Sep 30, 2010

Snapshot Bio

This is the first picture of me. You can just see me there, in the curve of my mother's belly. It is her wedding day and she is wearing a knee-length empire-waisted white dress. Her hair is long and pale blonde and she is wearing glasses. Beside her, my father, in a dark brown suit, Brylcreem-ed hair blowing back in the wind. Soon-to-be-grandparents smile into the camera and behind everyone, a magnolia tree bursting with pink and white flowers.


I spent the first few days of my life in an incubator. This is me, tiny and pink, wrapped up snug as a premature bug in a hospital-issue blanket, tucked into something that looks like a carseat. The incubator is the colour of brown in 1973, the colour of kitchen appliances and floral couches and VW vans with teardrop windows. There is a string of pink beads around my ankle spelling out my last name, but you can't see it here.