I have a ridiculously extensive memory. I remember being a baby. I don’t have a “first memory,” because most of them are there. I can see a picture, hear a song, or smell a perfume, and remember where I was standing, who was there, and what was said—all in greater detail than is really necessary or healthy.

The Minnie from my first Disneyworld. I stood in that spot while my mother photographed me. It had rained. The socks were tight on my legs. All the houses looked the same. We went back in two years, when Daniel was two. He was afraid of Mickey Mouse. During that trip, my father’s stepmother had just gotten a pedicure and as she sat on the couch and I walked between it and the coffee table, I stepped on a toe. Her toenails were red. She was cross with me. They had the most fabulously gold playing cards and I sat on the floor next to the dining room table and played with them, wishing I knew a game, and avoiding a nap. Their toilet seat was padded.

It was a hard day for everyone. Probably most of all, it was a hard day for my mom. But also so happy. Lynn and Leigh and I got ready together and Lynn offered me some perfume—but I didn’t know what to do with it. It was not in a spray bottle, and that’s all I knew. I waited until I saw Leigh dab some on her neck. Leigh did my hair. I felt so pretty.

I’d dressed myself and my mother was on the phone at the kitchen table. I’m holding a Bible my grandmother gave me in 1984. I had the hat on, but mom tied it. She laughed and I laughed and she photographed it.

Just kidding. I don’t know what I was thinking when that was taken. But I do remember a few months later.