest to stand up straight.
And they took this, which I am keeping.
Look how sweet they are, two silly gooses doing a favor for a mom and taking a lil selfie together! It’s such a strange and scary and unsettling time and when it feels like the social fabric is fraying at the seams it really is the smallest things that seem to stitch us closer together: a small favor for a stranger, a camera roll photo bomb.
A lot of people don’t like photos of themselves: they don’t like how they look, or they’re afraid other people don’t like how they look, or they’re afraid that liking how they look and documenting their existence is vain or shallow.
But life is so short and our memories are so fragile, and your brief and brilliant presence on this earth is worth the storage space on your phone or in the cloud or wherever these pictures end up2.
You don’t have to like the photos; the people who love you will do that for you. Even if you think your chin looks weird or you hate your outfit for you think you used to be hotter (you’re hot right now).
And even if you’re the only one who ever sees them, it is worth getting in the picture.
xo,
Nora
I was a guest on The Stacks, one of my favorite podcasts!!!
I’m working on new episodes of The Podcast and I want to talk about things that are not just terrible, including (but not limited to!) The Martha Stewart Doc, the Lisa Frank doc, the Girls Gone Wild Doc, whatever is on YOUR mind right now…wanna talk on the phone with me? Go here.
Happyish Holidays was this week and I HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE! If you missed it, paid subscribers can get access to a replay of the livestream below.
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