Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sure, but who wouldn't be?

"Let me start by saying the women of my generation have a reason to be fired up."

This is what you said in a dream. Not to me -- I read them in an interview. Your face (and your hair, and your mouth -- you wore a lot of lipstick in the photo, if you'll forgive my saying so) was on the cover of American Legion, which I think is a magazine my dad gets from his union. There were pictures inside, too -- you with all of the women of your family, most of whom I have never seen in life, and another where you are sitting down next to a white picket fence, using it to brace yourself as you stretch one leg high in the air and flash and embarrassed smile at the camera, presumably for being photographed so in the first place. It's an infectious and endearing smile. There's a young man in the foreground, stealing a glance at you. I don't feel jealous. I think, "Yeah, no kidding."

In the background of that photo -- or perhaps in an accompanying photograph is a seaside town on a hill, with a clock tower, an old movie theater, streets that are winding and not wide. The photo caption describes this town as a "lazy seaside" place you pass through every day by train, and that it's come to have special meaning to you.

On the magazine's cover you are proclaimed as the face of a new movement of young women, one that inspires more and more to "receive catechism." I'm not sure if that even makes sense as a phrase -- I get easily confused when it comes to religious ceremonies. I understand that it is (or was meant to be) different from communion. But then again, maybe not. In any event, the article's author proclaims that, as charming and true as you are, she was not convinced to forgive God on your account.

I didn't find out anymore, I'm afraid. I settled down with the magazine but woke up after that first line: "Let me start by saying the women of my generation have a lot to be fired up about." And then, "Let me find you the women of North Kokomo, Indiana," at which point I believed you played a piece of audio for the interviewer. At this point I was probably a little jealous.