Baby's avatar

I had no idea when I was newly pregnant with my son that he'd come out a redhead with charcoal eyes. I don't profess to have had any visions. But his energy seemed somehow so nuanced, from so early on. Maybe that has to do with his having an intense personality, being a sensitive and dramatic soul. Now three, he's not one to fade into the background.

That's why I've felt a little skeptical that this time around, I have no picture, no sense of this potential for a person that's supposedly growing inside me.

So last night, I lay in bed thinking about this blank frame. It had less of a sense of soul than a new Internet user identity with no picture uploaded. You, know, the default image on a blogging platform or on LinkedIn, or wherever -- that shadow with a silhouette or sometimes even a question mark. There was no substance.

And yet, as I started to think about this blank, this empty shell, the frame started to change. It got scalloped like a stamp -- those frilly edges you think of more with Valentines, but they're actually on every USPS standard-issue stamp.

And the interior seemed like it got more opaque and textured. No longer a sad fading gray, the landscape inside the frilly frame deepened to a black through which show ragged scratches of color, overlapping in every direction.

I think I actually started to believe.

And it seemed like she was a she.