Words that Satisfy Me

bookkeeper

I just love the way the letters are so beautifully shelved:
the o's, the k's, the e's,
so perfectly paired.

Day 227

Evabird, there are mums on the table and fresh fruit in a bowl, and all I can hear is the wind through the trees and the clack of these keys. This morning, you and I went with friends on a long walk through the country, rounded our way on the edge of the lake, saw a deer, a crane, clapboard houses, red maples. The crane, M. said, is a good sign. Much of the night, I rubbed your swollen gums with my fingertip, felt the sharpness beneath, felt the teeth that will cut through any hour now.

(How do I say this? I want you to carry the sound of this wind inside of you; I want to carry it inside of me.)

At this moment, the clouds are passing across the silver square of window, and you are sleeping beside me, and I think of last year when I was at this house with these friends, how you were still inside of me, how I hardly knew you, how I knew you completely. I don't remember these woods being so peaceful then. Months ago, I was talking to a friend, another mother, and she said that her whole life she had never felt like she was enough; how becoming a mother changed that; how she is finally enough; how she is now all that she ever needed to be.

K. has filled the birdfeeder, and now the wind is interrupted by a song, by K. waving from the pool, by Lorca barking and D.'s laughter and S.'s wondering the world blue. The square of light has moved from the carpet to the bed, and still, you sleep, and still, I settle my hand on your back to feel your breath, and still the wind goes through the trees. I wish I could name the birds for you, wish I could keep you from the pain of your teeth cutting through, wish I could explain to you that this breeze through this screen feels as good as any breeze has ever felt. The crane, M. said, a very good sign, indeed.

On Lazy Summer

New post up at PBQ. Read it:
here.

Babies having Babies

Day 219

O Evabird, life moves so much faster in Oklahoma than it did in Brooklyn. Suddenly, your firsts are all slipping through my fingers; now you've done, done, done. You've sipped on Nana's Diet Coke--when mama wasn't looking!--and tasted cookies and petted a dog and fed yourself Cheerios and been through a carwash and spent all day by the pool and tried to steal a pacifier out of little Helen's mouth and tasted lemon and gone underwater.

I'd think in heat this thick that the world would move so much more slowly, but every time I turn, you're new. Happy seven month birthday, little bird. I promise I'll try to savor all these moments; I've been told it goes far too fast.

Back in the Heartland

Obscenely early:
Wake up.

Ten:
Zumba with mother-in-law.

Noon:
Tie baby to antique highchair with dishrag;
feed her squash and blueberries.

Two:
Stop by great-grandmother's house
to listen to tale of man
whose eyeball was hanging out of the socket.

Four:
Baby gets mesmerized by "Thriller" on the television.

Four o' five:
Baby squawks at Billie Jean.

Four ten:
Baby crawls(!!!) to Elmo.

Six:
Baby is fed
(smelling of apples, apricots, brown rice).
Baby to bed.

Now:
Eat ribs.

[Pictured: Baby tied to chair.]

On Tabloid Junkies

New post up at PBQ.
Read it:
here.