That the children should come first. My parents so unlike most parents, who were all so involved in their adultness or in their immaturity — trying to have a life, sure they were missing something, and they were, especially since they were all in their twenties back then. Of course they were missing a great deal.
But even at my age — I feel how much more I will have to forgo — my whole old way of life permanently altered. Already I can feel it. How much about giving up this will be. But I am well used to it. Another thing writing has taught me.
The silence is assertive, active these days. A third presence among us in the dark at night where the baby sucks and I pray.
The dizzying and terrifying shift seemingly overnight from no one can hurt us to no one can protect us.
And the old prayers come back automatically, involuntarily — without my consent exactly.
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world have mercy on us.
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world grant us peace.
I give you this world — Mozart, all kinds of music, poetry, mother’s milk…
That I have created something so human, so vulnerable — this sensual being. Her obvious pleasure by the feeling of the air on her skin. Heat and light. Her desperate needs, wants — to be gratified.
Our time here is finite but for a little while. Placed in its crucible for nine months, it felt like a kind of infinity. Odd. Something to be savored. Not to be missed.
Nor the strangeness. The violence of birth. The beauty of creation. And all that serenity. And changing shape. And giving in. And sleep.
Across mountains of heavenly floating roses
From which one drops every night
To reward the sleeper with the most beautiful dream of all.
My life more a mystery than ever.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are.
And who can tell where one body ends and the other one starts. Or where the music begins, or where the music ends…
I love you. I think I can say that today.
Early evening. In another room she sleeps peacefully. I play with the baby monitor — the devise that listens in on her breathing, her sleep. I turn up the volume. Adjusting the silence.
Longing for that time again. Pregnancy — when it seemed time stopped or reversed itself. I grew younger and younger. My aging resumed again on the day of the baby’s birth — or speeded up perhaps to compensate. This inexorable motion now. There’ll be no going back. There will be no going back there again. To feel now as if I were being slammed into the future. A terrifying thing. But once, once for a precious, precious time — I was alive — and I was not dying.
Lamb inside. Our amniotic life. Through the rose window in my mind. It was a precious time.
And I am left with myself now. The baby already far off on a distant horizon, waving.
The baby twinkling. Dark star. Most perfect night.
Rocking on the rock-a-bye.
I shall never forget it — that florescence into which she was lifted.
They really do point with one tiny finger upward toward the heavens, like the infant Christ, in the great renaissance paintings.