I am feeling all vulnerable today.
It happens sometimes.
What’s that phrase for the overcurved surface of liquid in a glass?
That magic tension that supports and holds the water above its seeming limit.
Another sparkling drop. And another.
Until that last one falls . . . breaks the surface tension. And there is a tumbling and a spilling, and a return to equilibrium.
Convex meniscus.
Yes, thank you. I knew you would know.
I have not yet had a return to equilibrium.
I am fragile and delicate today.
I am all overfilled with emotion.
And on this day of magic tension?
There is so much powerful magic.
Magic in the soft yielding pudgy flesh of a baby. A baby crawling on the grass beneath me. I reached down to pick her up and put her back on her blanket, where she was determined not to stay. As my hands met her middle, as my skin sought hers, the sensation of sinking into this child who was not my child was overwhelming for a minute.
I was just stunned as memory washed over me. How could I have forgotten what this felt like?
It was not so very long ago that my children felt this way. And my hands sought and sank into my daughters’ yielding flesh as I lifted. Not so long ago.
But I had forgotten.
Magic in the harder, less cooperative flesh of my own children. We were at the lake today, and I ran out of the aerosol sunscreen that the girls prefer. So I instead helped rub in the squeezed-out dollops from the tube they do not prefer.
And beneath my hands . . . their shoulders, their backs, their necks, their faces.
Oh my god.
And as they ran from me, impatient to the water?
My hands were on fire with the knowledge of who they once were and who they are.
And who they have yet to become.
Magic in my face in the mirror. In my own flesh. In this face I see my daughters. I see that baby who is not mine. I see my mother.
I see me . . . . many versions of me.
And I am overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.
And also by my smallness, my role in this world.
Stunned.
I have tension today.
Magic tension.
I await the return of equilibrium.
Drop by drop.
As I’m sitting here less than a week to Sophia’s first birthday, this post has me in tears! I knew that time would move too fast, and that the tiny baby would be gone before I knew it. But even knowing that…even trying to take those moments and memorize them. I couldn’t really. Between the PPD and just time doing what time does….this year is a blur of anxiety, and praying for a new, better day. And so when I look at pictures of Sophia I wish I could remember what her breath smelled like when she was so small. Or remember the feeling of her grabbing onto my finger by reflex.
This may not be the point of this post, but I think my feelings and emotions just took over about half way through.
Time races, but the lovely thing about time?
Is that there is always this moment . . . here . . . and . . . here.
To grasp.
Reach out into the river of time.
There are moments not to be missed still awaiting you.
WOW. This is amazing! What a great post. I am with everyone else, although my baby is several hours from me, I want to drive to him and snuggle his chubby body into mine. Thank you for this post. I need to keep in mind that some day, I’m gonna wish I was back here, now, at today.
I don’t want to spend my days caught up in the passage of minutes.
But once in a while?
Being blown away . . . is magic.
Wow.
Long ago Joni Mitchell wrote a song called The Circle Game which, at my first listen, I thought was pretty but sentimental crap … until it happened to me.
Maybe that tug you described was your clock kicking you? Powerful subconscious stuff, that.
If you are saying I want another baby?
I am 44 and not fucking even.
If you are saying I am getting old?
Then we are not on speaking terms anymore.
Until you apologize.
HA HA HA! Not even saying any of those things! Only that the blasted hormones sometimes have a ridiculous mind of their own, which is when we just have to turn a deaf ear & sing LA LA LA really loudly for however long it takes. Sheesh! If I had to do it all once more I’d throw myself off a cliff. I’m content to now be entertained by the escapades of other (younger) participants.
With all due respect & complete humility, I do so apologize and throw myself on the mercy of the court. *grin*
Ooooh. . . that is how an apology is tendered!
Love you again.
Giggle.
I was putting a blanket on the girl last night, and I was struck by the lack of: the lack of the baby fat, and the lack of the stubby toddler’s arms and legs, and the lack of the little pot belly.
Somehow? Without me really even being aware of it, the toddler had slipped away and was replaced with a child.
This is why I take hundreds and hundreds of photos, and hours and hours of video, and write millions and millions of words… to try to hold on to the moments that slip through our fingers like water, to collect them in vases and jars and bowls of my making, so that everything that used to be can still be, in some reflected pool of memories.
Life slips on past when it thinks you are not looking.
You make me all weak-kneed, you with the vases and bowls of memories.
I am a nerd.
It’s what I do.
I do love that candy.
And I, much like the candy?
A little tarty.
Hah!
Hmmm . . .
A little?
wonderful!
I love that you think so.
Thank you.
Time and time again you absolutely blow me away with your writing. I couldn’t be a bigger fan or more in envy of what you do with words. Stunning, beautiful, thought provoking.
Thank you, kind reader.
Thank you.
When little boy was a baby, a friend of mine with young school-aged children held him, and playing with his fuzzy yellow feet said, “Oh..that’s right…babies don’t wear shoes.”
And I thought that was ridiculous, forgetting that babies don’t wear shoes. How could you forget that? How could you forget their wee pink naked feet, or their chubby primary-colored-tender-socks feet? How could you forget how foreign hard-soled, lace-up shoes would be on those little rounded feet?
Then, a few years later, when my son was a school-aged child, I held a friend’s tiny baby and played with her fuzzy pink feet and said, “Oh…that’s right…babies don’t wear shoes.”
Because somehow – in the rush of growing, changing, evolving and maturing that he did – I had forgotten that once upon a time, he hadn’t worn shoes.
And now?
I am crying again.
Exactly.
When I look at pictures of my children when they were babies, I can feel them. I remember the way they felt better than I remember the way they looked – Abbie’s pudginess, Carter’s meltiness, Jacob’s reachingness.
And the people they are NOW seem suddenly foreign and I’m disoriented for a moment.
I have had that reverse sense of time travel before.
That disorientation.
It hurts. A good pain.
But pain.
Such beautiful poetry. Something about your writing sucks me in.
It’s amazing how much less kids squirm over sunscreen when it’s coming out of the aerosol cans. Sure, you pay $25 per spray down, but it’s worth not starting world war III over!
Single Dad Laughing
Oooh . . . I like your comments.
Thank you.
Thank you Kris. Really.
Awww . . .
Can I tell you something. I adore your posts.
So lovely. Thank you.
I adore your comments.
I went camping this past weekend with friends and I got to carry their sleepy 18mo for a while. she buried her head in my neck and wrapped her pudgy arms around and I thought I might die of happiness. I really want a baby.
Awwwww . . .
I do not want a baby.
What I want? Is to never forget what it was like to have my babies.
That’s what I want.
Oh, what a post. Really hit me where I live. Just today I was thinking about this. Baby is busy cutting his first tooth (which is awful) and I was thinking about how not-ready I am for him to be a baby with teeth. Four months ago I was holding him for the first time, and I am angry at my past self. Why did I not hold him a little longer? Why did I put him down in his crib? Why did I ever let my mother-in-law hold him while he slept? In his whole first week and a half, I never once held him while he slept. :(
I just wish it all could have lasted a little longer. Already I can hardly remember the baby he was.
We always imagine that things will last forever and never change.
And then things change, and we imagine that we will at least always have our memories.
And then those too slip away.
Sigh.