Off.

July 28, El Cerrito.

An Argentinian couple moving to Spain was having a garage sale over the week end a few blocks from where we are and we could have furnished our whole future-imagined-hoped for house with the stuff they were practically giving away, almost new: a bright red Ikea sofa, a futon sofa-bed, spiffy-looking bookshelves, two twin beds with good mattresses, you could have all that and more for under $200. I was dying to buy the Ikea sofa, but where to put it? I would have settled for outside as trailer patio furniture but Fridman wouldn't have it.
We got a smaller bargain, a dollar for a pair of remote toy cars, one of which even works, and a haircutting machine, the kind that gives you a military-looking edge, also for a buck.
And so Dylan got his first haircut. I wanted it so bad, the tangled hair was driving me crazy, and we had to cut off a chunk of back hair the other day because there was no way to untangle it, and now I look at him and I want to cry for the baby I lost. He looks as if he'd grown overnight into a child, the baby dissolved, cast off like the hair, a memory now.
I want my baby back, I who cringed under the slow pace of Dylan-baby days only last year. I want my baby back before he heads off to school and I lose him even more, before he's off to college with a wave of the hand and kiss on my cheek. They were right in the end then, time does go by too fast.
Only he was never mine, was he.

Before and after.