Kid’s baseball card photo/talisman, Berkeley, CA.

Had to wait ’til Monday, since over the weekend the spirits flagged too much. Kept looking at pictures of pictures of my nephew, who would have turned 15 on Saturday. Couldn’t post a picture of anything other than him, but then couldn’t really post about him, either. So, a blank weekend.  Today, just a wee slice.

Every morning I pick up a bracelet I got in his memory right after he died, to keep him and what he teaches me in full view.  Just before I put on the bracelet, I kiss the tip of my index finger and touch it to his face in this peanut league baseball photo, taken several years before he died, and try to connect/summon/say a little something to him. We all do what we can.

Waiting for the steam train, Berkeley, CA.

At Mama’s Royal Cafe, Oakland, CA.

We went to Oakland’s legendary Mama’s Royal Café the other day as a foursome, for the first time in forever. Or rather, for the first time since the little guy was in a baby seat, which feels like forever. It’s a long period of diminished engagement with the world, these early years. The dark side of the moon.

“Can the little one last the duration of ___ (X, Y, or Z public sphere experience; you pick it) without a physical/emotional collapse of excruciating proportions? Can we?”

This has limited our luxury dining out experience to a coupla taquerias. It could be worse: a good taqueria was always my other culinary pilgrimage (aside from Mama’s) when I returned home to the Bay Area during my half-dozen years’ expatriation in the Great Upper Midwest.

But with the youngest youngin at three, we’re beginning to see the light.  We made it through the whole meal at Mama’s with nothing more than a little pre- and post-food loopiness.  On the little guy’s part. Though the beloved and I got a bit dizzy, too.

“Here we are! In an actual restaurant! And nobody’s spilled anything yet, or burst out crying!”

We’re gonna drink it all in, all of this. There’ll be a time (won’t there be?) when we’ll be lucky to get the two of them to sit with us in public for the duration of a meal without texting their chums under the table.

“ZOMG Baba just said I <3 U!!! Again!!! LOL!!! BTD!! CUL8R!”

Shoe, Berkeley, CA.

I asked his big sister to help get us out the door faster by putting his shoes and socks on. This was what she considered “done.”

Belly swingers, Berkeley, CA.

Archival image from about a half a year (and one significant boy haircut) ago. Swinging predilections and techniques remain as depicted.

Boy with pinkie, Berkeley, CA.

“Martin Luther King Jr, Birmingham Alabama, 1963,” by Ernst Haas.

One of my favorite photographs of Dr. King. Given the year and the setting (a jail), I think we can be fairly sure this was not just any jail, but a Birmingham one, and that the text being passed was one which included Dr. King’s now canonical letter.

Here are two past Dr. King-themed LD posts: A King among men, and It is the law of love that rules mankind. [Ed note, re: that second link: 'til I can fix it, imagine a photograph of Bayard Rustin in that question mark spot where an image should be. Fixed.]

Weekend morning reading, Berkeley, CA.

Singer-songwriter, Arnold, CA.

Will I let him go on tour before he’s finished high school? S’pose that depends on whether he’s willing to give Baba the comfy seat on the tour bus.

Woman hazarding a cameraphone photo of the swing chair, Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen (November 2005).

Definitely not black & white. More like black & color.

UN Climate Change Conference roundups since my last links thereto: Day four, day five, day six, day seven.