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My First Day of School

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Daniel Felipe Montenegro on his first day of school, a small boy in a grey tracksuit standing in the school garden, in three photographs taken minutes apart
My first day of school: the garden, the uniform, and a face that is not sure about any of it.

This is my first day of school: transición, the year before first grade. Three photographs taken minutes apart, in the school garden, in which I am visibly not sure about any of it.

I don’t remember the day. I remember the uniform, and I remember that garden, because for years I walked past those same plants on my way in. What I do remember, vividly, is a Christmas from a little earlier, when I was even smaller.

Our nativity scene had a flock of small sheep, and I would sneak up to it, pick them off one by one, like Godzilla over a city, and bite them. These two photographs are the evidence: caught in the act, sheep in hand, and not looking sorry at all.

Daniel Felipe Montenegro as a toddler in a red hat, kneeling beside the Christmas tree and the nativity scene with a stolen sheep in his hand
Caught in the act.

Daniel Felipe Montenegro as a toddler, kneeling by the Christmas tree with a plaster sheep from the nativity scene, looking back at the camera
Still not sorry.

I am putting them here because this site is where I keep what I don’t want to lose, and because the boy in that garden had no idea that the days would be long, and the years short.