Thursday, August 14, 2008


For most of my life while my mother was alive I had to listen to, "Nunca podrás saber porque nunca serás mamá," or "You will never know because you will never be a mother." It used to infuriate me and now (half jokingly) I assert to some women that I would like to eliminate mother's day as it is a gender specific holiday that should not be in our age of political correctness. Both father's and mother's day should be rolled into something inocuous like parenting day or procreation day.



Back then, I never had the idea to get back at my mother by telling her that she would never know because she would never be a father or (now) a grandfather.

I watch Rosemary talk to both our cats, the male Toby (her cat) and my female Plata. She and I both impose our ideas of what it is to be a female and a male on these cats. I am not too sure that Plata (who is most graceful) is any more feminine or less masculine than Toby.



But when I photograph Lauren at 6 (now) I am overwhelmed in such a pleasant way by the fact that she is a little girl who is a little girl and not a little boy. I would not know what to do with a little boy. Or at least I tell myself this. It is just lots of fun to dress Lauren up and photograph her in the garden in much the same way I have been doing with Rebecca. I discern some differences but they are all delightful nontheless.

In these pictures here I decided not to hide the fact that Lauren had fallen off a tree days before (she did not cry) and was taken to emergency (she did not cry) and instead of being stiched up she was glewed up! She is wearing the sailor dress I bought for Rebecca in Cancun some 5 years ago.

In the first picture Lauren is posing by our ornamental cherry tree with the English Rose, Rosa 'L.D. Braitwaite'. In the second she is holding Rosa 'The Fairy' and her toy leopard, Sparkle. In the third photograph she is sniffing the intoxication myrrh scented English Rose, Rosa 'Mary Webb'. This latter rose is not too generous in blooming. I may get three or four flowers in a season. But they are large, ever so perfumed and they remind me of very heavy whipping cream.