#88 - A Picture of Me in a Stranger's House

A Picture of Me in a Stranger's House

5/24/06 (#88)

Of all of the guests, I knew Denyse, and David. The rest were strangers.

The demographics of the party were skewed toward David's crowd, David being Denyse's older brother. He was in his element amidst the 30-strong guest list (they were his friends, officially) and Denyse had that cherished "cool little- sister" role in everyone's heart, easy rapports that had grown naturally since they were all pre-teens, a neighborhood of children who joshed like it was a junior high ball court but everyone's vocabulary and tolerance for alcohol had increased exponentially. I felt as conspicuous as a peanut in a bowl of blueberries.

Denyse and I had been dating for a short time, and there are few more revealing moment in the getting-to-know someone process than when you observe someone in their natural element; in these jovial and energetic environs, my new friends seemed endlessly charming. Denyse is irresistibly likable, and "the big kids" had a great time falling into the easy, unstudied rhythm of her chatting. (I confess to a bit of jealousy in that regard, each party goer seeming to have an infinite supply of past-life experiences to leverage as items of intimacy, but I would never have spoken of that except to say, "I'm fine. Have fun. Enjoy your friends.")

As David and Denyse worked the crowd (or vice versa, as it sometimes seemed), I found myself adrift in the house without a chaperon. I made small talk with the de facto bartender (who claimed to be rationing the hard liquor, but one taste of my drink indicated that he was quite misinformed as to the meaning of "ration"), asked a couple of meaningless baseball questions (the only type I know) of the guest of honor (Mike Bordick, who had returned home to celebrate his signing to a Double-A pro team, a career path that would later lead him to a spot on the MLB all-star team for his play with the Baltimore Orioles), but mostly I drifted alone through the stranger's home. I had been informed moments before entry that host of the party had lost his parents to an accident the previous year, and that he had not changed any of the decor of the house; that fact went far toward explaining the distinctly "adult" furnishings: Tastefully realized in colors like salmon chiffon or toasted eggshell, large porcelain lamp bases with fabric shades, the meticulously decorated house was fully deserving of the adjective "grandmotherly." I ambled with my Shaw's cola spiked with too much rum, pretending to be interested in the porcelain knickknacks and satin throw pillows, trying to disguise my conspicuousness behind a thin veil of aloof bravado. I'm certain I fooled no one, but they were happy to humor me and talk amongst themselves.

Eventually, my wandering led to me to a little room that the host's father likely called his study---too small to be a library, too comfortable to be an office. There was precisely enough room to house two Naugahyde chairs that bookended a small end table and a shaded brass lamp. The mood was decidedly LL Bean, a theme common to many rooms in many Maine homes, but the lure for me was the art---every wall was covered with framed snapshots of this family's life, and while the room was small, there was little more than an inch between each frame, so I was viewing dozens of milestones in their various lives. There was our host, as an 8 year old boy, proudly holding up a foot-long fish while his Dad hilariously mocked disappointment with his own catch (a fish that could easily have been mistaken as bait); there he was in his little league uniform, flanked by the guy who poured me the too-strong libation and the guest of honor; there was David, a decade younger than the man I knew, standing with the host, both grinning in ill-fitting rented tuxedos, a snapshot likely taken moments before the boys drove off in the parent's Buick wagon to pick up their sherbet-gowned dates.

At first, I felt like a voyeur, worried that someone might step through the door and find me looking too closely at the intimate memories (especially since I had slipped behind one of the leather chairs to see the pictures more closely), but I became so engrossed that the rest of the party ceased to exist. Fortunately, excepting a few quick cameos from guests who had mistakenly thought they had discovered a shortcut to the kitchen, I had the room to myself.

Absorbing this chronicle of a family's life, spanning from a black and white wedding photo of the parents to a picture of many of the night's attendees outside of The Drydock (the local restaurant David had purchased 18 months previous), there was one element that was consistent through every snapshot: irrepressible smiles. Sure, the camera is mostly likely to make appearances for celebratory moments, and few of us hang pictures that reminds us of anything except joy, but this was more than mere careful curating--this room was evidence of a life well-lived. It was easy to imagine the sensation of warmth and pride that this Dad felt every time he sat in this room, and it illuminated why the decision to not redecorate seemed like the only choice. A day would come when the salmon chiffon couch and the toasted eggshell lamp shades would be updated, but I am certain that if he still owns the house, that study looks exactly the same today. The thought of lining these frames up in a box would be inconceivable.

Yet the most compelling feature of this gallery was not simply that I was witness to these particular people's lives, but that this could be anyone's life. This could have been my life---so many photos from my family's scrapbooks could have fit seamlessly onto this wall: my brother Tim and Craig Bellevance with their 70's shag hair and powder blue suits, smiling for the camera before stepping out for their own senior prom; my brother Tom at 10 years old, kneeling beside our sandbox-turned-reptile-pen, beaming proudly with his latest quarry---a dinner-plate sized snapping turtle---scrambling in the background; My sister Jane and our neighbor Pam Comey, preteen with their colorful floats (baby strollers adorned with crepe paper and streamers) for some Girl Scouts parade I was too young to remember. It seemed as if the subjects themselves were almost irrelevant to the pictures. The star of each was life itself.

There are many factions of society that seek to exploit the differences between us (politicians, corporations, religious groups, advertisers, and journalists, to name the obvious), but the truth is, we are all far more similar than we are different. I like to think about that 8-year old boy dangling that silvery fish, his lips stretched to capacity to accommodate his happiness---I have never posed for a fishing photo, but I have no regrets about that; I've already seen myself in that photograph. Not a great likeness, but I recognized the smile.

©2006 wpreagan