Self Portrait 1948

I’m looking at a picture of me and my mom taken in Chicago in 1948. There is snow that has been shoveled off the sidewalk. Mom is kneeling beside me, posing, on concrete steps leading to a glass in front door. Mom is wearing a fur coat. The Zabielskis and Chicagoans were big into fur coats. She  has a beautiful smile and dark lips which contrast her eyes and hair.

I am so cute. I recognize me, not from then but now. I see little girls that look like I did. I was loved. You can see it in the repose my face takes. I am bundled up in a coat with white fur-like trim. A muff hangs around my neck. Mom has one hand in the muff as she holds me close to her and poses.

Mom and Dad have been married three years. She is far away from the west Texas field she grew up in &  escaped. Stella was glad her daughter met my dad and had an opportunity to marry and settle down. It’s a love-hate relationship with the land. She loves it and wants it. Wants to stay, wants to leave, wants more opportunity, wants to roam, wants to leave, wants to come back. I am an only child at this point yet the oldest of seven which will eventually come. 

Mom‘s forte was babies as was Stella‘s. They were both the kind of mothers that knew the value of receiving blankets, wrapping us up tight, making us feel secure, no legs dangling, looking for grounding, no toes cold.  They  knew the value of hats and booties to keep us warm, rock us, endlessly for comfort, if necessary, humming songs we would hum one day, songs with no words, no melodies, just sounds that we never really knew where they came from.