This is the first picture I ever took. I was around 5 years old.
I remember taking it.
It was an overcast day and I was in my second-floor bedroom. I
had already overwound the film in my new Brownie camera, which
intensified the importance of making each picture worthwhile,
and increased my inability to decide what to shoot. Finally, while
leaning on the dresser, I broke under the pressure, held up the
camera, and pushed the button.
This is what I see when
I look at it.
Off-center and framed
between the pink ruffled edge of the oval table mirror and the
pink ruffled edge of the curtain, above the windowsill and dissected
by the panes, is the small single-story house I see every day.
The rarely used front door is on the right near the driveway,
and the majority of its tan, flat-stone, white-trimmed façade
is filled with a multi-pane window, behind which one or more Chihuahuas
jump up often to see what is going on behind the bushes.
I don't really think about
the taut black power line, hovering above and parallel to, its
gray-shingled roof, crossing the streetlight's concrete pole and
cutting through the hazy shapes of near and distant leafless trees.
Or the partially visible white two-story houe on the right and
the brown house behind the two. Or the silhouetted edge of the
long-forgotten rounded-corner box, near the camera and blocking
part of the white house and the bottom half of the pink curtain.
Simultaneously, I sense
the faint smell of new carpeting, feel a chill, and have a strong
sense that my sister is behind me.
I shot the entire roll
that day. Every frame has an uphill tilt. This one is my favorite.