16 January 2018

our winter.


this growing season is tender, holy, stunningly fleeting, heartbreakingly sweet. i feel everything. i notice everything. i appreciate everything. i move differently. i hear my thoughts differently. i sleep deeper. i eat with gratitude. i admire my body. i see others through softer eyes. i study mothers with wonder and understanding. i buy dresses with you in mind — thoughts of my nursling held close, visions of your chubby toddler hands tangled in the hem. i cradle tiny knit booties and ask aloud, will you love to wear these on our winter walks?

i sip red raspberry tea. i rub butters on my belly. i read woolf and frost and eliot and stevens. i play bob dylan and mozart's violin concertos and bach's cello suites. in response, you move in me with such spirit and life. even now, tucked and folded as you are in these late days, you kick like a rabbit, rapid and strong.

i gather blankets and kimonos to wrap you in. i cannot believe your body will be, for a time, so small.

i consider my hospital bag, knowing what i slip inside will be your first sight and smell of me, whether or not you remember. (i will remember.)

i try and try to imagine your journey to earth and i am undone by the moment i look at you and you look back at me. (i will always be undone.)

i yearn to carry you in my arms; i already miss the way i carry you now.

for every odd comment from a stranger on the street, there are handfuls of sunshine tossed at my feet (the twinkle in older women's eyes when they notice my full moon of a belly, heartsprung wishes given voice: have a happy baby, god bless your baby, oh this is wonderful).

i feel my love for your papa deepen, somehow. i loved him before, so entirely, but i watch him now, falling in love with his fatherhood, with you, and my adoration adds and adds. i see him as the man who gives me everything, everything. life, love, happiness, our babies, a soft place to land, a home. a home i am happy to bring you up in.

these weeks, i rise early — or late, depending on how one thinks of it — and rock with you in our chair, our windows awash in moonshine. i am tugged from bed as though by a cord from within. i am grateful for the intimacy of these (infinite, numbered, precious) hours with you. i am already learning how to be your mother.

i have never felt so close to heaven, so held in the very palm of god.

2 comments:

  1. This one actually killed me. I am writing from the great beyond, and God told me to tell you to write a book.

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  2. My heart is so full reading this. Your ability to take in every single experience as a blessing, to anticipate motherhood with such patient yearning, and to fully appreciate the simple yet wondrous details of your journey is a gift. I love you sweetie. XO

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