away to maine.

it's been a few weeks ago now, but i move in time differently now that i am a mother. that is to say: i seek a simple way of living as much as possible. that i might be aware of my life as it happens, and not looking forward or back. that i might feel balanced in my physical and spiritual spaces. that i might live fully just exactly the moment i am in. which is the scenic-route way of saying: it's been a few weeks ago now, but we roadtripped to maine for christopher's birthday, which fell on labor day this year. it's been a dream of his for such a long time now, laying his own two eyes on portland. the joke we volley is that his dream is portland (maine), while mine is portland (oregon). 

our maine was pine forests and wild blueberries, brown butter lobster rolls and butterbeer and sweet cream cones. we slept in a hundred year old cabin perched on the sheepscot river and woke like birds each morn to the tune of seal sounds and perfect sweater weather. we pulled over for roadside antiques and walked on rocky coasts speckled with lighthouses. we ate bagels dusted in sea salt and rode a ferry boat from island to island, each without bridges, utterly charmed by the scene: townspeople lining the docks to collect their mail and freight. baby and i met every sunrise together -- by the sea, nursing in the hammock, and walking in the woods. we built fires at night and read books for hours before bed. francis' dimpled hands roamed sticks and moss, and when he leaned too far and took his first tumble, i felt that i was witnessing the spark of his boyhood. my love passed into his new year with our son in his arms, and memory of this time last year -- when francis gave us first kicks on his papa's thirtieth birthday in marrakech -- brushed up against us. our last morning in maine, we ate potato doughnuts and sipped blueberry coffee and watched the frothy waves roll in and delighted at the sight: dwindling summer, baby's dimpled bum, white as the beach he was sitting on, bare as the day he was born, his brow ever so knitted, perplexed by the possibilities of sand. 

weekend.

this weekend began on the floor of the nursery (blocks and books scattered like stars, spinning louis and ella on vinyl, listening for papa's keys in the door, baby's cheeks as round and rosy as september apples) and closed with a sleepy drive towards manhattan (skyline glittering, calling us home). in between, it was: two birthday parties (one in new jersey for christopher's mama/francis' grandma, one on the upper east side for our little friend mimi), fat slices of cake, a simmering pot of farmers market vegetables and salty broth and herbes de provence, park bench nurses, park bench saxophone concerts, tacos shared between papa and boy while mama sat down to write, a trip to the zoo (and francis' captivation with giraffes and alpacas), kisses for great-grandma georgia, a letter from a friend read with first coffee, the hanging of shelves in baby's room, the holding of hands in the car, and a single, dimpled-hand-clutched balloon, baby's first. it was a bustling bouquet of hours and i think i'll be filling the french press all day long, but seeing my christopher off to the monday morning train, i heard but one thought in the space fallen quiet between his footsteps: there is never enough weekend.

papa & boy, an ice cream cone.

last weekend in maine, francis swiped mama's butterbeer and sweet cream cone and called it his own. it wasn't his very first lick of ice cream, but it was surely the one met with most gusto.

what a cheeky monkey.

a pitter-pat of rain, a walk on the first day it felt like fall.

from the perch of his pram, francis observes raindrops and reaches to touch them and turns his head at the sound of their fall. i see him seeing them, and i see the intention, pureness, beauty, fingerprints, face of god. i see him in him.