Marylou DiPietro
This photo of me, which was taken when I was five, has been hanging over my desk for forty years. I am constantly amazed at how the photographer captured the essence of the person I would will myself to become.
Looking closely, you can decipher the words, partly hidden by the crisscrossed straps of my blue roller skater’s skirt -- “I love a parade”.
The t-shirt – like everything I wore, was a hand-me-down from my older sisters. But the bold pronouncement scrawled across the front of my t-shirt spoke volumes about what was already brewing inside me: an unyielding determination to march in the parade rather than merely stand on the sidelines and watch it pass me by.After bemoaning the fact that I did not need to wear glasses, which I believed would make me smarter, in a moment of unprecedented kindness, my mother bought me the red-plastic sunglasses I am proudly wearing in the picture, and which I wore religiously all summer.
Every few months my mother brought my sister and me to the back room of The Peacock, the only Chinese Restaurant in town, where Pa Wong, the father of her childhood friend, cut our hair just like the little Chinese girls I saw in the pictures that hung on the restaurant’s wall. It was a tiny, powerful glimpse into a far-away world so different from my own.
In the moment the photo was taken, my mouth is stuffed with Oreo cookies. The cookies I have yet to devour are safely tucked inside the cellophane bag I am holding firmly and lovingly between my fingers. Now, sixty years later, I suddenly realize my grasp on my favorite cookies embodies an implicit birthright; an innate sense of stalwart, albeit naïve, prowess. Still, I stopped just long enough to be seen for the picture, before moving forward resolutely with indomitable pride, determination and clarity.
The setting is context for the image. The location explains why my face, and even my unassuming little body, exudes such confidence, composure and forward motion. This was “the camp” where my siblings and I spent every summer growing up. Behind me is the ghostly figure of my younger brother leaning against one of the army cots we slept on while my father was building the camp. Born four years after me, my brother was the family star, the one who would carry out the DiPietro name.
But in this picture, I am the one standing firmly center stage. If you could see my eyes behind the dark plastic lens they’d be saying, “Here I am. This is me. No one, not even my illustrious brother, can stop me.”
Fueled by what I saw through the lens of my red-plastic rimmed sunglasses, faith in what I believed was my potential, a rapidly expanding vision of the world and a mouth full of Oreo cookies and reserve supply in hand, I set out to conquer the world.