The desire to become pregnant, with child. To inhabit a perfect, alien body. To give birth, breasts filled with milk. The delirium of those first few months, a timeless, formless space, day and night overlapping seamlessly. The pleasure of that small body stuck to mine, to my breast, nursing every three hours. Dozing off, delirium, exhaustion. A body sustained by my own. So many intense, contradictory, startling emotions. And at some point, sliding into another scene, an imperceptible, radical transition.

Insomnia, circular thinking. Suddenly, I find myself in a place that terrifies me. A slow and tortuous passage through a dark tunnel. My body urges me to enter, to listen. Memories crowding into my body. Motionless, I listen to that voice inside my head. Alert. Withdrawn, pensive, suspended between two times. Paralyzed with fear, one false move might trigger collapse. Horrifying, unsuspected monsters could be released. My childhood fear. Fear of what lies within.

Games, affection, contact, photographs return me to the present for a while. Intense, pleasant sensations that govern everything. And yet, my children are the ones who summon me back to that other scene.

I have erased nearly all my childhood memories. Those that remain are anchored in my grandmother’s photos. Kinderwunsch, children and desire. The desire to have children. German, the language of my infancy. Recovering that desire from the girl in those snapshots. The intensity of affection, passion, depression.

Desire as an inward and outward journey. A vital process.

Insomnia. My body is tense, my mind hanging on thoughts, unable to break free. I wake up every hour or so. Old skin in the mirror. Wandering mind. Only my children offer me a place in the present.

Photos become times for us to connect. We play, they come up with ideas. We put together a scenario and they do whatever they want. Seeing images is always a discovery. Rituals between Martin and I, acts of bonding, ways of inhabiting the present.

My Mama accompanies me on a flight to Madrid. I will spend the summer with Papa for the first time since moving to Mexico. Mama stays there for three days. She sleeps in the same bed as me. I cry every night, begging her not to abandon me. Then she leaves. Every time I sit down to eat with my Papa I feel so much like crying that I get up and run away from the table.

I am nine years old.