Self-Portrait Tuesday 01.10

My personal history always seems fragmented, in constant motion, lots of family. My mother divorced when I was six months old. I was close to my dad, his new family and his parents. My mother struggled and worked hard to keep she and I going. My maternal grandmother, uncle, aunt, my mom and I, all huddling together in love, dysfunction, poverty for our very survival, living under the same roof for years. In my very early days, that would be a very small attic apartment in Texas that we all lovingly called "The Hot House". I remember bits and pieces of "The Hot House". We laughed about it, the small, weird bathroom, that you had to duck down entering as not to bump your head (for the adults), my grandmother's snoring would keep everyone awake since we basically all slept in one room. My "Nanny" cooking "chocolate rolls" (I now make my own son), making me Barbie clothes. My uncle in High School, his beautiful girlfriend Betsy, dancing the "Pony" and "Swim" with his High School friends, swimming pools all summer, apartment life, daycare that last what seems like my entire childhood, then my mother remarried and that all changed. Another life began for me.

Nanny, my aunt, my mom and me in The Hot House, My mom and I on my 3nd birthday, My maternal grandmother and me at one year old.