Photo A Day, Day 29: Contrast

To find a contrast in my life, I only have to look as far as my children. One boy and one girl; one brown-haired and one blonde; one carnivore and one near-vegetarian; one night owl and one early riser; one truck- and rocket-lover and one tutu- and crown-wearer; one fond of orange and one of pink; one who doesn’t nap and one who does; one who’s built like a tank and one like a delicate flower. 

Even where there isn’t an innate contrast, there is often a passing contrast: he’s cranky when she’s cheerful; he’s sleepy when she’s wide awake; he’s in the mood to play outside when she’d rather stay in; he wants a PB&J when she wants a grilled cheese; he wants to race around when she wants to snuggle. Fortunately, many of their contrasts are actually complementary. When we have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, he eats her spaghetti and she eats his meatballs. When he finishes playing with the Legos, she’s ready to start. He wants to hear one bedtime story, she wants a different one. When she’s ready for bedtime, he’s happy to play for another half an hour. Just when my ears start to bleed from listening to his favorite song 27 times in a row, she demands her favorite 27 times in a row.

But even beyond just my children, my husband and I demonstrate some contrast. He’s an extrovert; I’m an introvert. He’s technically inclined; I am not. I am more comfortable with the written word; he’s more comfortable with the spoken word. He loves being in charge; I’d rather take orders. He prefers red wine; I lean towards white. I love ethnic food; he’s a meat and potatoes guy. He likes the Hilton; I’m happy with Motel 6. He is a human GPS; I can get lost in my own neighborhood.

The four of us together, however, are proof that contrasts can be complementary. Among the four of us, we’ve got blond hair, brown hair, red hair, and bald all covered. We’ve got tall, average, petite, and husky. We’ve got short sweater, long sweater, vest, and jacket. As long as we’re all together, someone will be happy with whatever’s on the menu; someone will know how to get where we’re going; someone will find a toy that makes them happy; someone will like whatever is on the radio; someone will have an interesting story to entertain guests with. And someone will look terrific in whatever family theme colors we’ve decided on.

I’m pretty okay with that contrast.

Photographic Evidence

I received so many comments on the photo of my kids that I included with yesterday’s blog entry that I feel the need to address them today. Yes, my kids are very cute. Yes, they are also quite photogenic. (They get that from their father, as evidenced by nearly every photo of me ever taken.) But even so, it is not exactly a walk in the park to get a photo of them as adorable as this one:

Let me share a bit of backstory on this photo. As well as these two cherubs, I have a young adult stepdaughter who, along with being a full-time college student, is a member of the Army Reserves, works two jobs, and splits her free time among family and friends all over the country. Needless to say, it is a rare occurrence to get our entire family in the same place at the same time. So when she joined us on our Christmas vacation, we took advantage of the chance of getting a complete family photo. Conveniently, we spent our vacation on a cruise ship, which, as anyone who has ever taken a cruise can attest, is a synonym for “photo opportunity.” With professional photographers lurking around every corner, formal and semi-formal dress opportunities left and right, and gorgeous backdrops everywhere you look, it would be easy-peasy to get a beautiful family portrait, right?

Ha.

Trying to get two small children to look in the general direction of a photographer while smiling and maintaining a relatively humanoid posture is a difficult task under any circumstances, never mind when they are wearing uncomfortable clothes, have been overstimulated all day, are hungry for supper, and when random Disney characters might walk by at any time. “Distracted” and/or “crying” is usually the order of the day. Sometimes, they split it up so one child is distracted while the other is crying.

Sometimes they’re both distracted.

Sometimes they’re both…well, let’s go with “not smiling.”

Sometimes they're both smiling but there’s just a certain lack of sincerity.

Sometimes they’re both looking in the right direction and smiling but somebody blinks.

Sometimes someone’s hamming it up but not quite in the way the photographer intended.

Sometimes someone just gives up entirely.

Sometimes just when you get that one back into place, the other one gives up.

Sometimes the subject is too busy trying to steal a wand from the backdrop.

Sometimes the subject decides to make a break for it before the session is over.

But every once in a while, the stars align and you get something as wonderful as this.

And that's why we just keep snapping away!

Generation After Generation

This past weekend we celebrated my grandmother's 80th birthday. It got me thinking how lucky Ryan is to have three of his four grandparents living, plus a great-grandmother, to boot. Herb's daughter recently lost her great-grandmother, at the age of 100. They had a very close relationship, and visited and spoke often, and Nettielee will be greatly missed by Rosemary and all of Nettielee's other great-grandchildren, as well as her grandchildren and children. What a wonderful blessing to have so many generations of family still connected.

Great-Grandma Nettielee's 100th birthday party, Rosemary at far right

Ryan with his great-grandmother, Auntie Lu, at her 80th birthday party

Life changes so fast that it's important to have a connection to the past. By the time Ryan is a teenager, no doubt there will be new technologies that I can't even comprehend that are a basic part of his life. He'll be comfortable with computers and gadgets in a way my mother can only dream of. And his great-grandmother will be there to remind him that in HER youth, not only were there no flat screen/plasma/3-D televisions, there wasn't even television. And when there was, it was in fuzzy black and white! She'll be able to tell him how exciting it was when their family bought their first car, or how she brought her lunch to school because there was no cafeteria, or how the milkman left the milk on the porch and when it froze the cream rose to the top. My mom will be able to tell him about working in a factory, and living on a dairy farm, and raising two kids with only one car - and only one bathroom! I can tell him about typing up school papers on a typewriter, or how exciting it was when we got our first microwave, or getting cable TV for the first time in my first apartment. Herb's parents can tell him about how they met in the USO, about performing with famous musicians and dancers, about taking the subway around the city for a nickel, about growing up in the city when you could ride your bike everywhere safely (even without a helmet).

When it's family telling these stories, history comes alive for children. Imagining your mom and dad as kids your age, imagining your grandparents growing up the same way you are - it's a wonderful experience for a child to picture him- or herself in the shoes of older generations. It gives him an appreciation for what he has, and hopefully an appreciation for how hard those who came before him worked to give him the advantages he and his generation have.

And someday, he'll be able to tell his children about how rough he had it growing up.

New American Gothic

Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with Grant Wood's famous painting titled, "American Gothic".

What many of you probably don't know (and I certainly didn't), is how that painting came to be. The story goes that in 1930, Grant Wood saw a house in Iowa that was built in the "Carpenter Gothic" style and decided to paint a picture of "the kind of people [he] fancied should live in that house" with the house itself as a backdrop. The man was modeled after his dentist and the woman after his sister. Although the painting was not necessarily intended to depict a married couple (Wood's sister often told people it depicted a father and daughter, perhaps to avoid the unflattering intimation that she would have married a man twice her age), it has become an iconic image of the American pioneer family.

There are many other iconic images of the American family found in art. The work of Norman Rockwell is rife with familiar family images, such as his beautiful Thanksgiving-themed "Freedom From Want".

And any child who grew up reading the "Little House on the Prairie" series is familiar with Garth Williams' lovely depictions of frontier life.

If these charming images depict life from years ago, what images of American family life of today will become iconic in the coming years and decades? To me, what makes these images iconic is their timelessness: little girls will always play with dolls and climb on their daddies' backs, mothers will always snuggle babies while watching older children play, families will always gather together for the holidays, and people will always soldier on through whatever hardships come their way.

So what images of my own family will last for years in my mind? Perhaps these:

because families dressing alike will always be cute,

because multiple generations of family will always gather together for photos on the couch,

because tiny, sleeping babies will always be precious, and

because, like the original American Gothic, there's just something timeless and wonderful about the whole family gathering on the front porch for a family portrait.