THE SELF
Cindy Maddera
A few weeks ago, I had to get new headshots taken at work. I dressed a little bit nicer than usual, put on some makeup and tried to have a nice hair day. I really needed a haircut at the time, but that wasn’t on the schedule for another week. Anyway, I thought I looked nice enough. I smiled for the camera man, took directions from the camera man and when I got my prints to review and choose my favorite two, I fell over dead. I didn’t like any of the pictures of myself. When did I get so fat and puffy?!? Why does it look like I have a sunburn? Why didn’t I take the camera out of that man’s hands and take the picture myself? I chose the two least horrible pictures and plan on never needing to use them for anything.
When Kelly was putting together class introductions for camp, she emailed me asking me for pictures of me teaching yoga. I scrolled through all of my pictures in storage and came up with zero pictures of me in the act of teaching yoga. I finally sent her a picture of me sitting in meditation and said “I don’t have any pictures of me teaching yoga, but I promise that I am a yoga teacher.” Kelly responded with “how is it even possible that you do not have pictures of yourself?!?” She mentioned it a few times during camp about how there are no pictures of Cindy, please take pictures of Cindy. Which she did. About fifty percent of Kelly’s pre-camp setup pictures are of me making faces at the camera.
It has come to my attention that I have gotten into the habit of never stepping out from behind the camera.
It’s been a while since I did a 365 Day Self Portrait project and thinking about starting up another round of this makes me cringe. I do not have good feelings about my body right now and the internet knows this. I am inundated with ads on weight loss and hormone replacement drugs targeting women of my age. I reached my peak of puffiness at camp and immediately put Michael and myself on a cleansing diet for the next ten days to sort of reset our bodies. Self Care Circle meeting happened a couple of days before we left for camp and one of the things Roze talked about was spending at least twenty minutes to eat your meal. It did not take me long to figure out that even though I was eating healthy meals, I was eating way too much of that meal in one sitting because I was swallowing my food whole. Twenty minute meals and cleansing diets are baby steps in my anti-puffy plan and do not have overnight results. So yeah, I am still reluctant to step in front of the lens (or onto a scale).
The value in doing a photo a day of one’s self is not lost on me. The first year I did this project, I learned to like myself or at least to stop cringing whenever I saw a picture of myself. I weighed the same or even a little bit more than what I weigh now. I was less fit then and didn’t do near as much exercising as I do now. I have gotten out of the habit of seeing my own face. I don’t even really study it in the mirror as I’m brushing my teeth. So the few times I see myself in photos, I am shocked by appearance. I only half the feel as tired as my face and body look in pictures. Maybe the part that shocks me is how much a photo of myself reflects how I am feeling physically. My brain might be all raw-raw-ree, but my body has some aches and it no longer jumps up and down. I can see a lack of enthusiasm in the photo version of me.
And I don’t care for it.
I can see a few fixes for this. The easiest fix is to keep doing what I am doing, but get out from behind the lens and in front of it more often. I need to get a good look of my unenthusiastic self so I can recognize the moments where I can see real authentic enthusiasm on my face. Because I think I’ve been faking enthusiasm for longer than I’d like to admit in a whole Fake It ‘Till You Make It kind of way.