Embedded
Assessment 1
Creating a
Photo Essay
My Story in Five Faces
Connie Schultz
Parade Magazine
February 19, 2012
Introduction
In my early 30s, I copied a George Orwell quotation
and tucked it into my wallet: “At age 50, everyone
has the face he deserves.”
A promise? Or a warning? That depended on how I
lived my life.
Orwell was right. Even in the faces of strangers, you
can tell who has spent more time laughing than
frowning, who rolled with life’s tumbles and who
never recovered.
Like maps that are repeatedly redrawn, our faces
track the march of time. Line up photos of the same
face at different ages and a life story unfolds like a
graphic novel. This is my story in five faces.
Age 12
I’m in seventh grade, and I want to
be anybody else. Specifically, I want
to be Aretha Franklin. I’m convinced
a Toni home permanent and a
neighbor’s artistry will transform me
into Ashtabula’s Queen of Soul.
She cuts my long, straight hair and
wraps what’s left around small pink
curlers. She squirts the smelly
chemicals all over my head. My
scalp burns for what feels like 12
hours. I think I look amazing.
Not Mom. She takes one look at me
and collapses on the sofa, fanning
herself with her apron.
The next week, I line up for my
school portrait wearing my new Afro
and pointy collars as big as window
shades. Before the flash goes off, my
gym teacher shakes her head and
says, “Girl, does your mother know
what you did to your hair?”
Age 21
I am an asthmatic, and a
prescription drug makes my
face puff out. I am so selfconscious that if someone points
a camera at me, I pucker up
and cross my eyes. I want to be
less dependent on others’
opinions of me. I’m failing
miserably.
A fellow staffer on our college
newspaper wears a leg brace
and a special shoe with a fiveinch platform. He walks with a
limp, and he hates the goofy
pictures of me. I don’t know this
until he surreptitiously shoots this
photo and presents it to me as a
gift. “If I looked like you,” he
says, softly, “I’d smile all the
time.” Then he walks away.
Thirty-three years later, this photo
still hangs in my home office as a
reminder to get over myself.
Age 37
After 15 years of writing
freelance stories at my kitchen
table, I get my first newspaper
job. Weeks later, I’m a newly
single mother living with my two
kids in an apartment half the size
of the house we’d called home.
I want to be fearless, but I am
scared to death. See the fear in
my eyes? I am also stronger than
I know. Like so many women, I
have to learn, one crazy day at
a time, that if I act brave, the
courage will come.
And it does.
Age 45
Crinkles fan out from both of my
eyes. I couldn’t care less. I’m starring
in Act II of my own life. I’m a
newspaper columnist, a woman paid
to give her opinion. After a decade
as a single mother, I’ve fallen in love,
too, with a man who has the nerve to
push back on independent me.
I insist I don’t need him to wait on
me—ever. He sits me down in his
kitchen and says, “You are not giving
up your right to vote or to own
property if you let me make you a
cup of coffee.”
For the first time in 45 years, I am
speechless.
I want to be younger but only
because my heart aches with a
single truth: When you meet the love
of your life in middle age, the odds
are you won’t celebrate a golden
wedding anniversary together.
Age 53
I’m three years past Orwell’s deadline. The worry lines have won
the territory between my brows.
Starbursts punctuate my eyes.
That’s what a lifetime of grinning
brings. There are worse fates.
I’ve not succumbed to any
tinkering. No surgery or needles for
me. This is not to judge other
women. I’m just not big on
volunteering for pain. My husband is
taking this picture, which explains
my smile. He still makes my coffee.
“Honey,” I say to him over a recent
game of Scrabble. “When I’m old,
will you still love me?” He doesn’t
even look up. “Honey,” he says.
“You’re already old. And I still love
you.”
We laugh like crazy, and I don’t
want to be anybody but me.