The wedding photos are ruined
(but not the ones that matter)
We ordered eight disposable cameras for our wedding. We got them from the internet. They had heart-printed patterns, because the internet knows: if you’re buying a disposable camera, you must be having a wedding.
We ordered them eight months early and forgot about them, then went to Wisconsin and found them in my mom’s basement. An early wedding gift, from me to me. One on each table, no instructions, people know how these things work. Then we had a wedding. Flash flash flash, it’s over. Just kidding. My biggest fear was that I wouldn’t remember it, that I’d wake up on Monday morning and say, “What happened to polka night?” But I remember a lot. It was a long weekend and a lot of things happened. A lot of very good things. By the time it was over, we were exhausted. But we remember.
Then we came back to DC and learned that the giant pandas are leaving the National Zoo. I still remember the first time I saw the giant pandas in DC. I was about twelve. What I remember most was the long line to get in. It must have been summer, hot, so the pandas were cooling off in the panda house. We waited for more than an hour outside, thinking that, at any moment, the pandas would come outside. Hoping. Leaning over the fence, just in case. They didn’t come. Then we made it inside and my memory blurs—flash flash flash—we must have had our disposable cameras, we must have taken pictures, but I don’t know where those photos are and I don’t remember any of it. I don’t remember seeing a single panda.
I don’t remember the gift shop, either, but am sure we spent a lot of time there, because after that trip I had multiple panda statues peering around my blue bedroom. For years afterwards I had these panda statues staring at me when I went to bed and when I woke up. Even though I don’t remember seeing them, I created a shrine to them. I loved them.
Today the zoo gift shop is full of plush stuffed animals, which I’m told are now called “stuffies.” There are no statues. No one sells statues to kids anymore. It makes sense. You can’t play with a statue. You can’t cuddle or sleep with it unless you want a hard piece of ceramic jamming into your gut when you roll over. But why did I want the statues? Why did I find pandas so important that I would not play with them as toys, but idolize them instead. Breaking the Ten Commandments for these pandas. They still exist in a box in my mom’s basement. One day, I keep telling myself, I’ll pass them onto my kids, and we will go see the giant pandas at the national zoo, and they will love them. They will bow down in awe.
Not anymore.
I went to the panda house yesterday morning to say goodbye. There wasn’t much of a line. But a line did exist. Several people standing there seemed offended by this. “There’s a line? Can you believe there’s a line?” Yes, asshole, there’s a line, there’s been a line since I was twelve years old. Someone else said, “I drove two hours to get here. I can wait a little longer.” I almost hugged him. Waiting in line is a fine thing. You’re forced to see yourself. Some people don’t like that, I guess. In front of me, there was a little girl sitting on her dad’s shoulders. She had her eyes squeezed shut and kept holding her breath in that cartoonish way with her cheeks puffed out. As soon as she ran out of breath she’d say, “Are we there yet?” then suck in her breath and puff out her cheeks again.
When we made it inside and saw the panda, she shouted: “IS THIS WHAT YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR?”
Because there was a panda. Laying upside down on a rock. An utterly ridiculous contortion. She flopped over to her side. There was a collective aw. She scratched her ear. The crowd nearly lifted off its feet.
I was one of them. In our wedding dance, Seth and I did three backflips and three different dips. I understand that an ear scratch is no backflip. But still. This was a giant, fluffy panda. The exact same panda, in fact, that I had seen in DC those years ago. Not that I can remember. I still can’t believe they’re leaving. I’m outraged, in fact. Without the pandas, the zoo is just a zoo. And where are those photos?
Most of the wedding photos we got from our disposable cameras came back ruined. Light leak, they said. They must’ve gotten overly jostled. The photos were dark and splotchy with wild green afterimages.
But Seth and I adore them. We sorted them into piles: “Art,” “Maybe art,” and “Trash.” The art pile far outweighs the others. The trash pile contains maybe two or three photos. The lime green and electric blue colors are something we couldn’t have created ourselves. The dim wedding dinner tables with just enough light to look like a murder mystery. We’ll tape them up, yes, we’ll make a collage. We’ll fill a wall with art. A shrine of photo negatives. We’ll probably look at them more than we will at the “real” photos. These aren’t “real” photos because there was too much light, they told us. Because some things are meant to be squirreled away and kept in the dark. Flash flash flash. And it’s over.
This is what we’ve been waiting for. What will we remember?
PS: I have a new interview published in The Creative Independent with the author Leslie Pietrzyk about how she tackles politics in fiction and her latest amazing collection Admit This To No One. Check it out here.
PPS: Some of our favorite “art” photos. Yes I took photos of the photos… we do our best.
PPS: Some of you come here for the cats. Here’s one. Bonus points if you can guess which one it is from behind:
