812 Riverside Ave.

This is the picture I wanted to post on Mother's Day. It was taken at our first house in Santa Cruz, but it still captures the feeling of my teenage years and the closeness our little family shared in the desert. During the 1970s, when we lived in Phelan, it was just us three for so many years (us four if you count the dog Babe). Much of that time felt hard and disjointed (does it ever feel different for a teenager?), but good because we all stuck together and had a sense of family I think.

By the time this picture was taken---it's dated July 1981 on the back--so much had changed. Sol had moved back to Phelan, Mom had moved in with Irene, and I had joined the Pentecostals. In many ways this picture is the last image of us as a threesome before we all grew up and went our separate ways. This is the natural course of life I suppose. But I don't think I will ever lose the nostalgia I have for those last gasps of childhood we shared as a family.