Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Day 1095

O Evabird, today you are three. 1095 days since you came flying into the world, and every hour I fall a little bit more in love with you.

This is what you like to play: waitress and violin and sit-n-spin and school. You twirl in circles and take all of our orders and when you get tired of that, you make us gather on the floor in a circle and you play your ukulele and sing little ditties.

These are the words you like to say: ice cream and love and play dough and poems. And these are the words you like to type: mom, dad, love, nana, papa, hayley, anna, and then over and over: eva, eva, eva.

(Your very own mantra, my very own mantra.)

Mornings, you wake up long before the sun comes up, and we walk to the bakery for a coffee and a muffin. You hold my hand, and we talk about the weather, and you ask me if it's still November. And for so many days now you've asked, Is it my birthday yet? Is it today?

And finally, this morning, I say, Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Happy birthday my little love, my dreamer, my whole world changer. Only 3 years in, and already, you are the wisest, sweetest, most loving person I've ever known.

Xoxo.

Mom

Monday, November 21, 2011

Cedric's Gondola

Me: Oh Eva, this is beautiful. What is it?
Eva: It's Cedric's Gondola.
Me: Cedric's Gondola?
Her: See the water?

(And yes, I do. Right there under the gondola.
And under the sky.
Under sweet yellow Cedric himself.)

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Bowl of Sky

There was not time nor world enough but there were blueberries, and there was my daughter, and there was a bowl filled with, what seemed at first, to be only milk. I keep wondering how we become who we become, who we carry with us, which sky it is that we keep sitting under. Last night, walking home under a starless sky, it occurred to me that I've never told Eva about the Big Dipper. We're usually inside before dark, or there are clouds or dinner to be made, so I've never pointed to that shape in the sky, never said, See!, never held her small shoulders in my hands, spun her around and said, And look, there's a little one too. Z. says when she moved to South Africa it took her months to get used to the sky. Everything was upside down. Now, the kitchen is empty save for a damp sponge with souring milk and dishes to be cleaned.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Confession #534

I can hardly imagine life without string cheese and Words with Friends.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Doors

I don't remember there being earthquakes when I was little. Or maybe there were, but they were in California which was a million miles away, the place where oranges grew on trees and everybody had swimming pools. It only seemed right that some of them might have to fall into the earth; I mean, you can only have so much luck.

Here in Brooklyn, Eva sits on the floor painting a picture of a door. A door to where? I keep asking. Just a door, she says. On the phone, my mom's voice is wiry. She says that back in Oklahoma the earth shook so hard her husband turned on all the lights in the house. It's like he thought the world wouldn't end if you could see it.