I have a time sensitive window in which to see a shooting star.
And the time constraint is: how long does it take for my melatonin to kick in.
I’m wrapped in an old rescued creature comfort—the M&M blanket I stole from my sister, with bare feet on November pavement, and I’m looking up through the clouds in vain hope.
I only slept because I took a melatonin supplement. But when I wasn’t sleeping, I was thinking about Pennsylvania. And polling. And uncertainty. And protest.
But, I woke up this morning, too early, with a book of bad poetry next to my bed, with the most beautiful sympathy card ever written:
On the night of my miscarriage, I made dinner from Hello Fresh, and Jeremy moved a stack of 159 bricks into the garage. I took solace in the measured portions, the controlled steps, and the predictable outcome. Jeremy liked the neat stacking.
Still, I burnt the dinner.
There are big things in my heart.
Unreachable things. I keep burrowing. Rather than turn on my shows at night, rather than drown my day in noise that distracts and diverts, I sit in my bed and try to listen to the big things happening here in my heart.
My dad eats half an avocado every morning. He wakes up and leaves the house before dawn, but still, every morning, he slices an avocado and fries an egg on a special skillet that no one cleans right but him. There’s usually some sort of specialty cheese in his fixings. He consumes his breakfast in a hurry, because he’s got to leave time to empty the dishwasher (if he hasn’t already) before he heads out the door. He often takes homemade whole-wheat toast in a paper towel. I don’t know how he manages not to drip honey on himself while he drives. He often leaves the news on for my mom.
It always takes Hudson too long to finish his breakfast—this morning, it’s cottage cheese with a peanut butter chaser. Followed by, because I can’t resist, a graham cracker coated in peanut butter. It is just too gratifying NOT to give him his three favorite foods in succession–or rather, in tandem.
Everything is everywhere right now as we pack to move out of my parents’ basement. It’s not the triumphant move into a bougie condo or a three bedroom single-family home that we were hoping for, but it is a lateral move to a two bedroom apartment with a dishwasher and a flex space.
The way I know I’m not a real writer (yet) is that I can’t create from nothing. I can’t sit down at a desk and tame my brain with a deadline or a word count or a page limit.
This post isn’t a narrative. It’s just a screenshot. A wide pano zoom and a close up of a moment. It’s a sequence of words that forms the image of nine-months-old. Of happy babbles at 5:14 AM. Of little syllables that almost sound like Dad, but for the added J. “Dajd, Dajd, Dajd.”
It’s—inexplicably—an image of apple sauce crust on a forehead. It’s gurgly growls and a little hand on Dad’s nose, and a father waking up, first with a start and then with a smile. It’s the light of the closet, backlighting my boys as father whisks son into the air. It’s the silhouette of noses and upturned grins. It’s a literal silver lining after a disappointing few weeks.
It’s 5:17 AM gurgle giggles, and whimpers from a dog who hasn’t been replaced, but thinks she has. It’s the gentle bounce of four paws joining the fray, and a wet nose probing foreheads with a hearty good morning.
It’s a little boy who has been out longer than he was in. Which isn’t everything. But who has time for everything today?
It is enough.