People want to remember their vacations, especially families, so they stop to take pictures of themselves. They stand there stiff and stilted, in a put on pose, a wax museum position their body never assumes in real life and doesn’t resemble any way they ever look during the vacation, and then they fix their face into a mask, closer to a grimace than an expression of genuine happiness, until the picture is snapped. Then they let out a breath and immediately fall back into the way they really are, acting nothing like the affected figures in the photo they will prize and use to remember.
The way they choose to remember the vacation is to snap a picture of themselves as they never are, as they never appeared throughout their natural existence on the vacation. They want to remember the vacation by looking at something that never happened, an expression they never wore, revealing nothing about how they ever felt. Their savored photo memories are of a vacation that never really happened.
And you guys tease me about the way I prepare to take a nice natural picture.
—Dad
