photographs

Nghiem posted a set of pictures of himself, tracing his 30 years. I was looking at them, touched and fascinated at how he evolves and how some things are so constant in his expression. So I started thinking whether or not I could post 42 pictures of myself. And I realized that entire chunks of my life are "missing." I hated to have my picture taken and would not willingly allow it. I have only one photograph from four years at Vassar; my friend Meredith had taken some of me, standing smoking outside the music building, but I lost them. My high-school years are largely undocumented. My father used to take lots of pictures of me and my brother and sister, but after he left that stopped. So now I try to remember how I might appear in a photograph from age fifteen, or seventeen, and I don't really remember. Or twenty-one. Only in recent years have I had an interest in taking pictures of myself, perhaps to document who I was and who I am, before I disappear forever.