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.
