I’ve taken a lot of photographs over the years. Hundreds of thousands, probably, although I’ve never actually sat down and counted them. I’ve photographed weddings, portraits, events, landscapes, horses, and just about anything else that happened to wander in front of my camera. Some of those photographs required a considerable amount of planning, specialized equipment, and years of experience to get just right.
And then there’s this picture.
It’s an old snapshot of two young women standing together, smiling at the camera and holding green cups. Nothing particularly elaborate about it. The lighting isn’t great, the background is cluttered, and I suspect whoever took it wasn’t terribly concerned about composition. As a photographer, I could probably find a dozen things technically wrong with it.
But I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
The woman on the left is Amber, Mel’s best friend. They were incredibly close, worked together at Helium Roses for a while, and were roommates before Mel and I got together. The woman on the right, wearing black, is Melanee.
And that smile.
That’s the smile that got me.
The interesting thing about this photograph is that it was taken before I ever met her. I wasn’t part of her life yet. I had no idea who she was, what she was like, or that this woman would eventually become my wife. At the time this picture was taken, we were just two people living our separate lives, completely unaware of what was coming.
But I recognize that smile immediately.
I’ve mentioned before that the first time I actually saw Mel wasn’t at Safeway, where we eventually worked together. It was through the window of Helium Roses, a balloon shop where she worked. I happened to be walking by, looked through the window, and noticed this very cute girl with an amazing smile. I didn’t know her name. I didn’t know anything about her. I just knew there was something about that smile that made me stop and notice.
Then, sometime later, I started working at the Jefferson Square Safeway in West Seattle. And wouldn’t you know it, there was that same smile behind the deli counter.
Now, I was working as a helper clerk, which meant I spent a fair amount of time stocking shelves and doing whatever else needed to be done. One of the areas I could volunteer to stock was the soda aisle, conveniently located right next to the deli.
Naturally, I became extremely interested in the proper stocking and organization of carbonated beverages.
I’m sure management appreciated my sudden enthusiasm for that particular section of the store. Here was a young employee who seemed unusually committed to making sure the soda shelves were properly maintained. What dedication! What an outstanding work ethic!
Bullshit.
There was a pretty girl behind the deli counter, and I wanted to look at her.
The fact that stocking those shelves required bending over, reaching into awkward spaces, and spending far too much time hunched over was apparently a small price to pay. I’m fairly certain the resulting back pain could rival a night’s sleep on a particularly unforgiving futon. But there I was, making sure those fizzy beverages were organized with the kind of attention usually reserved for matters of national security.
And occasionally, Mel would catch me looking.
She’d smile, sometimes laugh a little, and I’d go right back to pretending I was deeply concerned about the placement of the two-liter bottles.
Smooth, Jason. Real smooth.
Of course, that smile was only the beginning. As I got to know her, I discovered a woman who was independent, stubborn, funny, capable, and sometimes an absolute pain in the ass. She wasn’t particularly interested in agreeing with everything I said, and she certainly didn’t need me telling her how to run her life. There were things about her that I admired tremendously and other things that challenged me in ways I never anticipated.
We eventually spent thirty-two years married to each other, and those years contained a hell of a lot more than the happy moments you see in photographs. There were wonderful times, difficult times, laughter, frustration, accomplishments, mistakes, and all the other things that happen when two imperfect people build a life together.
But when I look at this particular picture, I’m not trying to fit those thirty-two years into a single image.
I’m looking at Mel before all of that.
I’m looking at a young woman standing beside her best friend, smiling for a photograph, with absolutely no idea that some tall idiot would eventually spend an unreasonable amount of time stocking soda shelves just to get another look at her.
And I like seeing her that way.
Amber knew a version of Mel that existed before I came along. They had their own friendship, their own experiences, and their own stories. I think that’s something worth remembering when we look at old photographs of people we love. We tend to see them through the relationship we had with them, but they were whole people long before we became part of their lives.
This picture reminds me of that.
It also reminds me of something I’ve learned from spending so much of my life behind a camera. A photograph doesn’t have to be technically perfect to be important. Sometimes the value has absolutely nothing to do with sharpness, lighting, or composition. Sometimes it’s about recognizing something in that image that nobody else would notice in quite the same way.
Someone who never knew Mel might look at this picture and see two young women enjoying themselves at a gathering.
I see Amber and Mel, years before I became part of that story.
I see the girl at the balloon shop. I see the girl behind the deli counter.
And I see the smile that convinced me a sore back was a perfectly reasonable price to pay for stocking one more damn shelf of soda.
After all these years, I still think it was worth it.