Of all the pictures of me as a child this one is my favorite. I can’t really verbalize why. When my father saw it tonight he said, “This is just you.” And, he’s right. If I needed a picture that captured me as a child this would have been it. This is what I envision when I picture myself as a little girl. I was probably seven in this picture. It was taken in Richmond, Vt. in my grandmother’s backyard, which adjoined our own. This is the pasture and mountains I would look out on from my swing set. It captures not only the view of my childhood, but also how I spent much of my time – alone in my imagination, overlooking this lawn. I appear happy and slightly puzzled in this photo, but I know I was also comfortable up on my perch.
I love it when you juxtapose this shot with the adult one. Of all the ones I’ve taken for this project, I think these two show the greatest similarities. I still look the same 38 years later, right down to the haircut. How can that be? How can I have the exact same haircut as my seven-year-old self? Even my body shape is relatively the same and I still find myself curling up in this same position. I’m a little less confused looking in the second shot. Here, I stare at the camera more directly. I took several similar shots, but loved that this one shows the camera remote. To me it illustrates that I am the one controlling this shot, controlling my future. It is the same girl with a little bit more experience. Sometimes, you look back at pictures of yourself when you were younger and you wonder who was that girl? Sometimes you look back with embarrassment or longing. When I look at these two pictures, it is easy for me to say I know that girl and she is me!