I don't know if I liked being thirty-one-years-old as much as I now like looking at my-thirty-one-year-old self. Long neck, thick hair, original teeth. I must have had complaints about that body. I know what they might have been. "My mouth is asymmetrical. My mouth is large and my lips are uneven. They slant from one corner to the other. As if I'm about to have a stroke. I'm getting bags under my eyes." Kill me. Kill all thirty-one year olds.
This was taken early summer of 1973 with sons, Jonathan and Edmund. In August, they would turn three and four. We rented a third floor apartment in the Dahlem section of Berlin. Frau Schneider didn't want to rent to someone with two children, but she made the mistake of coming out to the car to have a look, and these two towheads melted her down immediately. So we lived on Auf dem Great 51 for an academic year. The house was filled with original German expressionist art: the beginning of an education for Tom and me. Tom was on sabbatical to watch early German films in mostly east Berlin archives. He'd sit in the dark and take notes on a tape recorder.
The boys and I spent part of each day at the park down the street feeding ducks and engineering roads for a large boxful of Match cars. It was rather idyllic. Except when it wasn't. One of the boys was a biter. The other one peed regularly in his waste can in the middle of the night.
I may have had facial tics. But, hey, look at those perky breasts!
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