(no subject)
We rearrainged the apartment last weekend. In the process, my desk got moved, and all my photos ad to come down. I was just working on putting them back up in the new location. I came to my small pile of photos of my mother... 4 of them.
The first is just a random picture of her... she's sitting in front of a window wearing her "washington D.C." tshirt that had all the flags of the world on it. She looks vaguely bored, and vaguely pissed at having her picture taken.
The second was taken when i was three or four. It was new year's, i remember. Later that night i wore a hat that looked like the headpieces the ladies who rode the elephants and the circus wore. I'm clinging to her, in the pink satin princess dress my grandmother made me. She holds me gently. We're sitting together on the stairs. I look so confident. Almost cocky. She's just grinning. perhaps the most striking thing about this photo is her hand. She always hated her hands... she thought the viens stuck out too much. She used to wonder what would happen as she got older. Her hand here looks so young. i did not htink of my mother as old. But she did have a few age spots. The hand in this pictuer of clear... no wrinkles or spots, just prominent veins.
The third... that is what set me off to start with. It as taken at camp, on final weekend, when the parents could all come to visit. She's wearing a bohemian-esque vest, and has her sunglasses on her head. She's aboslutly glowing. She looks somewhat old in this picture. Her eyes have smile lines all around them.
And then there's the last photo.. the one that actually made me cry. It's a picture of us, about six months before she died. She's holding a baby Rhiannon, and I've got my arm around her. I doubt there was an occation. Just... a photo. My hair is short, i'm tanned. I must have just gotten home from camp.
But the hardest thing about this photo?
she looks like a stranger to me. While i can intellectually say "yeah, that's a photo of my mom and i"... when i look at it, i don't feel mother...
I feel like i'm forgetting.
The first is just a random picture of her... she's sitting in front of a window wearing her "washington D.C." tshirt that had all the flags of the world on it. She looks vaguely bored, and vaguely pissed at having her picture taken.
The second was taken when i was three or four. It was new year's, i remember. Later that night i wore a hat that looked like the headpieces the ladies who rode the elephants and the circus wore. I'm clinging to her, in the pink satin princess dress my grandmother made me. She holds me gently. We're sitting together on the stairs. I look so confident. Almost cocky. She's just grinning. perhaps the most striking thing about this photo is her hand. She always hated her hands... she thought the viens stuck out too much. She used to wonder what would happen as she got older. Her hand here looks so young. i did not htink of my mother as old. But she did have a few age spots. The hand in this pictuer of clear... no wrinkles or spots, just prominent veins.
The third... that is what set me off to start with. It as taken at camp, on final weekend, when the parents could all come to visit. She's wearing a bohemian-esque vest, and has her sunglasses on her head. She's aboslutly glowing. She looks somewhat old in this picture. Her eyes have smile lines all around them.
And then there's the last photo.. the one that actually made me cry. It's a picture of us, about six months before she died. She's holding a baby Rhiannon, and I've got my arm around her. I doubt there was an occation. Just... a photo. My hair is short, i'm tanned. I must have just gotten home from camp.
But the hardest thing about this photo?
she looks like a stranger to me. While i can intellectually say "yeah, that's a photo of my mom and i"... when i look at it, i don't feel mother...
I feel like i'm forgetting.