Right now I am trying
to stay in the moment,
be mindful,
aware of the current
moment, the feel of Nat's hand in mine this morning as I walked him to the living room from the bedroom. He was sleep hazed in his too tight pajamas, barefooted, his little voice saying, "I have to pee. I hungry," almost five years old.
It's not that it's going by quickly, but the moments sometimes strike me as achingly sweet.
I have nostalgia for this time of life before I've left it.
nostalgia greek for the pain of home
-nost, the nest
-algia, the pain
the equinox
ideas about liminality,
transition,
the in-between,
half-light, half-dark.
How briefly we perch on the axis, equal parts day and night for only two days a year.
Yet I read online the equinox isn't exactly twelve and twelve.
So really, we never perch. We're always tilted away or toward the sun.
A primal sense of imbalance
Maybe this is why we strive in everything for balance.
Some parts of us,
some animal part,
yearns,
knows we perch precariously on a rock always tilted.
We scrabble on the earth.
And I wanted to write about the metaphor for the in-between-
the way we parent Teddy, always holding our breath, waiting, waiting-
there's a blank space when I imagine his future.
For the other boys, it's filled in. The image changes day to day, but there exists an image of Sheamus at 20, of Nat at 30. "Oh look, he's so curious about rocks--maybe he'll be a geologist!"
For Teddy, it feels like I'm waiting.
We just don't know if he'll develop language.
If he does, it will be a true miracle. His biggest stroke was in his language center and he's four months delayed already approaching his first birthday. The in-between of not knowing where we are, perched on the tilt--away or toward the sun-- I don't know--and the awareness of the ableism of even this metaphor--the idea that if he's nonverbal, it will be as if we've tilted away from the sun. Yet there is joy, stillness, quiet and refreshing days in winter, long nights, the snow, the warm blankets, sledding--but the not knowing what season we move towards makes us scrabble, makes us unbalanced, the inability to prepare.
This morning, he was on his belly in the crib. His little bum like a little hill in the blankets, and he was squawking in sleep sweetly. Squawk, squawk! I kept thinking he was awake, but he slept an extra hour.
Then he was up and tired and rubbing his eyes and I was holding him against my body and I said, "Hug Mommy, Teddy."
and he understands the word "hug." His tiny hands tightened around my neck,
and who needs the future
as I hold Teddy hugging me,
his little twelve-month old body in a furry cow onesie,
Nat's hot four-year-old hand in mine,
and everyone's hungry and sleepy and Nat says, in a tiny voice with a sigh,
"We have a long day ahead of us."
But it's not so long, not as long as the day was yesterday.
This sweet and short time of lengthening nights and shortening days as we all tilt away from the sun.