Amy Nordby

ENGL 204

Flash Nonfiction

This is me

I remember when I looked at my first photograph. I was given a View master at age five. I would gently put in my round contact sheet and push the button to reveal the next picture. It was magic at my fingertips; these images of the Grand Canyon, the Washington Monument, and Old Faithful just to name a few. I looked at those images over and over again until the sheets became so warped that they would not fit into the slot of my View master. What I saw in those images changed me; it changed the way I looked at things and how I looked at life.            

When I was twelve years old my mother sat me down in the middle of our backyard. It was summer and the sun was beginning to set. My mother who had been divorced since the Christmas prior handed me a picture. It was a wedding picture, her wedding picture. It was taken from an old Polaroid camera. It showed a shot from the back of the isle of a tiny church with my mother and father at the altar. To the left in the first pew sat my grandparents and in between them was a two year old girl in pig tails that resembled me. I stared at that picture for the longest time not knowing what to say, I couldn't even look up at my mother because I knew. I wasn't upset, I didn't even feel betrayal. For me, it was relief. Not that I had a bad upbringing, it was like I said before I just knew.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see my mother’s hand reaching for mine. This one picture changed everything that I had known up to that cathartic moment and changed everything about who I thought I was.  It would change who I would become. That summer night suddenly felt different.

I know this is rough and vague. I'm am working on filling it with more detail and will use the suggestions from my group in Salon.