Impermanence

I ask myself why I acted differently this time.  With patience instead of irritation.  It is still before the sun is up.  There were all kinds of annoying sleep interruptions during the night.  My feet are icicles because some one little stole my covers.

But I know why I'm feeling soft.  It's because I can see it.   The impermanence of our situation.  Sameness isn't anyone's luxury.

 

Abby, who slides in next to me as a 4yo with her cashmere skin, tousled hair, and morning breath will be married and exhausted with her own children tomorrow.  It all goes that fast because routines become weeks, everyday turns into years, and before you feel different nothing is the same anymore. 

For me, time is real but also partly a human construct - only we romanticize it and mourn for more before it's gone.  Unless all the fuss outdoors is nature's Shiva for summer, I'm inclined to think we are the only ones to feel remorseful about time passing.  Humans find it difficult being aware and present all at once.  We are just so busy.  Have you ever seen a multi-tasking pond or a preoccupied bird?  Consciousness functions better when it forgets.

It's 5a.m.  I'm on the couch because something woke up Grayson in his sleep.  He pushed me aside and is now snuggled next to Andy in our bed so I head to the couch for an hour or so of sleep.  But before I feel Sparrow's warmth curling at my heels, I hear the hushing of little feet on the carpet coming my way.  Abby stands before me.  Naked.

I love how right in this now she comes to me for warmth and safety and that I am here to provide. Her sleepy child magnet pulls her close to my protective parent magnet and we click like the last two pieces of a puzzle.  Finished and complete.  There's no ambling chaos here.

Few moments present themselves this confidently.  There's ample choice in everything else with a million possible outcomes.  Molecules spinning, reproducing, looking for a way to win at being human.  But right now she is cold and small and I am warm and large.  Symbiosis.

The simple task of warming her up soothes me and I don't worry about teaching her how to read, explaining the birds and the bees when she's 34 ready, or how the hell I will let her lay her head down in a college dorm one day.  All those things will happen.  Or they won't.  The math is exponential in between.  Right now I get to linger in the moment before me which is greater than the ones yet to happen.  She will be so many things, says Time.  She is just beginning, I think.  She needs me now, reminds Impermanence. 

 

So we snuggle down until Abby decides she is ready for morning.  It's her decision though.  I'm in no hurry at all. 

At the End of the Day

At the end of the day, I hang back a few minutes while Andy ushers the kids upstairs for a torturous affair bath time.

It's only ten minutes but enough time to hear everything in the background instead of the foreground; to sit next to an open window away from dishwasher noise and closer to the revving up of chirps and twills outside in their trees.

I take a few deep breaths and tune out the domestic side of me.

For a few minutes I am with the crickets, crows, and blue layered sky.  (It goes dark all before I'm ready.)

Lately, someone has been enjoying these slippery minutes with me.

She is very entertaining company.

Alert, super sweet, and still puppy drowsy.

Together Miss Tillie and I go to the end of our day with the moon in our eyes and the promise of snuggling up in the stars on our minds.

It's so good to be together.