Postcards from Our Journeys

Photographs are postcards from ones journey through time. They show a variety of things, such as how the people looked, acted, and could show one’s personality. Personally, most of the time, I do not like my photograph taken. A lot of time I am depressed or look unhappy, but there are the times I look silly or just plain stupid, and on an occasion I am very happy. The photo I chosen is of my wife, Alina, being happy.

When you first see the photograph two things stick out. The first is the big bright smile that is on her face. The second thing is the big bag of cookie she is holding. This is a very old of photograph; it was taken in April of 2001 just before we moved to Oregon. There is little change from this photograph to what she looks like now. The photograph background tells a lot about her, too. There is not any real information about this photograph; it was just a random picture that was taken. This photograph has two layers to it: the foreground and the background.

The first layer is a photo of her and her happiness. When first look at her you see her big bright happy smile she has. This smile is truly one of joy, and not a fake one that most people put on for photographs. She has a round face with a double chin, and you can almost see her eyes, but the flash from the camera is reflecting on the lens of her glasses. If you were able to see her eye color, she has truly a unique eye color. The eye glasses she is wearing are kind of gold in color that covers most of her eye brows and part of the top of her cheeks. Her nose bridge is narrow and goes down to a round “Santa Clause” size nose. She has very long jet black hair, which goes just below her neck area just around her chest. She is wearing a grey long sleeved sweater, which has a blue globe on it. Some of her globe is covered by her jet black hair, and almost all of her neck covered by it. Under that globe there are words that you can kind of make out, that says, “Butler Hall 1996 – 1997.” You can only see a small part of the collar of the grey sweater. When you look at her mouth you can see the top teeth, they are white as cream filling that is in one of the cookies in her bag. Her lips are thin and narrow on the top and bottom parts. You can also see part of her tongue, but it is only the very tip of it. You also see the dimples in her cheeks. The way they look, you just want to reach out and grab them with your hand and just gently shake her face back-in-forth and just say, “Are you not just so cute.” What is she holding in her left hand?

She is holding a one gallon ziplock bag of cookies. This bag of cookies is half full and has variety of shapes and sizes. The bag is open, which means that she was just eating some or was filling up the bag. She is holding the bag by the right edge with her middle and index finger, while having tension on the back with her thumb. Some of the bag is covering little of her face on the left side of it. I believe these are Vortmen cookies. One of the cookies shapes is one inch round and has a cream filling to it. The other type is small and like a flat cylinder shape that a few white glaze over the top of it. Cookies are something she “loves” very much. Because she “loves” them so much, she is holding them up just like a fisherman would hold a prized catch and having that moment eternally remember in this postcard from his past. She used to call me “Cookie,” but now she calls me “Fruitcake.”

The second layer to this picture tells you what type of person she is like. At first glance you can tell she is very clean person. She always says, “Clean housey is a happy housey.” She also believes there is a perfect place for everything no matter what it is. There are some lace drapes that are in the window that her mother made. The drapes are all one piece and go about one foot under the window sill. If you look very close, you can see some wicker looking furniture, but you can not make out what it is. I think the reason why we still had that piece of wicker is because I think she liked it, but I can not be sure of that. By the wicker furniture piece, you can see part of blue rocking chair and an ottoman, which we still have to this day. Right under the window sill you can see a thin shipping box. Right next to that there is a big blue Crayon piggy bank that I got her, when I first meet her, in the summer of 1996. She was very happy that I bought that for her because she never had anything like that before.

Right next to the Crayon piggy bank there are three CD/Video book shelves. The first one you can see completely, the second one you can only see the top and most of the second shelf, and the third one you can not really see at all, but only that something is sitting on top of it. On the right of the CD/Video shelf there is a black halogen torch light, which is about the height of the room. (Which is ten feet high.) The first CD/Video shelf has movies that were taped from Television or from other tapes. Those cover four out of the five shelves. On the very last shelf there is a small shipping box that fits perfectly there. On top of that shelf there are three things: the pen from our wedding, beanie of Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore. Winnie the Pooh is a bear that is cute and fluffy that wears a red t-shirt that barely covers his big round stomach. Eeyore looks like a donkey that is all purple and has tail pinned with a button and has a small patch of black hair for a mane. On the top of second shelf there are some dried roses in a sixty-four ounce cup. Like most ladies she likes roses given to her, but instead of throwing them out, she takes and dries them out so she has them longer. There is one more character from Winnie the Pooh on the shelf named Tigger. He looks like an orange tiger with black stripes down his back and around his tail. There are two versions of Tigger next to the cup of roses. The Tigger that is one the left of the cup is a normal looking Tigger that is kind of going peek-a-boo around the cup of roses. The other one looks like a Doctor Frankenstein. He has white lab coat on and has fuzzy hair on his head. On the third shelf there is another Winnie the Pooh, which you can make out what he has on because you can only see his head. There is another head that looks like Eeyore, which looks like he has reindeer antlers on his head.

Like most people Alina is a child at heart, when it comes to things that make her very happy. I wish you could see her face light up, when she gets something small like a cookie or when I came off the plane with a big Winnie the Pooh. She gives a true smile of happiness.

Copyright (c) 2005, Jeffrey Shane Saunders. All Right Reversed.