letting the days go by, water flowing underground

david is 5 months old today. i just can't believe there was ever a time when he wasn't here. in that same breath, i can't believe he's already 5 months old. at this moment 5 months ago i was laboring in my bed with madrona petting my hair asking jesse very calmly and very quietly what else needed to be packed up. we were preparing for the journey which would take us 12 houses down the road and a million miles away from life as we knew it.

for me, there was no such thing as time - there were only contractions coming and going. there was no such thing as a baby on it's way - just the ebb and flow of comfort and discomfort. and as is so often the case in my life, there was fear. but there was also peace and grace in the love of my caregivers, in the knowledge that the bodies of so many women before me had moved through this exact same process, and in the prayers and energy of my family.

and in so many ways as a result of giving birth to new life i am a new person myself, having been reborn into motherhood and into the joy and light of this amazing adventure. but i am also the same old me and i carry all the good and bad that i carried before. i lose perspective, i have a sense of humor, i care about my job and career, i am competitive, i am jealous, i am compassionate - sometimes to a fault. i am nervous, i am optimistic, i am self-critical, i am creative, i am overly honest about myself. and it's only lately that all of this is really surfacing. i have been surprised to find that in the midst of this new phase of life, the old me is still alive and well and i am faced with the challenge of acceptance and integration. as athens area artist "chub" puts it, i am "a little good, a little bad - like most folk..."

 

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p.s. we let david lick on some cantaloupe. i think he liked it. and then again, he seems to like everything he can put in his mouth. :-)