The Long Days Diaries
Volume 1: Time travel, pandemics, core memories and car seats
Welcome to Baby Brain, a space where I - Charlotte, hi! - write about my life as a mother of three small children - Poppet (m, 4 years), Pickle (m, 3 years) and Peach (f, 7 months.) Those are not their real names. These are real stories from our days.
I was browsing the ‘gram recently when an influencer popped up with a peculiar video. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” it started, “because I was so freaked out by this photo of a painting that one of my followers sent me yesterday. It looks exactly like my kids.” Going on to share ‘Children Sitting On The Stairs’ by Olga Boznańska, the influencer in question (her name is Hannah, I don’t know why I’m being coy) stated that she would now be dedicating some time to investigating the origins of the painting, to find out whether these children were somehow related to her own. Her comment section - filled with people telling her she was bonkers - blew up. “These children look nothing like your children,” people cried, “stop making everything all about YOU” they screamed, as I sat back in my seat and thought ‘hooooly shit, it’s time travel.’ They really do look remarkably similar to Hannah’s children, long and short of it, which is a freaky sort of feeling I can relate to, having discovered a historical artefact in my own image online just a few years ago:
It’s uncanny.
Despite her promise to share updates, Hannah has not returned with confirmation of whether her children were the ones on the stairs 100+ years ago, which is disappointing, because I feel quite invested. Live and let live, however, I wish the whole family - whatever period of time they end up settling in - well. (A sentence that reminds me of the show Dark, which I highly recommend. Not so much the second season, but isn’t that always the way?)
Having spent many an hour of my mothering journey having such random thoughts, I decided to start this Substack. Now, unable to keep up with how quickly time moves around me vs. how quickly I can get words on the screen, I am starting The Long Days Diaries, an occasional feature that will share slightly more disjointed snippets, thoughts, musings and rambles from the forefront of my role as “mummy”. I hope you’ll enjoy ❤️