I found a dozen vintage postcards in my bag today—I forgot that I bought them a few weeks ago from a hole-in-the-wall bookstore downtown. They’re mostly black and white photographs of men and women at various stages of life, thoroughly enjoying it. Life, I mean. They’re adoringly simple. Images frozen in time: quaint smiles caught on film between lovers as they stroll under sunlit trees and shrubbery in one card to children mid-jump, legs and arms askew as they dance by a lake in another. It’s eternally 1:10 in the afternoon on 44th Street in yet another postcard—this one hails from 1938. None of the men and women in the picture seem particularly enthusiastic to get to wherever they are headed, keeping their heads down and concentrating entirely on each step. Here’s another 1930’s photo, of Billy and Beverly Bemis frozen in a perfectly choreographed Charleston step, him gazing into her eyes as she beams for the camera. Her face is flawless—it’s painted up like a China doll—and if you look closely you can see his taut muscles flex through the backswing of the eight count. Finally, it’s Audrey Hepburn poised on the back of a wooden chair like an elegant gazelle, hair perfectly coiffed out of her face as she leans contentedly on the dark mahogany wood, hand strategically placed to show off the dazzling ring on her finger. Eyes big, eyebrows up, lips thinly drawn into a half-smile.
xoxo e
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