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.
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5 Responses to “See the Flockers: India”
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.