The sounds of silence.

It is 9:30pm and the train has just gone by. That breath going in and out is Evan joining everyone else in my household in sleep.

January 2011

 Even the dogs have stopped their barking. The dinner is put away. Tonight organic beans and wild rice, with chard from my garden and corn bread made almost entirely by Connor, while Cris had a trumpet lesson with dad and Cali took a nap. Finally a few moments, that seem so far apart, for this mama to sit and dwell in the loveliness of these everyday things. (My new parental strategy is to never, not ever, even think about what you are going to do when the kids go to bed. I swear they have some kind of telepathic crawlers that get inside my brain and the moment that I start thinking such self-centered thoughts their child radar goes off that they are about to miss something really important and they will never, not ever, go to sleep. Then mama never gets to do said things or write about how much she adores them and learns from them). 

My little big foot

I spend so much time thinking about just how much I have in these moments and how much I want to write about from each day, how much I want to bottle this joy up, tape it, jot it down, how much I want to squeeze every ounce from it; return to it. But this life just doesn't sit still. It's learning to crawl-scratch that, stand even walk, around the table- it needs a hug, a bandaid, a bounce, a kiss.  

Move from your daydreams or the dinner has burned. It started like creme brulee but is coming out more like mud pie. This recipe works best when we try to remember what grandma suggested, but do not follow the rules, make do with what you have, throw everything in, expect super powers, and lick your fingers along the way.                                

We are on a journey one minute, towards a specific destination, and then suddenly I am looking back at roadsigns, backwards, in my rear view mirror. I'm beginning to see why there are so few books fiction or otherwise featuring the beauty of parenthood and about the joys of cultivating a love in the middle of that chaos. I keep trying to take notes, but usually must succumb instead to taking a nap, to going to bed.

And that thud that you now hear-it is my head hitting the pillow.