The Heart of the Matter

I’ve written about the fun I had traveling as a study abroad student…. decades and decades ago.  The story that some of you might be familiar with is the embarrassing tell-all about “Falling in Avignon” when I was part of a choral group which provided unexpected “entertainment” when I triggered a little chaos.  That same year, other mishaps occurred, but I’ve been shy about sharing because the details were strange – at the time – and became more so with each passing year. 

Inspired by Mark Petruska and his recent post about ghost hunting, I’m feeling a little encouraged and less fearful about telling my story.  I shared a snippet last week but I held back and didn’t tell my apparition tale.  Today, I invite you in and I figure you can think less of me, scratch your head, send a team to intervene…or you might be inclined to read.  I’m counting on the reading part. Here goes…

The Photo Op

I was part of a raucous high school group touring France and tormenting our chaperones.  By the time we got to Provence, headed toward Nice, we were anything but ‘nice’.  Our guides gave up on us, we the stinky busload of ugly Americans, out of place in a picturesque hillside village.  We were all sick to death of each other, having become de-facto siblings, quarreling, and sniveling for weeks.  Too much togetherness and too little sleep.  Even so, one particular stop on our itinerary captured our attention and we spent hours wandering the ancient, somber streets.  Despite the sunlight day, steely clouds hung over the hillside, summoning solemnity – for the first time on our trip.  We fell silent as we walked in a reverential wave and up a steep, winding street.  There were other tourists nearby but for a few minutes the only sounds we heard were the soft squeak of sneakers on damp cobblestones.  It was a moment of wonder and I commanded my friends to stand back so I could capture a photo of the tiny street ahead of us (pictured above).

They indulged me and we carried on.  It wasn’t the first or last time I was bossy with the crew.  We were all about the same age but I took command, whether my leadership was appreciated or not (mostly not…cue the ever-present eyerolls).  But they respected me, I think, because I kept all the secrets.  Late night dalliances, room hopping and the sneaky smoking and drinking…leading to a few first-ever hangovers.  I knew the drill, thanks to living with my mom, Sue, and I didn’t mind being cast in the role of pseudo-parent.

Our chaperones were delighted because fatigue had set in and I was a welcome peer leader. A ‘boss babe’ before the term was cool – which meant my bark to the crew, “Stand back” was obliged.  My friends shuffled to get behind me, restless but obedient and I snapped my photo.  And that was that.  We had miles to go and other countryside to see before we continued to Avignon and more.

Spooky

Before we get to the spooky stuff, I need to provide a public service announcement/history lesson for some of you.  In the pre-digital dark ages, humans relied on brick-and-mortar relics called photo centers and pharmacies to “develop” film. That’s how we rolled…. with our rolls and rolls of film. Thank you. 😉

When our rowdy troupe returned home, we gathered for the customary “photo swap’.   Everyone brought their boxes or albums full of photos and we’d head to a shag-rug covered, dark-paneled basement in someone’s house in order to have a ‘pic party’.  Our friend Pete was usually the host because his cavernous lower level had a separate entrance, and his parents were rarely home. 

As we swarmed Pete’s sprawling split level with all of our photos and mementos, the point was to share and reminisce – we the travel-weary vagabonds.  Some of the newly minted delinquents amongst us smoked their sneaky stash of bootleg French cigarettes and/or chugged Boone’s Farm, regaling anyone who would listen with an exaggerated story of misbehavior and teen triumph.  Eventually we got to the task – looking at everyone’s photos and focusing on those that needed to go into the burn bucket…to destroy any evidence of antics that parents would disapprove of.  (Those days weren’t all bad.  We could take a beat to cover our tracks.  Today?  Social media = instant infamy.)

I hadn’t thought much about my own pics before Pete’s party.  I’d been busy in the intervening weeks dealing with the nonsense that played out at home with my family while I was away.  As soon as I was back in the States, I had no time to painstakingly tend to the dozen or so envelopes of photos – fresh from the K-Mart photo counter. 

At Pete’s house, my friend Carrie reminded me of my ‘bossy moment’ (which one, I wondered) when I told everyone to stand back.  “Where’s that one pic – you know, the one with the girl?” she asked.  So we sat down and spread all of my 3×5 glossy images on the carpet, focusing on the packet that included other pics from the same day.  We searched and searched and the one image we sought was missing.  At first we figured it was a printing error, so we examined the negatives.  (And I’m not gonna explain what those are.  Look it up if you don’t know!)

By now everyone was helping us look but the image of a young girl in a white, billowy dress, standing in the vine-covered doorway, riveting our attention that day, was not there.  The photo showed the curvy, bumpy stone façade but no girl – the same photo I shared with you above. I’d taken dozens of other photos because the picturesque village captured my heart, but the photo where I told everyone to stand back – so I could capture the girl standing in the doorway? Missing.

My friends recalled the street scene and the moment and understood why I was so intent on snapping a photo.  It wasn’t just the street, enchanting as it was.  It was the girl’s gaze.  Affected is the best way to describe it.  She didn’t look at us…more like past us and as soon as the photo was snapped, she was out of view and we walked by – assuming she darted into the doorway in which she’d stood.

The “missing girl” didn’t make any sense to me, so I took the negatives from that roll to a photography teacher at school to help me look more closely. Still no girl.  And yet…twenty of us saw her.  It became the ghost story for the trip, “Vicki’s girl ghost”, and we laughed it off and I put the photos into a box in my closet and put the experience out of my mind. 

Frame ‘Er Anyway

Two years later, I met my future husband, Paul, and at the time, he had a side-job working as a wedding photographer.  We dated…my dad liked him…he wasn’t afraid of Sue and was sweet to Lisa.  (Those were key criteria for me…. love me…grow to like my crazy family.)

Along the way, I shared my travel photos and told Paul the story…carefully…cautiously…because it sounded ridiculous and I was curious about his opinion, from a photographer’s perspective.  He knew about darkrooms, developing film.  I’d already navigated my way through the four most rational explanations:   Developing error at the photo lab.  Missing negative. The girl was never really there.  We were all in some version of an ‘altered state’ – drunk/hungover/tired/bleary-eyed.

Underneath the mystery was my resolve.  I knew what I saw.  Carrie and my other friends did, too, and eventually we put ‘the girl’ aside and our high school pack graduated and dispersed.  Sharing the photo and the story with Paul two years later was a relief because he loved it and the spooky story.  So much so that he encouraged me to enlarge it, frame it, treasure it.  Period.  “Some things can’t be explained” he said after examining the negative closely.  “I think that’s okay.  It’s a great photo.  It should be hanging somewhere.”

What happened next?  I suppose this is a bit of a pre-Halloween trick.  You’ll need to hop over to my post on Victoria Ponders for more about the “The Disappearing Girl – Part II”.  See you there!

Vicki 😊