Luke Blundell Wedding Photographs
Raid every suburban home in Canada or the States and you ’ ll find , in the middle drawer of the pedestalled child-graduation-picture cabinet , a photo album just like this one . The cover is blank . They always are . It ’ s either a muted blue ; an uninspiring green ; or , if it ’ s especially old , brown with a leathery texture to it . It doesn ’ t have a name . Any other scrap bits of paper , sewing equipment , islanded polaroids , discarded buttons , or inkless pens only inhabit that drawer amidst the album to make it seem like a genuine discovery : that you ’ ve unearthed a rare trinket of the past , despite your family nostalgia trip being a nearly perfect tri-yearly ritual .
But I haven ’ t been in this house for close to a decade , so this excavation does feel priceless .
( p . 1 ) My father , John ; my mother , Allison ; posing for their wedding day , 1972 . My mother is wearing white . I suppose I didn ’ t need to clarify that . My father has a gray suit and a disgusting checkered tie , which is only half as distracting as his floppy 70s curtain haircut and handlebar moustache .
Some of my earliest memories are of the two of us driving along the highway in a beatdown pickup truck ( a later photo , p . 11 , reveals this to be an orange four-seater 1967 Ford F250 ). I close my eyes , attempt to waft away the blurry fog of childhood , then a portrait of my mother comes to life , fastening me into the back seat . Shortly followed by my father letting me climb into the front . He steers one handed , a cigarette pluming a smoketrail between his fingers , and raises a forefinger to his lips with his free hand , shushing me to not tell mom . No moustache in this reverie . He must have shaved it off before I was born .
They ’ re both posing for the camera : Allison is holding a thin collection of green stems intertwined by a floreted bundle of white roses , John shines a cheesy grin and places an awkward hand on hers . Behind them both is a cream wood-paneled church native to the American north-west and , neighboring it near the sidewalk , an out of place weeping tree droops its limbs as if sighing , leaves eavesdropping their wedding .
How many times have I seen this one ? For twenty years , it perched itself on that cabinet shelf until later being dethroned after I graduated from Boston . The part which particularly pricks my attention , its punctum , is the dimpled smile and wide-eyed glare my mother gives towards the lens . That nooked curve of cheek was reserved for her most impolite hysterical laughter , and that stare , well , this might be the only time I ’ ve ever seen it . If I think of her face ,
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