I lost my way.
I was watching ER when Susan is putting her baby to bed reading her goodnight moon but not moving the pages cause she knows it by heart and the room is dark and it's raining and lately the ordinary just does me in
the regular things the things we do everyday, the actual monotony, my mom humming, the stuff you think if I can just get through this and get to my REAL life the one that's waiting just over there
just after I peel this orange or run to this basketball game or read this essay of Emma's
it's impossible to understand the world in these little chunks we get that's why we have the big stuff to plan for and aim at and the longing and determination and planning
but her reading to that baby and the baby falling asleep on her why does that make me cry. Because it's the most important thing?
what if I got everything
my babies will get to europe
they will become doctors or lawyers or indian chiefs
they won't die snowboarding or driving to santa barbara or chased by some weirdo professor
my hand will get fixed and I will hold grandbabies and read them goodnight moon
I know how to do that and maybe I will get to get old, with my whole brain
touching a cheek finding a laugh
I look around grateful for all the faces that have stuck by me
the wobbly path we're making in a messy house on a round earth it's hard not to be grateful for every voice that reads you a book every baby every orange
when the babies are little you don't think ahead you're just grateful to get up the front walk and into the house following a wandering two year old with your hands full of stuff. You already know everything because there's no time to think and that is where we are free-est, buried under responsibility
or maybe now looking back it feels like there's a clean beauty to life, I guess all of us veered off into this weird lane this pandemic sideline where we've all tried not to die these past two years and then B) tried to salvage some kind of forward motion life but damn it is ugly here and hard to keep trying, all of us, every earthling
no wonder the moments feel heightened or maybe it's just dementia broken hand couch wisdom
or maybe singing babies to sleep is really all that matters
