Still thinking about my unbridled laughter mixed with tears in response to the video of the runaway horse, along with the one of the Tyrannosaurus Rex making a snow angel and making its uneven way through the snowy landscape and how those tears and that laughter relate to experiencing some peace in connection with my mother, who died in 1994. If she were still alive, she would be 101 years old on April 30. Maybe not peace. Maybe just losing my fear of the Tyrannosaurus Rex mother and meeting the gentle looking child that my mother was as she held her doll.
1. My mother as a 4-year-old girl in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1920, holding a beloved doll. My mother said that she always wanted to have children, from an early age.
2. My mother as a young woman in the 1930s in Los Angeles.
3. Me in our apartment in San Mateo, California, with my red horse, 21 months old, Easter Day.
4. Me at 2 years old with my red horse. My mother did not seem to like me and my sisters or my father, and I did not like dolls or ever picture myself being married. When my mother brought me to a toy store and asked me to choose a doll, I angrily refused to choose a doll. I remember that moment so clearly. I wanted a boyfriend from a very early age but believed I would never have one because I was unloveable, that no one would ever want to marry me.
5. The orange horse with the purple mane and red-violet bridle that I drew when I was 5 years old.
6. My mother, my youngest sister, and me just before I turned 8 years old, when I was starting riding lessons at Rohn Stables, not far from where we lived in Redwood City, California. I was not afraid of horses, but I was deeply afraid of my mother's anger. When I saw the movie "Jurassic Park," around the time my mother died, the terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex reminded me of my mother. I could not imagine growing up and having children and being as unhappy and angry as my mother seemed to be.
I've probably posted all these photos before. I am seeing them with new eyes.
"Music is the best way to communicate" (Toumani Diabate)
