hydrangeas, etc.

august of another summer, and i write from a cloud of a bed at christopher's parents' house, our rosebud of a boy nestled deep in the realm of angels beside me. i am quietly listening to music i have loved for so many summers (songs: ohia, the national, fleet foxes) and small puffs of baby's breath rise above the memories. we have come for the weekend, days a living poem of summer: farm stand tomatoes and suppers on the grill, big breakfasts and baby splashing in water on the deck, the reciprocal joy of grandparents and boy, a visit with great-grandmother georgia, sleeping with the windows open, birdsong liturgies the sound of morning coffee and milk. we're taking the sort of deep breaths that come easy when you look out a window and see trees and trees.

i have so much i want to write. what came after june days in utah (california, ordinary days passing like honeyed melodies). what came before (london, paris, weeks of rain, his golden tufts of hair rolling like fog into impossible curls). days and nights, i am inextricable, indistinguishable, from boy, happily, purposefully, tending, chasing, sharing sunmilk and moonmilk, marveling at the miracle of everything he does, giving thanks with every exhalation. and so i don't get much written, but i am ever etching into memory and soul, and his presence makes what i do write sacred. his presence, along with his father's, is everything i ever want to write.

here is an hour among hours i loved and i love: it was just after breakfast and just before nap, and we stepped into air thick with the promise of rain to walk amongst lush ferns and riotous balloons of french hydrangeas. he darted this way and that, eager and curious, noticing sticks and rocks and far-off dogs, wholly immersed in the universe he is in. every day, he is breaking my heart. he greets flowers by name and blesses every sneeze and sings his way through the market or anyplace. his vocabulary is flourishing (alpaca! hydrangea! elbow! rain!) and he pretends to chat on the telephone. he calls his animals, wooden or fur, "babies" and he pauses daring but cautious explorations every few steps to climb into my arms, as though he's a bird flown back to his tree.

august of another summer. another day. another week. more words. more growth. more love. more love. more love.