The word ‘bittersweet’ has taken on a fuller meaning in my life recently, as it will, I’m sure, indefinitely and exponentially into the future.
The days unwillingly float by. I can’t seem to capture love in a bottle like I’m constantly yearning to do. I’m washing the dishes: his clear sippy cup with dinos on it, the blue cap with the little green spout. It hits me. He won’t be a little baby forever. I hear the voices of all the people I meet who’ve raised children. The words and tone are without fail, always the same: “It goes fast.” They say, not needing to add, soak it up, enjoy it while you can.
Well, I’m trying.
Without realizing it I set his cup on the counter, away from the other clean dishes. It has brought up an emotion in me that I can’t just file away in the dish rack, in the cupboard. Head on, heart open, I face the force with which he hangs from our heartstrings. When he cries, a little person inside of me cries along with him. But another person, one who has grown wiser, knows that the little one is only screaming because he will be asleep in one minute. Please let him fall asleep. Just wait it out.
I pick up the cup off the counter. I realize that he’s stopped crying, but now there is a tear in my eye. Even if I wipe it from my cheek, it feels like it will remain forever in my heart, and grow larger every day. I’m trying to hold the moment like I’m holding the cup. It isn’t working.
The silence, when he sleeps, is a golden suspension of whirling paradoxery. Finally, for a moment, we can relax! Yes? Back again in a time and place where we may consider each other, and ourselves. Eat! Any necessary duties must be done. At any moment an interruption might occur which means the end of the silence. And he won’t take naps forever.
It is important to sit alone. Whether it be beneath a tree, upon a mountain, or in a chair, we must sit down not to eat, or work, or click, but simply to question ourselves, and reflect upon our time since the last time that we sat, and questioned, and reflected.
Alone, also, it is important to spend time working for oneself. Not for the money- no! - but to keep in step with the planet, and with the universe. I choose to put pen to paper. Music continues to come through me, though I’ve found lately that to write is less likely to wake the boy. As he grows, it will become his turn to make noise, and my time to practice silence.
Together, though, with one another, she and I must be. Would that we could spend hours and hours sitting in the park reading stories, finding paths to take or to not take, enjoying the gift of the presented moment. These are things that are a joy with the little one. But for it to just be the two of us- to look into each other’s eyes with the calm and hope- hasn’t been as common, naturally, since January 26th, 2019. And that is much better than alright. But those moments… Those moments of which we had plenty, but perhaps we just didn’t get quite enough of them before our first class package arrived from heaven? He is our angel, the light that leads our way. But we can not underestimate the unique necessity of our time spent alone together, together alone. And it is all the more beautiful now for its rarity.
So how can we find the time to spend alone, as well as alone together, when his naps will soon be squeezed out of the schedule like middle school recess? Somehow, it must be done.
How can I rest myself, when I know, can in fact hear, my partner in the midst of battle in the next room? I can not. I must assist. Diaper changing, meal preparing, feeding, supervising, cleaning, and playing ball, playing music, reading, drawing, painting, going on walks, takes up all of our time. And it is the sweetest candy.
That the time for us alone together, together alone, is not abundant nor clear cut, this is the bitter with the sweet, which, as Carole King reminds me, we gotta take. With these moments we are building our history. This candy bar is just so heady that any amount of bitter ever only enhances the sweetness. I’ll never fully describe it, I’ve decided. But I’ll be damned if I stop doing my best.
9:30 Wednesday 6/24