making memories

As a child I remember scouring the shelves. Delving deep into the closets, boxes and trunks. I was always searching for something. Something that would tell the story of who I was and where I came from. Something that would help “all-of-this” make sense. I wanted stories of my past, of the past leading up to me and mostly I just wanted to find the secret. The secret that would unlock it all.

One day I found a baby book. It had a couple of notes in it but was mostly empty. I thought that this book had been my chance but that now I would never know. I felt keenly the loss of understanding. The missed opportunity. This empty book represented all that would be lost from me.

When I became a mother I wanted to give my children this understanding. To gift them with that something special that I never had. Each of my children have their own special book. These books  tell a story and the story is that of their lives. I also am beginning a different kind of book. I will be asking my mother to write down the memories of her childhood, of her parents and her grandparents.

We need to preserve this history to pass down. If we do not do this it will be lost forever. I do not want my children to piece together an incomplete past the way that I have. I feel that the past is so important in understanding the present but that so much is lost. So much understanding is lost.

Closer

I was driving down the road the other day, and it dawned on me that my child and any child for that matter is as close as we can get to ourselves without being ourselves. As the progenitors of another  life we are the originators and the closest to those little beings. Obvious, I know, but this is why we care so much. If they were any closer they would just be us and then we would not care at all. They are at that very special point, an apex. They are the us that breathes outside our bodies. The beating, living, breathing parts of ourselves over which we have no control. This is scary, being a parent is to risk losing something more valuable than yourself.

Watercolor

Lately I have been painting these emotionally charged watercolors. For the past couple of years I have been doing self portraits which sort of serve as place holders in time. They mark the events in my life with my son. They show me where I have been and where I am. They serve as a visual diary.