Love Life Word Work

Taking pictures of myself has never been my favorite thing. As a matter of fact it’s been my least favorite thing. I’ve always been dissatisfied and ashamed of pictures of myself—I would rather not look at them nor distribute them. Now on the other hand, I am not averse to others taking pictures of me. Is that a contradiction? Maybe for some it would be but not to me. When someone says, ’smile, I’m taking your picture,’ I am compliant and obedient out of love because I know they respect me and really and truly want my picture. Now, with the coming of online photo and video sharing, I’m seeing self-portraiture from a whole new perspective.

Now, I have long since seen the value in written self-disclosure. The internet and the world wide web has really blown that wide open. From the time I started using the web, I have been using the written word to reveal what I am thinking and feeling. Sometimes more than others to be sure—nonetheless I have used the written word to reveal myself to others. Before the web came about I used letters to communicate, then the telephone of course. But those are just verbal, not pictorial. And now I have found BeenUp2.com, a web site that facilitates sharing your life with your friends by photos, subject lines, and conversational comments.

The first thing I noticed on BeenUp2 was the profile pictures. Some people used disguised, blurry or cartoonish pics for their “avatar”, but others used clear self-portraits, snapped with their cell phone or digital camera. When I joined I used a five-year-old photo my friend Randy took for fun one day in his home office. I have been using it all that time for everything online, But, as I carried on conversations with my online friends, I was encouraged to show a more contemporary portrait of myself. I felt I owed them that. Honesty is the best policy after all, so showing a photo that shows how much I have aged would be more honest. True? True. I searched my computer files and found surprisingly few good photos of myself, old or new. Finally I cropped myself out of a picture of Leslie and me that our friend Elizabeth took. Maybe I liked that photo because the person who took it was someone who loves me.

Maybe I wouldn’t want to do a self-portrait because the photographer in that case, or I, do not love myself as much as I suppose others might love me. In other words, any self-portrait I could possibly make would be marred by my own self-hatred. But now I saw others revealing the details of their daily lives using honest, but creative self-portraiture.

Britt snapped a photo of herself driving along in her car whistling. That got a big conversation going in the comments about the virtues of whistling, both as a solo and in concert with others.

Ian snaps photos toward the back seats of the car to capture his kids, but in so doing he usually gets himself on the side of the picture. Jen does the same, though it seems like she sometimes avoids getting herself in the picture. But she has progressed as time has passed and now includes herself more in the pictures she posts.

Layton and Jocelyn are another couple who use the creative, often dramatic self-portrait to great effect. Layton snaps his face as he works on improvements for the web site, sometimes showing triumph or elation, sometimes tiredness. Jocelyn—now she is not ashamed to show her face. She emotes and shows it as she snaps herself at her workplace (tired), on the way home in traffic (angry), or in front of the television (enjoying) as she views her favorite show. My favorite was when she had got a good report at the dentist’s and illustrated it with a great smiley self-portrait. When I saw that I wrote a response saying, “Jocelyn, you are a radical girl.” (And I don’t say that to all the girls.)

Some of the other BeenUp2 users have been growing more self-revelatory with their photos as well. Once, after Brooke posted a new picture, Ian commented that was the first really full-faced picture we had seen of her. The previous ones were all far way or taken at an obtuse angle. She has gone forward to include others, some with herself and her husband and some with the baby. Revealing the truth about oneself always helps others to love one. I believe that whole-heartedly.

So others are learning the same lesson, I think, the lesson that other people really do enjoy and benefit from seeing our self-portraits. Jonathan, another online associate, posts on his weblog the candid shots his computer takes automatically every six hours, just to see how he looks at different times of the day.

I have taken the cue and am now sharing self-portraits online. People want to know us and love us and being able to see our facial features helps them to do so. My BeenUp2 page.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

There are many ways to love your neighbor into change and spiritual growth, and Joel Kilpatrick does it best with satire. I thought Californians were supposed to be mellow and laid back but Joel has the proverbial elbow in your ribs the whole way through this book, A Field Guide to Evangelicals and Their Habitat.
Read my review on DotLove.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

We put them in a line in the side yard and we got five stem-fulls out of seven. Here are my annual pictures. Also called surprise lilies.
 

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

The scene is upstate N.Y., church camp, 1964. It seems like it was just yesterday.
Here’s the podcast of it:
[To see the text while listening, right-click and open the file in another window, or save the file and listen with Windows Media or put it on your portable listening device, or whatever.]
Memories of Jeanie F. audio
Here’s the story:

The last summer I went to camp before we moved overseas was the summer of 1964. That was the summer I liked a girl named Jeanie Fisher. Her real name was Norma Jean but she went by Jeanie. She had brown hair and green eyes (correction - hazel eyes) and she liked me. I liked her very much and was comfortable in her company. I was fourteen and I had had “girlfriends” in two previous summers, but I think Jeanie was the first girl with whom I had an unselfconscious, intentional relationship. Even at age fourteen, I think she and I were mature enough to begin learning new lessons in relationality.

At our Bible camp there were lots of opportunities for boys and girls to socialize—it was easy and safe. We had plenty of time to sit together, walk and talk, and play games. We were fundamentalists—we didn’t dance, but we did play games. And about half of the games we played featured hand-holding as an integral part. Take for instance an outdoor game I liked called the Flying Dutchman. It was a large circle game in which the whole group would form up in the field and hold hands all the way around without a break, boy girl boy girl boy, the more the better. The first pair to be “it”, a boy and a girl, would circle the group on the outside perimeter, holding hands and speeding up, looking for a pair to tag. The chosen pair, tagged on their joined hands, would then have to break out of their place and race the first pair around the circle, running in the opposite direction, trying to beat them back to the empty space. And the rule was, don’t let go the hand of the person you are paired with. If you and your partner lose the race the two of you become “it” and have to circle the group looking for a couple you think you could beat around the circle. It was a great game for learning about centrifugal force—and the opposite sex. Games were a parable and an illustration of all kinds of principles and ideals in life, the first being that the opposite sex is wonderfully marvelous, and touching and holding on to them is both enjoyable and beneficial.

I could go on and on about the games, but I won’t because I want to say more about Jeanie and me—how the memory came into my heart a few days ago and now will not leave. And right at this moment I don’t want it to leave because it is so beautiful.

I’m thinking about Jeanie and me and Sadie Hawkins day—how we caught each other and got to spend the whole day together, and as well as sitting next to each other in Bible class and other times, but the major memory I have is, saying goodnight after campfire. At this time each night boys and girls who liked each other could find a way to get two or three minutes alone for a goodnight kiss. Our particular tradition actually facilitated hand-holding (planned or not, that’s the way it was). It didn’t matter whether it was one of our devotional campfires or, on alternate evenings, the fun campfire. As a benediction we would cross our hands right over left and grasp the hand of the person next to us who also had his or her hands crossed. Then we sang taps. “Day is done, gone the sun, from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky. All is well, safely rest. God is nigh.” Goodnight.

Then, since you already had ahold of your girl’s hand, you could just not let go. One of the two of you would twirl around—again, without having to let go her hand, and voila, there you were walking down the dark path to the main compound, down around Bonnie Lodge. Now there might have been one or two lights on the eaves of the buildings down there, as well as the occasional flashing of peoples’ flashlights, but there were plenty of shadows to aim for, under the trees or around the corners of buildings. And the wonderful thing was it was thrilling without being anything but completely safe. After all, we weren’t planning anything illegal—just a kiss on the cheek and a hug, then a few more steps, until we had to go our separate ways—to the boys’ tents or the girls’ cabins, whichever applied.

I think the first time or two that Jeanie and I did this goodnight ritual I took the lead, walking her to the compound, instigating a kiss on the cheek. Her face was so smooth and clean. I can almost remember how she smelled. I can certainly remember how she made me feel. And after that I would float, two feet off the ground, down to the boys’ area with the army surplus folding metal cots, and crawl into my sleeping bag, full of lovely thoughts of liking and being liked and, how nice tomorrow would be, and how many days would be left before Jeanie and I would have to part.

Then one night, as I was aiming for Jeanie’s cheek she turned quick, in a split-second, and got me on the lips. She may have even licked her lips first. It fills me with the deepest wildest yearning as I remember it—to think I could have been the object of the affections of such a wonderful girl. To think I could be a part of such an innocent little pairing. Even at fourteen years of age it was certainly possible for one to make another person feel so meaningfully loved. I wonder if Jeanie ever thought back on it with the same sort wistfulness I have. Secretly I hope she has.

One day a group of us went on a bus trip from camp to somewhere about an hour away—it might have been Chittenango Falls. I don’t remember very much about the day—probably we had a cookout and hiked around at the base of the falls—probably got our feet wet. But I do remember very well the bus trip back to camp. There were so many people that Jeanie had to sit on my lap part of the way back. Now mind you, I didn’t hold her tight; she just sat there straight and prim as could be on top of my knees. Of course I was affected by the closeness and felt lovely but at the same time somewhat uncomfortable about it. By the time we were home it was dark already and I was ready to be relieved of my burden, despite the delightfulness.

My friend Brent, who was a year older than me, also had a girl on his lap in the dark bus. I don’t remember her name but I remember she was the kind of girl who seemed a bit socially backward. It seems like she might have been from the country and also was not pretty. So when I saw that she and Brent were kissing passionately and making out energetically, I thought they must really be in love. The next day I mentioned it to Brent. I said, “You and that girl must really be in love, huh?” He said, “Oh her? I’d rather have a dog than her.” That’s not the answer I expected; I figured the more passionate the making out was, the deeper the love must be. And so besides the fact I was disappointed in my friend, it was the first time I realized there was a possible disconnect between real relationality and physical intimacy. For the record I was not then, nor have I ever, in all the years since then, become reconciled to that disconnect.

Before our two weeks were over Jeanie and I had grown comfortable with each other. Once she volunteered to sing a song for the talent show and I accompanied her on the guitar. She sang 500 Miles.

“If you miss the train I’m on you will know that I am gone. You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.”

Jeanie was nervous and kept saying her voice was going to crack but she did fine. (Well, maybe it did squeek just once on a high note.)

When I think back about it, she was the first girl I played music with. Before the session was over we exchanged addresses and promised we would write letters to each other, which we did. Phoning long-distance was out of the question; it cost too much. But a postage stamp was only four cents, and so we wrote each other letters.

There’s a another memory back there that I’m not sure I want to bring up, but I think you will enjoy hearing it, so here goes. To the best of my recollection, Jeanie went home after two weeks, but hoped to come back again for a later session that summer. Meanwhile other things were going on in her absence.

One afternoon as we came back from the swimming hole, I saw Cathy Field, my “girlfriend” from two summers ago. She was sitting on the well playing her french horn. I was overawed. She was fresh as the sunrise—blonde and blue-eyed, hair cut short and cute, sitting there just as nice as you please. Her mom must have brought her after her band practice, to make arrangements to come to camp. I approached her gingerly, as if she were a space alien I used to know on another planet. But sure enough she remembered me; or at least she didn’t say she didn’t. We had known each other—had even written a few letters back and forth, then we drifted apart. I still had fond memories but they were distant ones—until all of a sudden she showed up and and my little soul was all awhirl with happy but mixed up feelings.

Then, when Cathy arrived to stay, it was a Sunday afternoon I think, I immediately stuck to her like glue. I was changeable, wasn’t I? But this time I had competition. Some kid, whose name I don’t even remember, thought he was her boyfriend. And Cathy was non-commital; she refused to choose between us. I affirmed my commitment to her, so did the other kid. The two of us competed to win her affections, by feats of athletic ability, or by impossible promises, but she would not choose between us. I remember walking around camp holding her hand—and that other kid holding her other hand. She was eating up the attention; I really think she had a boy-friend in her home town and was funnin’ with us.

Howe’er it was, I didn’t feel one twinge of guilt about being untrue to Jeanie, or if I did I sure didn’t dwell on it, I was so full of myself.

Soon Cathy heard through the grapevine that I had another girlfriend and quizzed me about her. She would be returning to camp in a few days and what would I do then? I said, “I will stick with you.” She had her doubts about that and said so. “When Jeanie comes back you will go back to her,” she prophesied. Cathy had the wisdom of years, after all she was six months older than me.

And she was right. It wasn’t a hard decision. Jeanie was really something after all, and I was ready for her to come back. Plus, there was the thing about Cathy having two boyfriends at once, and refusing to reject one of us—and that other kid wouldn’t give up. That was kind of wearing on my psyche.

I don’t know how long I stayed at camp that summer. Maybe four, maybe five weeks. I sure felt at home there. My family was getting ready to move to Washington, D.C., then overseas. I guess they didn’t mind getting me out of their hair while they packed up and got rid of most of the stuff in the house. We thought we were going to Bolivia, and that’s what I told Jeanie. Then we found out it would be Pakistan. That seemed so much farther away. Either way we wouldn’t be back to the states for at least two years, and even then, though I didn’t know it at the time, we would never again live in the state of New York.

I wrote to Jeanie that we were going to Pakistan. She wrote me back saying, “Pakistan! that’s even farther than Bolivia. I’ll miss you. It seems almost like you are going into the army. But you’re too young for the army.” That made me feel like Jeanie was devoted to me and, of course that’s a heady draught for a fourteen year old, almost fifteen. I don’t remember how many letters we wrote back and forth, but I’m pretty sure they trailed off by the time we got to Pakistan. Maybe I lost her address; maybe she lost mine. Maybe she got another boyfriend and stopped writing. It’s hard for teenagers to keep a relationship going by correspondence, when there are other living, breathing boys and girls around them in real time.

One thing is for certain. I never again felt as comfortable, and as well liked by a girl as pretty, and as nice as her, until, around age twenty, I met my future bride. But that’s another story.