Swimming in May

We tried pools, lakes, splash pads, and we liked them all. Crazy to think that 1 year ago, I was treading water almost every day trying to encourage you to come out!

Some of the days before you were 11 months old

Lately you love: riding in carts, exploring with dad, sitting on Grammy’s lap, being read to (What are Duck and Goose Feeling? and when it gets to the Happy page you love to say “happphh”), standing on your tippy toes to see the chickens in the backyard, and watching daddy cook in the kitchen.

A Week Before Mother’s Day

I’ve been trying to write you something and I have one month left until June 6th and the right words aren’t arranging themselves how I would want them to. So I’ll tell you something else.

Today someone I know lost their baby at 36 weeks. Somehow this seems right to tell you, because maybe someday you will feel that this first year of life (and however many you are given after) was owed to you. But it might not have ever happened. That was possible too. However many years you get, and however many I get with you, I hope you’ll know each one was not owed to you. In school they may tell you something else, but this is why it’s important we learn to count things. Because our bodies know they won’t reach infinity on their own, but we do not.  

You wouldn’t sleep last night and I’m tired today. The reason you wouldn’t is still a mystery. So much of your existence is wrapped up in these little and grand mysteries. The mystery of why I was given this year with you, and some aren’t given so much. Down to the mystery of why you couldn’t sleep last night. You’ve been teaching me minute by minute how to exist without knowing anything. 

If I’m honest, I do wish I could know more. 

How to settle a mind that wants conclusions before things have concluded. Conclusion is not owed to me. That you are still breathing and growing and thriving is the opposite of you concluding. Grief is the business of being given conclusions before we are ready for them. 

Today I will keep my tired eyes open to you a little wider and a little longer, because today was not owed to us. I’ll wash you, dress you, and sing softly into your ear to help my eternal heart be present in this physical moment. I’ll hold you to myself and quiet any thoughts of the sacrifices I have made for you, and redirect them to how many opportunities I was given to sacrifice for you. What gifts. 

And when my thoughts turn to fear, because death makes me fear conclusions will be drawn too early;

I’ll listen to your laugh, and I’ll pray it’s eternal. 

Got to take you scouting with me this morning :)

Lil' Panda & Wabbit

4.23.19

A snack on the porch after work because it’s a sunny spring afternoon.

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Easter 2019

This year my sister turned 27 on Easter Sunday so she made the most delicious Easter brunch for her family and she let me decorate the table for her. So much fun to celebrate her and collaborate with her. <3 My favorite was the cardamom strawberry popsicles ✨

What Begins in Ceremony

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There is no history

between us

my experience of you is one continuous loop.

There never was before you

There will be nothing after.

Thus the Apostle's Mystery:

It may be too much to ascribe

to another person,

too divine to live firsthand.

But God the man makes a bride of mankind:

who am I to belittle what he planned?

I am now always wed to you.

I am always of a bed with you.

I am tomorrow always head to you.

Exclusivity

is an eternal setting

in the story of the heart.

This is what the children of all the divorced know:

Why can it not be with whom you said it would be?

May our children never know it.

What begins in ceremony never dies.

It only gets belied.

What grows in covenant never decays.

It only gets betrayed.

There are promises and mistakes,

Oaths and their oathbreaks.

May he bind the cords again tonight

In a moment unfit to share with anyone else.

May he write the words again tonight

In a poem meant only for us

So we know a little better

What it is to be chosen

And never lied to or betrayed -

A selection once done, ever frozen

In time.

What awe it is to be loved -

A beginning with no end.

Endless beginnings as far as the eye can see.

All beginning, 

No end.

"Behold, I am making all things new."

Once more: I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Piano man

Love that we find you here so often.

4.7.19 & 4.13.19

You love watching everything that lives underwater, just like your dad.

You love being underwater, just like your mom.

Unlanguaged

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As yet

you see my love

as an unlanguaged blur.

You find its lines

only in the shape of my face,

its warmth in my palms.

Some day I will try to tell you

how big it was,

the holding in the night,

the patient waiting 

for the cries to subside.

My parents did the same.

It is impossible 

to fully comprehend

the scale of love 

before we know we are

loved

at all.

For me,

I deceive myself

into the idea that I know enough

to manage my own humanness.

Really, even the smallest corners

of what I cannot see

dwarf the crannies of my mind.

In the niche nooks of knowledge,

some days I can begin 

to see myself in my son:

the fury over things

that do not last,

the joy over things

that are insignificant

but are made magnificent

by that same joy.

And on those days

I sense the presence,

vague,

unworded -

but constant,

known -

wishing me into growth,

loving me in

to life.

I love you, Wesley.

I love you, Wesley.

April 1st

House things

Turning 30, an experience

I got to try my hand at knitting, make kokedama by hand, and eat sushi 31 floors above Bellevue. Not pictured, but I also got to sing karaoke til my hearts content, cuddle my nephews and nieces, and drop Wes off for many hours so that I could miss him so much. Cheers to all the people who made me feel so loved and known at 30 years in <3