This is based on a blog piece titled It’s all in the frame by Laurie Wagner. I think she said it was a line of dialogue one of her friends said. I’ve actually taken this line quite literally in the piece below where I’ve basically described all the framed photos that are sitting in the alcove of a cabinet or else framed up on the wall in my house.
It’s all in the frame: the photo Mum and me took in Universal Studios in Japan, in the Jaws. We still had big smiles on our faces and my best friend commented on this. “Eaten by a shark and still so happy!” she had said or rather typed. We were on Messenger. Also in the frame is the two of us at my Honours graduation ceremony. This one was hung up on the wall of the sitting room behind the couch that nobody at home really sat on though Mum sometimes lay herself down on it for an afternoon nap or because she was unwell. Anyway, this was hung between my two certificates of completion for my double degree, one for each. We had actually since taken another photo of us for another of my graduation ceremony, for my Masters degree. But we never replaced the photo. I had gained weight in between the two photos and didn’t look as good even though I finally got to wear a hat the second time. It was a round hat and not the square ones I was used to seeing in Hong Kong TV dramas. But I did get a hat, unlike in the photo behind the couch. No hat but I was smiling good in there. In the frame, also, a photo Mum and me took in Shanghai a few years ago, couldn’t be more than 4 or 5, but I couldn’t say which year now. The second time we went back was all that was in the frame for me.
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