It comes to me now in such unexpected ways, at unsuspecting times. Like just two days ago when I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. I was looking out the window as I washed with knowing hands and Sullivan was in the living room, working a floor puzzle for the fourth or fifth time in a row. This is when it came and the memory waters flooded through me.
I grew a person. And then I grew another person. Two births that took everything I ever knew about myself to this mysterious place, elevated. But the real miracle: that we are here now and growing with healthy, thriving roots. I did it. I grew and birthed and mothered two infants into these wondrous beings. The business of having babies is behind me now. How is that possible? And how did it go by in such a flash of joy and pain? Well, it did.
It is so strange, this place of looking back now on something so life-altering with such clarity. To finally let my breath out and allow myself these vivid moments that come and I can see what it looked like in bits and pieces, and to laugh or cry a little. To go back and look at photos from their births. It is myself I study in those pictures now. I am learning her. Putting together an old, new puzzle of my own.
I am young and old and calm at the kitchen sink. I can smell dirt washed away with honeyed apricots. I join Sully on the floor in peace and we work the puzzle a few more times, Emerson's words running through my head:
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.All life is an experiment.The more experiments you make the better.
