seven pictures.

1. My grandmother and I are sitting at the church piano. I am six, she is age unknown. My grandmother's hawkish Italian nose is squinched upward, hoisting her bifocals level with her pupils. Her upper teeth remain exposed to the air as she pounds out songs to Jesus, head lurching up and down between music and keyboard as though a misplaced note will cause Earth's atmosphere to suck her directly off the stage and into the wall. The dry clickety click of her nails against the ivory reminds me of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, in which skeletons dance to a juxtaposition of sacred Dies Irae and pagan witch song. My pigtails are festooned with ribbons, one pink, one lavender, and my head is tilted to the side, soft chin forward, eyes caught wide in a moment of unselfconscious amusement, and I'm smiling at the thought that her teeth may actually fall out of her mouth, which is not something I'd ever witnessed, but I knew they were fake. We are buddies, we are pizza pals, we are needful friends.

2. 1982, according to the scrawl on the back of the picture; I am not two years old. My father and I lie on the floor under a blanket. Our customary position is an arrangement on the couch wherein he lays on his side, legs bent at the knee, and I burrow between the knees and couch with blankets in order to create an environment known as "The Nest." In this picture, though, we are on the floor, and the story goes that we are both sick with the flu, which is no reason to nest on the floor, but anyway. His arm is under my head and he whispers to me. His eyes are alight with a dark-haired, puppy-eyed baby girl in pajamas. My face is upturned with the attentiveness of a person formulating a good response, even then. He is thirty-two, I am not two, and for now we are in love.

3. It is Christmas morning circa 1994. Gifts are opened, exhausted bodies puddle in chairs, and Wiggy the cockapoo takes center floor beside the horrible glass and goldtone coffee table, which is no less tacky than our mint-green house in a neighborhood awash in beige. We begged, we all pleaded with my mother, beige? cream? ecru? maybe a nice brown mustard with brick trim? to no avail and our neighbors declined to bring us welcome baskets. Currently a Puerto Rican family owns the house and they've chosen a bright melon hue while having kept my mother's kelly-green shutters. But this picture is Christmas morning circa 1994, and Wiggy pants in crinkled-paper excitement. She is adorned with green collar bells, red nail polish, and a gold crepe paper hat. Her humans are together, the atmosphere is relaxed, the air smells of hot meat and fruit, there are things which squeak and smell like newness, and she's just happy to smile at the human holding the small flashing thing in front of her face.

4. It is the year 2000. My brother's wedding. My parents are posing for a picture in front of a huge landscaped oak. They have been rawly divorced for nearly two years. My mother stands unyielding, one arm stiffly around my father's back as she looks straight at the camera without smiling, eager to pull away from this man who follows her and sorts through her trash. He, for his part, is every inch the pastor, The Authority Of God Rests With Me, feet planted wide, arm snugly around my mother's waist (you are still my wife), the assertive yes! great! yes! hallelujah! smile. This is a happy occasion and we are happy! In this photo my mother is dying from the inside out while my father's blank eyes shine because they have to, and it's painful to view.

5. It is March 1981, and an infant with a full head of shiny dark hair is slouched in an infant chair on the couch. Overnight, a huge purple welt has appeared between Baby's upper lip and nose. It's fine, just a birthmark, the pediatrician assures the hyperventilating mother. One year later, Baby will drop a huge can of corn on her toe and this rich purple will appear beneath the right big toenail, the mother will hyperventilate, the pediatrician will reassure as she aspirates the trapped blood with a big honkin needle. The purple toenail will remain for the next six months. For six months Baby will violently refuse the removal of her right sock under any circumstances; her foot swishing back and forth in the bathtub and the strange, congested feeling of water seeping through thick sock material. There will be times when she will wish to wear a sock over her upper lip.

6. The young family, circa 1984. The mother, pale and soft-looking, pretty. The father, the commercial artist, rough-handed, half-smiling, moustache and hair in workaday disarray. Memories of my father are always clad in denim and plaid flannel, rough whiskers pushing, and I remember the smell of my father's return from work, solvents and sweat and musty basement. I imagine that my brother is awash in this smell as he leans against my father's shoulder. Little girl in the mother's lap, little boy in the father's, children in mid-fidget, a perfect candid capture on film. My father has mailed me this photo during my first year in college and has scrawled on the back, "Simpler times. Remember them." These are not simple times for everyone in this photo; he just doesn't know it.

7. 1997, I think. The music department of the Lois Cowles Harrison Center for the Performing Arts and Music have been loaded onto three charter buses and are making our way to a week-long stay in New York City. We are en route to or from in this picture, and the window behind me is dark. I am turned in my seat to face the friends with cameras. A small stuffed Elmo doll in my right hand serves as microphone and I am belting out Mariah Carey's "Hero" at the top of my lungs as my friends cackle and snap photos. Chorus teacher Mrs. McLaurin bellows "THERE IS TO BE NO SINGING ON THIS BUS" and we laugh hysterically, because we are teenagers on a cross-country bus in the middle of the night and everything, everything is hilarious. There are later pictures of me sucking on Elmo's eyeball, others of fifteen people piled into two seats, and still more of me with a strange configuration of Bugle crackers taped to my nose.