A framed enlargement of this picture has hung on a wall in each of my last three houses. It is a family photograph with my grandmother's handwriting on the back: 1927 House north of town. My grandma is the one standing next to the door. Her in-laws are seated on the edge of the porch, holding my Aunt Sylvia.
Who's house is this, north of town? Why is the window broken? Why are the chickens running around? There is another picture taken just a moment before or after, without the chickens. I could find the answers to these questions easily, but because wondering about it is half the fun, I haven't asked.
Most of all, I've wondered, why was the picture taken at all, and who is behind the camera? As a writing exercise I tried starting a story with this scene. I wrote as if this weren't my family at all, but some strangers I was encountering for the first time. After a few flat starts, Tugs Button (see yesterday's post) popped into my head as a spunky twelve-year-old girl with a new camera. This is my family, she seemed to say. Let me tell you about them.
When something went wrong in the Button family, they shrugged, they sighed, they shook their heads. “Just our luck,” the Buttons said.
Tell me more, I said to Tugs. And she did.