These Are The Days

"You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you'd given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn't know the outcome for a long time."
-- Meg Wolitzer, The Ten Year Nap

Each day, I feel it slipping away. My babies are toddlers and preschoolers already-- little still, but getting old enough to not always want to hold my hand. But their ecstatic joy at my mere presence is, I hope, enough for me to treasure this journey for the long term and not always pine for These Days. But sometimes I think These are The Days-- the unselfconscious laughter, faithful trust, wholehearted affection, total honesty and unabashed question asking-- these are the days I was made to be a mama.

This, I am good at. This, my kids revel and blossom in.
And what tomorrow brings...for that I can only hope. We will stay around as long as we can-- inhaling and inhaling and inhaling.

Balance

I was in a yoga class last night and the teacher announced we were doing the position "Crow". Yeah, right, i thought-- maybe YOU are doing the position crow, but I'd rather not fall on my face. I sat.

Then she stopped. She talked about how fear holds us back. Asking our body to do something it doesnt usually do causes a sense of fear, she said, and I listened. Then she gracefully talked us thru what it should feel like each step of the way...and I was doing crow! Maybe it wasnt so beautiful, but there I was, with the weight of my body balanced on the back of my arms in perfect symmetry with the rest of my body. Victory!

This morning my yoga mat was still out, so Kade wanted to see what yoga looked like. I showed him some stretches...MORE! he said. So I showed him more...he mirrored my moves in a way that only a 4 year olds' body can effortlessly do. And only a 4 year olds' mind can embrace in a world where fear doesn't exist, and if mom is there, then all is well.

Balance. Fear. Victory.
Morning. noon. Night.
Childhood. Parenthood. Old Age.

All is well.