Birth Day Portrait

My mother used to get my picture taken on my birthday or when my birthday is approaching. Most of the time she takes me to a photo studio or get someone who has a camera to take my picture. If she can not make it she would ask my brother, my father or anyone available to take me there.  I remember ones my cousin who was living with us at that time had to take me with her for the annual ritual.  There are gaps and many lost pictures but the pictures that I still have are enough to show how much I have changed. From the baby pictures to the toddler picture, from the toddler pictures to pre-teen photos and it goes on. But the older I got the fewer birthday portraits I had.

Ones my mother is gone it didn't cross my mind to keep having birthday portraits.  Now after many years laps I have taken a self-portrait when my birthday approached this year. It was not even meant to be the birthday portrait but the time that I took the picture was much closer to my birthday so I choose to make it "The Birth Day Portrait". It is not the same as my toddler portraits. It is totally different but yet taken with the same notion that my mother had in mind when she dragged me to photo studios every year, that is to have a picture of  Deresse at a certain age.

Birthday celebrations were not that much significant as the Birthday portraits in my family. Even though my mother insisted on the picture parts throwing a birthday party was not her thing or my father's either. I don't remember birthday parties with candles to blow and cakes to cut. Usually, a traditional bread is baked for the occasion maybe soft drinks from the kiosk nearby, that was it.  I still keep the low key approach regarding birthdays. I had made important decisions on my birthday and work on important projects to coincide with my birthday but I don't remember ever having a birthday party. Yes, people had surprised me with a birthday cake and gifts but so far I was not tempted to have a birthday party for myself but I will try to keep taking my Birthday Portraits for now on.   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflection of a Half Century

Image
  Reflection of a Half-Century  Part One 1973-1991 The average life expectancy of an Ethiopian is 67.81 years in 2023. It had been as low as 46.13 years in the 90s when war and the high infant mortality rate kept it low. An improvement was made in the 2000s when basic health services managed to reduce the high infant mortality rate. I am living in the United States now which has a life expectancy of 74 years for men. That means I have about two decades to enjoy planet Earth. I am at the beginning of an age where you have more stories to tell. So that is what I am going to do.  Self Portrait 2023. Keeping a tradition of Birthday Portrait.  My generation has gone through so much in a lifetime that life reflects our country’s break from thousands of years of tradition to stumbling into the unknown, experimenting with ideology and theories that had not been proven to work with the country.  I was born in December 1973 during the last days of the last Ethiopian Emperor Haile Sellase I just
Read more

Birthday Portrait and Story

Image
 Another birthday portrait and time to reflect.  I no longer count my gray hairs or my wrinkles. It doesn't matter anymore how gray my hair is and how deep my crowfeet are. I am now comfortable with them and trying to gracefully age. Preparing my mindset for the few more decades I may have. To live purposefully and with some kind of meaning. As we get older the past is seen much clearer than the future (that is what makes us wiser as we age) so I go back and tell a story. A personal story.  I am just one birthday shy from living a half-century, Which takes me back 24 years ago when I turned 25. I remember marking my birthday in the middle of the night with a crescent moon over the horizon in the middle of a 53 km hike to St Gabriel Church at Kulubie. Here is the story of why I was there and why I did that hike.  My mother had a difficult pregnancy when I was conceived, she at least had one miscarriage before I was born and she was not feeling great about the pregnancy. She was worr
Read more

Houseless

Image
 Homelessness is one of the significant problems in cities across the United States. Especially cities of the west coast from southern California to the Pacific North West. The problem is causing a huge impact on daily activities within the municipalities.  When I moved to Seattle five years ago I was shocked to learn how many people are homeless and living on the street, in shelters, and in tents. Currently, around 13,000 are homeless in Seattle's metro area alone. It was and to some extent, it is still hard for me to understand why so many people are houseless in one of the richest countries of the world. 
Read more