Learning Life's Lenses

When I was 12 years-old, back in the day, taking the bus with your best friend downtown to the Woolworths on 16th Street was a major event for a girl growing up in Denver. When that enormous Woolworths was built in the 60's, one block long and one block wide, you could spend a whole afternoon in there wandering around, exploring, eating, and having fun before it was time to turn around and catch the bus back home.  If you were lucky enough to have a quarter left over after bus-fare & a hoagie, then you might indulge in one of the most amazing experiences of all mankind, the Photomaton. 

Somewhere in various closets, boxes & scrapbooks, there are strips of black & white photos where my smiles, silly expressions & youth are frozen in time...not many but some.  After all, a quarter was a lot of money, back in the day, and you really had to think twice before indulging in such an extravagance.

Last night, barely 9 hours ago, I found myself sitting, I mean, standing (no seat),  in a Photomaton; not at Woolsworths, or an airport, or even the old  Elitch Gardens, but at a wedding, in the foyer of a synagogue, no less.  My future daughter-in-law, KatieE (to differentiate from KatieA, my current daughter-in-law) had enticed me in, dressed us both up in ridiculous props, and together we posed making the silliest expressions we could muster together without cracking up. This modern photomaton had a choice of either color OR black & white pictures, but KatieE picked black & white and in a few minutes the nice lady running the laptop (no developing chemical smells anymore) handed us our strip of poses.

There they were, the four little vertically arranged squares of frozen time. Me, a grandma in a sombrero, giving the camera my best Jodi expression (my baby sister's notoriously outlandish face scrunch guaranteed to make our mother laugh out loud) cheek-to-cheek with my beautiful future daughter-in-law, rolling our eyes together in a mutual conspiracy of hilarity. 

Did I look utterly ridiculous, outrageous & totally embarrass myself?

I sure did!

Did I behave in a manner not befitting a woman of my maturity?

Yes.

Did I care?

Not in the least.

And do you know why? Because in my heart and mind, I really wasn't focused on the camera lens which was focused on me. I was focused on memorizing those precious, cherished minutes with KatieE, in the booth, acting silly together and having fun.

I wanted to visualize the promise of a beautiful future together for her and my youngest son, not just in those wonderful, four fleeting snapshots of black & white time frozen on a strip of paper, but through the lens of my mind's eye where unpretentious, yet brilliantly vivid hues of joy, love & hope reside securely in my soul.