time traveler

My mind is a time traveler these days.

There I am one year ago to the day, finding out I’m pregnant. We wander around north beach, gazing up at sycamore leaves against a springtime sky & I’m euphoric.

Now I’m in some far future morning, packing my son’s lunch for school or hearing he has fallen in love. But Craig & I are making eyes at each other through the gates of a shop on Hayes St as I lock up for the night and we go for a drink.

And I’m back thirty years ago staring through afternoon sun rays in my Aunt Linda’s laundry room at an embroidered poem hung above the dryer…

“The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow. But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep! I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.”

In the early days - are those still now? - I fought myself to sit still. An active mind and decades of answering mostly to no one but myself had me pushing against this season of life. The siren song of “hang out the washing, make up the bed”… the mounting anxiety of sitting still while a body heals.

But I work on it. He helps me be here… & there… & there, there, there. We’re so many ages at once. I move little rolled onesies around in small drawers - 0 to 3 months, 6 to 9. This never fit but this one will in the summer or maybe it did last week.

In photos these days, I’ve never looked older. I’ve never looked younger.

All the while I’m gazing at my baby as he lies across my lap. It’s quiet at four in the morning so we don’t have to make many sounds to talk. “But I’m playing Kanga & this is my Roo. Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?” My c-section scar tingles & burns under his weight & I’m proud of that. Feeding was such a struggle we learned through together. I know there are more struggles to come.

Elio lives up to his name. My sunshine boy. Sometimes glaring & strong, exposing the rough spots & cracks I’m trying to smooth. Sometimes the softest glow I’ve ever known, warming the earth around me to sprout new seeds. I can already watch him climb the full-grown tree.

All images by Meg are shot on Kodak professional film, processed & scanned by Richard Photo Lab. Images #1, #6, & #10 are by the incredible Lynn Bagley (Lynn, you gave us the world with those photographs… thank you♥️)