Fragment from my Novel

Bathing Beauties
1992
Black and White Gelatin

There is a photo of the artist’s parents at a carnival or some sort of amusement park. The edges of the original photo have been creased, perhaps by folding it to fit in a wallet. Christian’s strong chin is perched on the curved edge of a flat board, in the space carved there for a face. Beneath him is the painting of a muscled man with a small straight waist and bulging biceps. Next to him is Ivy, the artist’s mother. She is smiling while resting her face in the cutout next to him. A bikini-clad hourglass woman is the painting below her face.

The image superimposed on this one is that former boyfriend Jack. His back, buttocks and thighs are the only images we can see. Ivy’s face is in one buttock and Christian’s in the other. This makes for a comical juxtaposition. The two faces of bathing beauty hopefuls, smiling on the buttocks of the real body builder. There is joy here and yet the photo evokes a wistful sadness with these two seemingly opposite views of the body. Is it the caricatures or the highly defined discipline of the younger man’s body that make us sad?

The artist writes about this photo in her journal:

Momma and Daddy look silly in this photo. I wanted to contrast their laughing and clutching of one another’s hands behind the placard, their absolute innocence of childless, first love, with the serious image of the adult body. The superimposed shot was a body that I had loved too, but in a way that didn’t seem carefree like my parents. There was joy and lightness in their faces, not the intensity I had felt in love. They were unmarred, undamaged by any sort of death or destruction. This was before my grandparents were killed, before me. The other photo is of Jack, his body sculpted in a way that almost seems unnatural. While he isn’t posing, his form alone implies discipline, work, time. I was interested in these two images and the differences between not only them, but the figures they leave in our memory.

I wonder if Momma knew she would always be that perfect? That her body was ready for new life, but hadn’t yet conceived it. She was not wrinkled, worn, or wise. She did not even know as much life when she died as I know now, writing this. I am older than she’d ever be yet this seems impossible. I am older now than my mother ever was.