School Pictures

It's Monday's ordinary thing.

I've been using old school pictures as writing prompts. In light of the last one - what a difference a few years can make! At 15, I finally got that hair to feather. I had Amway Satinique Hair Spray and wasn't afraid to use it.

In this photo I begin to see the me that became me. Joy shows up and takes over: whatever else was going on, I came to love living itself. My foster parents had moved with me to Portland - I felt so much a part of them. And I was starting to like what I liked, to discover and wear my favorite color, to show my teeth regardless of that left front chip. It loomed large in my mind like an enormous crater, evoking the memories of stressed-out excursions to a short-tempered dentist who tried to save the root. That tooth eventually yellowed and died, but the root of who I was would take hold, strong and deep.

With a series of photos, compare and contrast where you were, what you knew, how you lived.