Self-portrait

Every portrait is an act of editing.

The painter chooses what to emphasize.
The photographer chooses what to crop.
The writer chooses what to omit.

The rest disappears.

We like to imagine a self-portrait as an exercise in honesty, but perhaps it is closer to authorship.

No one captures themselves in their entirety.

Not on canvas.
Not in photographs.
Not in memory.

We select.

A gesture.
A scar.
A triumph.
A contradiction.

Then we declare: this is me.

Years later, we do it again.

A different portrait.
A different emphasis.

The same woman.

Perhaps that is why the most interesting self-portraits rarely resemble the subject perfectly.

They reveal something more important than appearance.

They reveal allegiance.

What a person chooses to preserve says far more than what they choose to display.

In the end, every self-portrait answers the same question:

Not Who am I?

But:

Which parts of myself deserve to endure?

Michelle