15 March 2019

to bottle peace, to line a room with it.


a bouquet of thoughts from my favorite table of my favorite coffeehouse in my homecity, weekend last, when we'd gone south to celebrate my dad's birthday, his name-share grandson jolly in his arms ~

it's a not-small thing, the pause my christopher carved for me to rest my mind and write my heart. those hours -- the first of their kind in fourteen months, maybe more -- flowed like prayer.

we're soon in our second spring as three, and i am taken deep into conversation with myself. about marriage, about mothering, about how i want my thoughts to bloom and how i want our days to be. 

i want to hold tenderly and tightly to the dreams we are nurturing together, day by day, some swiftly, others slowly-slowly. i want those dreams to be our lighthouse. i want the walls of our home to hum with music and art and books and light. i want to make plans for adventure some days, and make plans to just be others. i want to nap with my baby in the sunny spot and notice how he thumb-charts my freckle constellations. i want to learn to tend roses and sew. i want to spend hours together cooking in the kitchen. i want to dream of our someday-house and write down what i see: floral wallpaper, firewood stacked in winter, a nook under the staircase, windows for watching birds and the moon, the tousle-haired tangle of them bounding down the stairs. i want to let myself cry hot, healing tears in the shower over my soul's ache at the movement of time. i want to let myself cry sunshowers of happy tears over words my husband has written and my baby's pure, unfettered joy. i want for travel to always be where dinner conversation goes. i want to trust the mysterious, miraculous timing of god to give us our second baby. i want to stop what i am doing to notice my husband chopping vegetables for sunday supper, a dishtowel draped over his shoulder, a dark curl fallen over his forehead like a feather kissing the ground. i want my son and his brothers and sisters to look up and see my eyes laid upon them, to see me seeing them. i want my children to hear their mother's voice and think: soft, kind. i want my children to think of their mother and feel: safe, home, mine. i want to share dripping bites of cold melon on blazing summer days. i want to be the things i hope my children become: people who vote and hold doors and recycle and handwrite thank you notes, people who leave the neighbors a posy for no reason and a pot of soup when a baby is born. i want to be a patient mother. i want to keep champagne in the fridge in case something wonderful happens and a book in my bag in case the line is long. i want my family to feel my happiness in this hour, this place, and know that i completely and entirely belong to them. i want my words to my husband to sing with my adoration and respect. i want our children to see us kiss and know they came from love and stardust. i want to bake on snow days and tuck love notes in lunchboxes. i want to notice and give thanks for how strong and healthy my body feels on any day, not just when suddenly it doesn't. i want to picnic under the brooklyn bridge and tell our babies, this is where your papa told me i am his best friend, we were already in love but this felt like even more. i want to play my children songs i find beautiful and read them poetry that makes me ache and nudge them to notice the lives of others and ask them: how does it make you feel? i want my every exhale to sound like thank you. i want to pause and listen to the sound my heart drums: heaven, here.

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