Thursday, May 5, 2011

Passport Pictures

In sorting through photos for my last post, I found these passport pictures that my husband and I took the same month we were married. It was a week before our wedding, and I remember vividly standing in that long winding line with him at the passport office in Rockefeller Center in 1986. We were there for hours, but all I remember is being completely happy and entertained the whole time, one of those moments in life where there was nowhere else I wanted to be but where I was in the company of this man. That day in the line, we talked, we laughed, we leaned against each other and people watched, and I realized then what has been true since: I can have a great time wherever I am, whatever I am doing, whatever is or isn't happening around me when this man is around. The air around me feels lighter and brighter when he walks into a room. I guess it's a good thing I married him. That was 25 years ago this August.


Another thing I'm beginning to understand is that I enjoy studying my passport pictures and thinking about all the places those particular pictures have carried me. I think it comes from being born on an island. You're always looking outward to the larger world, across the sea. I'm struck by how my expression in this picture is much the same as my expression in my five-year-old passport picture in the previous post. It's part of what so captivates me about the evolution of faces. Every previous face of ours exists in the face we wear now. I find that comforting.

12 comments:

  1. That is so wonderful you feel that way. It is lucky you married him!

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  2. Aw'right Angella Lister...you two are just too beautiful for words...You're making my 'elevens' show up more and my marionette chin drop! Hahaha...have you read my blog post for today yet? That's what I'm referrin' to.!♥

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  3. Kristin, yes.

    Kim, you did notice I posted a picture from 25 years ago, right? We were all too beautiful for words 25 years ago! If only we'd known it then. But we can make peace with our elevens and marionette chins now, because you know what, we're still beautiful! Let's not wait another 25 years to realize that! lol

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  4. Oh my God! You know that I think you're gorgeous. Your handsome. Darnit! What a good looking man! And by good looking I mean Wooooow! No wonder your kids are so beautiful (inside and out!)
    You sound good! Happiness is good.

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  5. Oh I meant your husband is soooo handsome!

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  6. I love this line: "Every previous face of ours exists in the face we wear now." And I think our faces are seen also in our children -- don't you?

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  7. i guess that's the down side (or...up side,maybe?) of looking through old pictures, angella. i had no...i mean NO...awareness of any beauty when i was younger. when i look backto when i was in my 20s (the pic i posted on my blog yesterday), 30s, 40s...and i remember all the agonizing and insecurity about my looks. gee whiz. I hope before i croak i find a degree of comfort in my physical appearance! i know you understand this, from things you've alluded to in the past...it's a damn shame. when i look a your pictures, i think...wow....she's always been beautiful!

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  8. "Every previous face of ours exists in the face we wear now." And this explains your beautiful face of today. I love the optimism and insight here, Angella. Makes me smile. :)

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  9. Miss A, funny story. I shared your very generous comment which i have to say delighted me, but our daughter knitted her brow and said, "She's talking about Daddy???" Ha! But thank you, dear friend. He is a good man, easy to love and yes, I find him kind of hot, too!

    Elizabeth, i think you're right. Certainly I see you in your children's faces, and yet with my own, I see the resemblances only in passing, a look, a gesture. They are so much themselves.

    susan t. oh how i love that picture you posted! and how i know about that insecurity you describe. i wonder what it would feel like to walk through the world with no body discomfort? How liberated that must feel.

    Mark, look in the mirror, then tell me about yummy. But yes, we were! And like susan says it's a damn shame that neither of us knew it back then! (Well, I knew HE was yummy...) And now we're just fat and happy and I'll take that over the alternative. And i also love your 21st anniversary picture with Fred. I love how he's holding you. I meant to come back and tell you that.

    Jayne, thank you. Trying at this late stage to make peace with everything. Better late than never.

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  10. Oh how I love your posts - and you!!
    You, your husband and your children are beyond gorgeous!!
    Inside and out!! And I adore reading about you!
    I may have to go through my many albums one of these days and dig out some photos of me, from in the stone age.
    Speaking of passport photos, here's on of my favorite Erma Bombeck quotes. :)

    "There is nothing more miserable in the world than to arrive in paradise and look like your passport photo."

    Yours, of course, are beautiful at any age!!
    Sending love, my friend ~

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  11. Gabriele, oh my God that Erma Bombeck quote! I laughed so hard. I know the feeling well! One day I will post ALL my passport photos and you will understand. Happy mother's day, my beautiful friend! I love that we found each other here.

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