Memories

I found this picture of my mom the other day, and for the first time I realized we resemble each other. Or rather, I should say that I resemble her. Obviously because not only my hair is as long right now as hers is in this picture, and I do wear the same hairstyle from time to time now. But there is something in this picture that reminds me of me, the whole expression in her eyes, the slightly opened mouth and the look from the corner of her eyes, attentive, sceptical? In my imagination, I am about the same age as she was when that picture was taken (although I have no idea how old she is exactly). I wonder where that was and when. What she was doing at the time. What that photo was taken for: it's a passport size picture, but I haven't seen it on any of her documents. (I especially wonder since she was always very picky about her pictures. I have photo albums with loads of pics where my mother's head is missing. Like in some thriller, when a person's identity is to be erased. I think she would have made a huge fuss had she known I upload and post her picture here.) Maybe it was just a "fun photo", one taken at an automat somewhere in the world. Could be Paris (where she met my father). Could be London (before she even met my father). Could be Marseille (where she grew up). Or Grenoble (where she went to school). Or Austria (with my father again). Or Madrid (also with my father; they married in order to be able to live there together. It was still Franko's dictatorship, so very strict morals). So many places.

I wonder how it is that we never know our parents before they were our parents. I wish I could meet my mother before she was my mother. I wonder whether we would have been friends. Right now, judging from that random picture taken somewhere, a couple of years, a lifetime ago, and all the images it creates in me, I think we would have been friends. And it makes me feel sad, and strangely happy or proud at the same time. I think I've become a person my mother would have wanted to be friends with.