Confession 33

I could drive for days with nothing but a case of Diet Mtn Dew & some nonstop talk radio.

Not a Single Photograph

Today, Eva, your Grandpappy and your Mimi both turn another year older, and I want to take photographs of you with a thousand cupcakes or you in a sea of candles; of you with your watercolor eyelids and your seashell ears and your cupid's bow mouth, your ten pink toes and your ten tiny fingers. I want the photograph of you in the park the other day when you felt your first Oklahoma breeze, of you last night when I told you to look at all those stars, of this morning's smile, this moment's sleep. I want the one where your Mimi rocked you to sleep on the covered porch of the house she married in; I want the one where you gave your very first smile to your Grandpappy as he sang you Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on Christmas Day. Every moment I want to capture. There are days when I wonder why we live so far away; days when I think, oh, we could live just up the hill from your Mimi and Grandad, just around the bend from your Grandma & Grandpa, down the street from your Poppy, right next door to Nana. Today's one of those days. We'd make homemade frosting, and I could put a little on your nose, and we wouldn't have to take a single photograph because Mimi would be right there stirring the batter of her own cake and Grandpappy would be strumming a ditty on his ukulele. The house would be all cake and love and light and goodness, and everyone could say, This is the best birthday ever. Just because we're all here together. And they'd be right.

Day 88

and dreaming of more...

Dream 224

I was walking barefoot in the city. It was winter, and I jumped over icy puddles. It's okay, Zoe told me. You don't really need shoes. When I woke, it was still dark in Oklahoma, and I nursed Eva while she clutched my index finger and made the sounds she makes. My mother was at the hospital working the nightshift, and my daughter and I were in her bed. The smell of both of them made it take what seemed like forever for me to fall back to sleep. Finally, I did, until unfamiliar birds woke us and light came through the window. The wild sky awaited us.

Blue, Blue Sky

Twenty-five years ago, I was nine years old and had never been on an airplane. Yes, I had laid on the hot summer sidewalk and stared up at the sky and wondered where those big metal birds were heading but never had I gotten a tiny bag of peanuts or a blue pill-y blanket or said Sprite, please, when the flight attendant asked if I wanted anything.

My first flight was from Charlotte to New York City, and I still remember my first glimpse of the city's skyline and how it knocked the air out of me, how I told my mom this is where I want to live. Even now, after living here almost a decade and a half, flying in, that view gets me.

How strange that this afternoon I'll be getting on a plane with Eva--not even twelve weeks yet--and we'll be flying away from this city and out to Oklahoma. All that sky, sky as far as the eye can see. I wonder what I'll tell her when we get there, how I'll explain the vastness and the quiet, how I'll explain all that blue.

Note to Self

Refrain from breastfeeding in the back of a taxicab.

Waiting

Cold, gray sky, and sometimes I wait. I imagine if I wait long enough I'll have something to say that's not about the baby; something witty or wise or somehow compelling; something that has nothing to do with feeding or sleeping or pooping or smiling, nothing to do with our long walks down the avenue or our visits with friends, nothing to do with seeing an orange for what seems the first time or hunting down the name of a bird because the name suddenly seems to matter. I tell myself that if I wait long enough there will be something other than this love that has consumed me for almost three months, but it doesn't seem to be happening. There's just her and me and this love. And C. And sometimes the wind or a bee or a bunny or the tea in the kettle, but mostly just us, just this, just love.