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Newcastle fog
May. 10th, 2002 02:50 amI finally found a moment to read my National Geographic tonight after having shot some perty decent pool (sloppy!) with my roomie. It has a picture of a woman covered in cottony purple veils, holding a photograph of the Afghanistan girl from 1985 or so. yes, you all know what I am talking about; it's the girl that has the sea-green eyes, who looks frightened and accusing all at once. Easily the most famous NG photograph ever.
It has been 17 years, and the man who photographed her went on a quest to find her. Somehow, she survived, has three children, and is absolutely emotionless before the Western photographer. She had no idea her photo meant so much to the world, that it inspired so much curiosity. She cares not...her life is her husband, an arranged one back when she was 13 or 16 (she does not know how old she is), and her three children. She looks dead-pan into the camera, but dares not meet the eyes of the photographer, for he is not her husband.
Her face has filled out, her skin like leather after the sun of years. And her life has weathered her spirit...she says she preferred the life under Taliban rule...at least then it was organized.
And her life is her kids, the possible education of her two youngest daughters.
She prefers the settlement to the chaos that is change.
How bloody scary is that to me....
I have settled before.
I was miserable.
eventually, I have that dream, to be a wife and mother, to be happily-ever-after and all that crap. Not that she is that, but she has definately settled. Routines are safe, chaos is fumbling. I guess I'd rather discover the new species of beetle in the grass beneath my scraped-up chin than stare at an empty sky for eternity and accept is as such.
Amazing, how we fall into the secrity of ritual.
I suppose it all boils down to some sort of hunger, and the survival of that hunger.
Her eyes though...the light has disappeared. She is the aftermath of life's storms. And despite her fuller brows, furrowed above her now darkened eyes, her frowning, less full lips beneath the scar on her nose from 17 years ago in a camp, she is still just as haunting as she ever was.
http://mesa.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/afghangirl/index.html
It has been 17 years, and the man who photographed her went on a quest to find her. Somehow, she survived, has three children, and is absolutely emotionless before the Western photographer. She had no idea her photo meant so much to the world, that it inspired so much curiosity. She cares not...her life is her husband, an arranged one back when she was 13 or 16 (she does not know how old she is), and her three children. She looks dead-pan into the camera, but dares not meet the eyes of the photographer, for he is not her husband.
Her face has filled out, her skin like leather after the sun of years. And her life has weathered her spirit...she says she preferred the life under Taliban rule...at least then it was organized.
And her life is her kids, the possible education of her two youngest daughters.
She prefers the settlement to the chaos that is change.
How bloody scary is that to me....
I have settled before.
I was miserable.
eventually, I have that dream, to be a wife and mother, to be happily-ever-after and all that crap. Not that she is that, but she has definately settled. Routines are safe, chaos is fumbling. I guess I'd rather discover the new species of beetle in the grass beneath my scraped-up chin than stare at an empty sky for eternity and accept is as such.
Amazing, how we fall into the secrity of ritual.
I suppose it all boils down to some sort of hunger, and the survival of that hunger.
Her eyes though...the light has disappeared. She is the aftermath of life's storms. And despite her fuller brows, furrowed above her now darkened eyes, her frowning, less full lips beneath the scar on her nose from 17 years ago in a camp, she is still just as haunting as she ever was.
http://mesa.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/afghangirl/index.html
