Age 8 or so. Me and my dad in Colorado ‘panning for gold’ at one of those tourist Gold Rush things. My mom snapped this photo. I had a small gold nugget that my dad bought me in the gift shop that I had forever.
3rd grade, so about 1966? Me standing in front of my house about to walk to school. My mom took the photo probably because she had just made me that new triangular scarf that we all wore then. I took it off halfway to school of course. Then one day, somehow a bird pooped on my head and I had to confess to my mom that I was not wearing the scarf which she then proclaimed that the SOLE PURPOSE of that scarf was to protect my hair from bird droppings. I look like a little babushka.
We all have those photographs of us. Where we’re just sitting there in a room doing seemingly nothing. Somebody took a snapshot. Why? No idea.  I’m sure it was my mother that took the picture. Maybe she saw the light coming in from the shears hanging in that window, the sunlight shining in. Or maybe she had just sewn that outfit I’m wearing and she was trying to get a picture of it which is probably the most likely explanation. What is weird is that I can remember that day when I was just sitting there…. I remember the fabric of the sofa and the crisp cotton of the top and the “peddle pushers” she had made me. The sofa was actually part of a sectional that my mother had separated . I have no recollection of the vase and flowers though.
I’ve looked at this old photo of me many times, I’m about 18 months. There is always something in painting these snapshots that make me reflect but this one stirred something really deep. Hit me really hard.
My little feet. My little hands. LIttle me
Safe, small, and full of a future I couldn’t see then.
There’s something in that light, that moment that seemed to unfold with every brush stroke. Maybe you feel it too…..as a memory of your own little me.