(From the archives: ‘Me and The Cubs’ mug shots, 2008).
There’s something wildly ironic about being asked to prove your identity by actively trying to erase it.
No smiling.
No sparkle.
Hair pulled back like you’re due in court.
Eyes dull, mouth neutral, the full emotional range of a potato.
I sit beneath the flickering lights of the post office, trying to suppress every natural impulse to be. Trying to look like someone who doesn’t laugh, cry, or feel things. Apparently, that’s what “official” looks like.
Next to me, a mother holds her six-month-old baby up to the camera. The tiny human can barely hold his head up yet but still, joy pours out of him. He’s smiling, gurgling, utterly delighted by existence. The clerk looks pained and sighs. “It’ll need to stop smiling.”
The mother does her best, rocking and making warm-up noises with her lips worthy of a theatre rehearsal. “Brrrrrrr, boooooo boooooo, brrrrrrr.” Gently but firmly, she tries to coax the light out of him. But he just keeps grinning. Sparkling. Refusing to cooperate.
It occurs to me that this ridiculous scene might be the best metaphor for life I have seen in a while. Because no matter how much we are told to tone it down, straighten up, and file ourselves into something more manageable, more the same, more more, or more less, there will always be some part of us, innocent and alive, that keeps smiling.
And thank God for that.
Nothing but love
VW x