My fair lady

Hair curled and gleaming in the sunshine, draped in my beautiful white gown, I waited for him in the president’s garden. When he stepped into my view surrounded by the vine draped tunnel, he saw me for the first time. His jaw dropped and then he broke into the biggest smile. The photographer snapped photos of him walking toward me and taking me in his arms. It was surreal, to say the least. As she posed us and clicked away with her shiny black camera, I studied him. He looked sharp, it’s true, but he still looked like the adorable boy I fell in love with. When my thoughts were interrupted by our enthusiastic photographer, I turned my attention to the digital image she was showing me on her camera screen. I recognized my Scotland in the picture at once, but when I looked at myself, I had to look closer to be sure it was really me in the photo. She was vaguely familiar, but almost dreamlike in quality. My brain tried to wrap itself around that.

I am the person in that picture. That is me. I really look like that.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I know what I look like. Better than anyone else, I would say since I have seen myself naked. I have no misguided notions about my looks. I guess I was just caught off guard that I could look like that. I felt as if I had been twirled around by talented stylists and dress makers that had made me into the woman in the pictures. Was it me? I don’t know.

It was fun though. It was surreal and very bizarre to be dressed up like that getting photographed with Scotland in his tux at my side. I still feel a bit dreamlike today when I think about it.