A Good Day
Today was a good day. Cool misty morning. Breakfast by the window with my little one sipping her ginger tea with honey from a teaspoon. We walk to the park in the chilly breeze. My wet hair plastered to my neck. LH wore a baby blanket as a cape. She ran toward me, a smile rounding plump cheeks, a staggering liveliness as her arms and legs move and sway beating out a rhythm on the earth. I hear her breathing hard as she runs and imagine her lungs like two sails on a ship, blown back and filled with air and life. I pick her up and hug her so tightly whispering in her little ear, “I love you so much. You are a treasure”. She whispers back, “I are!” before wiggling down and running away.
This morning I woke with my body ready to move. Toes and fingers vibrating with grief and worries for the future both inevitable and the imagined. I can’t always tell first thing in the early morning dark which is a real fear and which is an imagined one. I’m interrupted from my worrying by little footsteps scampering fast through the dark and my oldest daughter, N is all cold limbs and marble toes. No words to be spoken. I pull her into the warm bed and I’m grateful to be free of myself for a moment. I draw her body in tight and close, The long legs and arms mirroring my own. Her curly hair tickles my nose and I breathe in her sleepy inhales and exhales.
Next, come the plodding dinosaur footsteps of toddler. Her diaper swishing and crackling around her thighs and a half hearted moaning cry. For some reason, she is holding a guitar. She sets it down as she climbs into bed snuggling between her big sister and me, fishing around in the sheets for N’s hand before pulling it into her chest, a limp and injured bird. N sleeps on. LH whispers to me to “tell a dory mama”. This is her constant request lately. Stories with a revolving cast: wicked witch, good witch, princess, dragon. I try to think of something new to tell, my brain still half sleeping and settle on the story of a little boy given fish gills by a wicked witch. I touch my throat and imagine the accordion movement around my chin. The expansion of underwater clouds. Air to be extracted. She likes the story and briefly she falls back into sleep. Her breathing deep and long, her eyes flutter and blink.
I feel the weight of their little forms holding me firm in the present. My two little anchors. This feels like truth. All I love most in the world contained in a soft sheeted lifeboat, lifted from the world below. Floating, safe and quiet. I forget for a moment about everything outside. Not wanting to move and unable to sleep, I feel this moment suspended, frozen in glass, and I would stay forever.
