How Cute is This?

Baby me in triplicate

Most of my old photos are in albums, files or boxes. I have a well-kept original of one of the above poses (see below) that a kind friend of my mother took the time to package carefully and send to me recently as she was clearing out her stuff for downsized living. As part of my Living Cleaner project, I hope to distribute some unique old photographs that I have by scanning and emailing them to some relative whose e-address I can find. I'm sure, for instance, that I have the only photo of my mother's family, shortly before they immigrated to the United States from the city of Rotterdam.

The photos above are the only (really) old ones that I have displayed in a frame. I think it was in a dresser drawer in my mom's bedroom when I took it from my childhood home. I obviously don't remember if or where it was displayed 61 years ago. It sits on one of five white book shelf units in the basement, which are chock-full of old books that we simply store. Behind the frame, in the photo above, you can see a motley assortment of Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, To Kill a Mockingbird and Your Erroneous Zones, old paperbacks we might have saved for our children's edification. I beginning to wonder about saving all the children's books to read to  my grandchildren. Will they all have some sort of e-readers in the future? It's hard to imagine toddlers that don't enjoy holding a picture book in their hands! Anyway, many of these books are overripe in their readiness for the resale shop or recycle bin--a project for another day soon.

The little triptych of pudgy totally-breast-fed me . . . for now, I'm keeping it! I have an image of it now on my computer and on this blog, so even if it ends up in the landfill in the near future, I have done what I can to preserve it for a few more years--once a very precious studio photo of a long-awaited and only girl, cute little me--Rosella Louise.

This week a friend of mine at church suggested I resemble a movie star--Meryl Streep. I had my hair pulled back off my face, emphasizing my thicker winter white cheeks, and was sporting a jaunty leopard print hat. Turns out Meryl's name was Mary Louise and she was born one month before me in 1949.