a photo shoot from years back

He was the lifeguard at a local hotel pool where my family had a membership. 

I had just graduated high school and was looking forward to starting college. He had just completed his first year at the University of Rochester. He seemed so worldly. After all, he could quote Nietzche. Knew about existentialism. And drove a convertible sports car with a stick shift.

It was the summer of '69. I had tickets to Woodstock but never made it there. We watched the moon landing together. And I took a psychedelic drug with him for the first time ... among other memorable firsts.

When the summer ended, so too, did any kind of relationship we had. 

Still, sometime in the winter of my freshman year, I visited him at Rochester. He was into photography and I did some posing. It wasn't as memorable as the summer, as that is pretty much all I remember from my visit. That also may have been the last time we spoke.

But then, thanks to Facebook, a couple of years or so ago we reconnected. He had gone on to earn a PhD.  Married. Had kids. Moved to the West Coast.  And had a successful career in the sciences. 

Last week he sends me the photos I'd never seen from that long-ago photo shoot. When I first opened my email and saw this photo I honestly didn't recognize myself. I thought it was some ad for a horror movie where the heroine is screaming.

But when I saw the others I remembered.

Funny now to think that hair that long was pretty. Though I do miss the very long lashes and defined dark eyebrows I once had.