Who are these people and what are they doing in my blog?
DATE: May 1981
OCCASION: My mother's second wedding.
LOCATION: Eastern Shore, MD.
PERSONNEL (from left to right):
Mom: Barely 31 years old. Obscuring new husband's mother.
Grandfather: Looking pleased. The bridegroom had a reputation as a good guy. Even though he had spent the year before the wedding happily unemployed, lifting weights in the Little House, and waiting for my mother to come home from work and make dinner (though perhaps this view is a little one-sided).
Me: Eleven. And a half. Wearing my mother's dress
Best friend (from ages 8 - 14): Total support. Very funny. We went from childhood to rebellious adolescence together, from dancing around her living room listening to "Goofy Gold" to sneaking cigarettes and chugging 7-oz Budweisers. I miss her.
Cousin: Seven years old. Now an Episcopal minister. I haven't seen or spoken with her since my first wedding in late 1995. Our mothers don't speak either.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Here's a better look at ...
The car: Then-stepfather's 1968 (?) Oldsmobile Cutlass, permanently awaiting a paint job. I hated that #%*& thing, though it did get us from Point A to Point B.
Yeah, I've been going through my boxes of life detritus, old photos, letters, embarrassingly boy-crazy journals. The process has has brought up thoughts about friendship, loss, and connection. This picture stuck out, less for the time and situation (which, wonderfully, have lost their power for me) but for the strange posed/not posed quality of it, and for the relationships that have slipped away.
There's the next post, though I'm not sure where I'm going with it. And hopefully fiction will be returning when my writing class starts up again next month, or even sooner if I can pull it off.