I'm getting a little obessive about those photos...
I have a photo of my mother. She is laughing, her eyes closed tight. Someone has just pushed her onto the bed--my father. They are playing and she pushes her backward and snaps the photo just as she lands. She makes a soft divot on the mattress. We all know what must have come next.
This is our own little apartment, she thinks. It's just the way I want it. The bed's from a garage sale, and the rest from the Salvation Army, but it's ours. It's neat. The bed stays made all day, the bedspread a smooth surface I can peel back before I slide under the cool sheets.
This was before I existed--perhaps just a heartbeat before my conception and I'd like to believe so. I manufacture my own mythology. I was conceived in joy and as I divided cells one after another, my parents contentedly lay next to each other.
What is it about these photos that attracts me? I can't get over how much my mother looks like me, how handsome my father once was. I recognize myself in them--my own life--I see their desires through my own eyes.
In one photo, my father sits in his study. A set of Encyclopedia Brittianica shelved neatly behind him. He's bought a globe and it sits atop the shelve that houses the great books. There are three books on the desk before him, and is studying. I am a knowledgeable man, a man of the world. I've gone beyond all expectations, risen above my promise though no one's asked me to.
I remember being a young child, paging through the that same set of encyclopedias. Anteater. I wanted to see a picture of their long snouts. I sat on the floor of his room waiting for him to come home. Anteater. Antelope the next entry, and not as interesting an animal.
I'm struck by how playful they are. How they honestly smile--they are not smiling for the camera--they are smiling for each other. In pictures taken now, I see fear, distance, self protection.
I have a photo of my mother. She is laughing, her eyes closed tight. Someone has just pushed her onto the bed--my father. They are playing and she pushes her backward and snaps the photo just as she lands. She makes a soft divot on the mattress. We all know what must have come next.
This is our own little apartment, she thinks. It's just the way I want it. The bed's from a garage sale, and the rest from the Salvation Army, but it's ours. It's neat. The bed stays made all day, the bedspread a smooth surface I can peel back before I slide under the cool sheets.
This was before I existed--perhaps just a heartbeat before my conception and I'd like to believe so. I manufacture my own mythology. I was conceived in joy and as I divided cells one after another, my parents contentedly lay next to each other.
What is it about these photos that attracts me? I can't get over how much my mother looks like me, how handsome my father once was. I recognize myself in them--my own life--I see their desires through my own eyes.
In one photo, my father sits in his study. A set of Encyclopedia Brittianica shelved neatly behind him. He's bought a globe and it sits atop the shelve that houses the great books. There are three books on the desk before him, and is studying. I am a knowledgeable man, a man of the world. I've gone beyond all expectations, risen above my promise though no one's asked me to.
I remember being a young child, paging through the that same set of encyclopedias. Anteater. I wanted to see a picture of their long snouts. I sat on the floor of his room waiting for him to come home. Anteater. Antelope the next entry, and not as interesting an animal.
I'm struck by how playful they are. How they honestly smile--they are not smiling for the camera--they are smiling for each other. In pictures taken now, I see fear, distance, self protection.
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