January 20, 2007
See the Flockers: India
This is the ultimate in Inaccurate Pictures:
Not only am I depicted outside, where I almost never am, surrounded by, you know, nature, which I generally have nothing to do with, but also it’s from 1993, so I weighed at least thirty pounds less than I do now. And this was before I had to start wearing glasses over my contact lenses. It really doesn’t look a thing like me–except for the hairdo, such as it is.
Yet despite what I perceive as enormous changes in my appearance over the years, people tend to recognize me. In 1991 a man who had been creeping me out in a dark bar by staring at me came up and said I had been in kindergarten–kindergarten–with his son. And about seven or eight years ago, a woman approached me after a friend’s poetry reading and said, “India?” She had been a friend in elementary school; I hadn’t seen her since then and would never have recognized her.
It must be my astonishing poise that people recognize. Not.
comments
India, are you positive that you were outside when this photo was taken? The setting suggests in the most marvelous way an updated version of certain classic nineteenth-century photo studio backdrops.
And you look so very knowing.
Well, my handlers told me I was really outside . . . How would I know the difference?
The knowing look is habitual, but it becomes more marked the more uncomfortable and out-of-place I feel.
lovely.
India, this is beautiful.
I hope at least Mt. Rainier still looks the same.