We are currents in motion right now, my love. We are at sea, and there is a storm. We are the river, but we are also the rocks. Simply remove the rocks and the river will flow smoothly. Easy, right? But, it’s turbulent now. We’re in-between and in-between isn’t here or there, is it? I remind myself: life is always this way. Only, sometimes we flow with it. Sometimes, we dance with it. Other times, it feels more mechanical and awkward. Like a toddler beginning to walk. Like when the training wheels come off, or the house lights come on. I'm here, I'm meant to be the captain, but I'm lost in this storm. Maybe I am the storm. At night, as you tuck your head just beneath my chin and I begin a storybook about where trains sleep, I remember that nothing lasts. Nothing lasts — including storms, times of transition, or these blink-and-you-miss-them early days of your almost five-year-old life. To be tucked in together like this is the greatest gift on earth. So, I vow to move the rocks. And I try not to blink.
today i buzzed around all day but felt that nothing got done. meals were made, toys were taken out and put away again. groceries were bought: pineapple, tomatoes, cucumber. things were ticked off to-do lists. preparations for Mimi's upcoming visit. hardware store, swim, negotiations about TV. concessions made. meals eaten, jackfruit cut, smoothie date at the local cafe. i thought to myself, i should be writing more. but i also thought hey, at least i'm writing.
and when i wrote out the whole day, even in point form and looked at it from up here, bird's eye view, as they say —
i thought of the herons we see daily. the vultures that fly overhead that you so often call eagles, and i don't correct you. because eagles are nobler, somehow.
i thought of the big picture.
life is like that, you know.
it's a bunch of tiny dots, that connect to make a reality that is so much more than we tend to give it credit for. its astonishing, really, that we don't spend most of our time in complete awe of the out-of-this-world beauty that is our every day moment-to-moment reality.
the fact that you even exist. that we are here, at all. that herons are taking flight and vultures are soaring overhead, pretending to be eagles. that wings can spread and wind can lift, that the moon controls the tides and the sun rises each morning to greet us.
finally, the sound of the waves crashing outside our little house was enough to inspire me begin this poem again.
today i buzzed around all day but felt that nothing got done. however, each moment was truly full of wonder and magic. and i was lucky enough to be able to spend a whole day loving my son. and we passed the time marveling at the world together.
your presence keeps inserting itself into my memories distant pasts that preceded you a trip to Nicaragua i vaguely recall you running on the beach of San Juan del Sur bay sand dancing out from under your feet my first trip to Thailand swimming in the sea off Koh Phangan weren't you there with me?
surely as an unfertilized egg some cells that would later become you a space in my uterus that would grow your bones and eyelashes.
did i ever exist without you? i recall you on motorbike trips through rice field-patched mountainsides i feel you there with me as i recollect lazy afternoons at Bellwood's Park.
were you the strength i found that helped me walk away?
were you the truth i found that helped bring me back?
all along you were there my tiny but mighty heartbeat.
mama musings 