In Spanish, Umbral means gateway, a portal, the first step towards something. As I witness my son’s childhood, I often see him in that in-between space, drifting in and out of reality and the places I have imagined for him. Becoming a single mother at a young age proved frightening to me, and not for the obvious reasons. I felt a huge responsibility to create a nurturing childhood for him, different from the dysfunctional one I had lived. With these images I wanted to intervene, to somehow create a magical space that could lessen his generational baggage. With this project I aim to explore both my fantasies of what childhood should be and the freedom my son needs to live his own reality.