Autumn. Back to school. And, sure as No. 2 pencils and spiffy new backpacks, Picture Day is not too far around the corner. Already I cringe. Maybe it’s because of my own Picture Day fiascos at the hands of my two aunts who channeled their inner beauticians for the occasion—every time with disastrous results. I still can’t look at a package of hard pink rollers without shivering.
But let’s be frank. Even gorgeous kids can look butt ugly in a school portrait. But for a kid like Cristina—with a lazy eye, thick glasses and little patience—the risk of a photographic disaster is considerably higher. And this year, because Cristina is graduating high school, we face a school picture on steroids: the senior portrait.
Unless I want a blank spot over her name in the senior yearbook, like something out of the Witness Protection Program, I have to start planning.
The trouble I’ve always had with school pictures is the public humiliation aspect. They get propped up in offices, whipped out of wallets when you’re talking to strangers and pasted into glittery holiday ornaments that will never, ever go away. Even if you stick them at the back of the Christmas tree, they find their way back to the front. And they show all the visual quirks, but never the caption for your very complicated kid.
The senior portrait? Even worse. They put them in yearbooks that people pay big bucks to own. It’s mailed to faraway relatives who have no other means to gauge how your child is really doing—how you’re doing. Good or bad, it defines how others see her. Does she look happy, alert? Is there hope shining in her eyes? Will she be okay? For 12 years, I’ve tried to find the right recipe to ensure a decent school picture.
Definitely, no curlers. Instead, I get her a trendy haircut and beg her to keep the hair out of her eyes. I peruse her closet for hours searching for just the right clothes that say, “I’m cool … just ordinary, see?” It’s an impulse strangely at odds with my slavish love for people who make their own style. When Cristina was in elementary school, I lobbied for a portrait sitting during the first five minutes of school—heck, even before school—knowing that, by 10 a.m., she’d already be uncombed and probably stained with blueberry yogurt and glue. When she was in middle school—when acne pocked her face and braces caught the glare of the camera—I checked the photo-enhancement option and hoped for the best. But nothing could really prevail over the days when Cristina was simply not in the mood to hold her head just so. A scowl was the dominating feature of those photos. Not even the teeny picture frame made of green and red Chex cereal made it pretty.
This year, though, it’ll be different. It’s the Last Picture Day. In a way, I’m doing a happy dance. The senior portrait, at last, means perks in exchange for those hefty photo package prices: Two whole hours to warm up to the photographer. Three outfit changes, which virtually guarantee no visible stains on her clothes.
But guess what? Now that it’s ending, I’m sort of nostalgic for all those raised-in-the-wild snapshots (yes, even the one where she took off her headband and let her bangs stand on end, like a lion’s mane).
I think what’s happening is that I finally have the right lens up to my eyes. It’s the viewfinder that comes to us as our kids hit their milestones in their own way and time. Ready or not, the day I’ve hoped for and feared is here: Cristina is getting ready to graduate high school. The world says she’s grown and ready to be part of the adult game. She has thick glasses and a big smile and enough sass in her personality to light up Dallas. If it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then I know three of them: We made it.
