On the last day of ever babysitting the Malones.
Caroline's up in her room, asleep, and Sarah's sprawled out asleep on the couch behind me. I cut up an apple, and got a Stephen King (I think they have the whole collection here in the den) and sat at the kitchen table to read - but the words came like a great wind, whirling around me, and I had to catch and pen them or lose them forever...
1:15 pm. The Malones' kitchen.
Somehow I think that if I could sit here forever -
here, with the sun streaming through the windows, just pretty, no hint of the cold air outside;
here, so silent that I think I can hear the house settling, the air full of the deep, even breathing of two napping girls -
that I would never get over the beauty of everything.
There is a serenity in this moment that is so tangibly strong that if it was a feeling of anything other than peace, it'd take my breath away. But how can peace interrupt the flow of things?
What a blessing it has been to have this haven, this comfortable house with its window-light and plush sofas and these two spirited sprites who awaken so much inspiration in my heart. Sarah brought out my camera again with her white-blond hair and soulful eyes and pouting lips, made me need my black and whites, taught me to look for the image in everything, to see past the end of my nose. Can anyone understand the concept of listening with my eyes? Vision itself is bombarding - when you're seeing, you're overloaded with stimulation. My inner photographer uses her eyes as ears, searching through the plethora of objects in view to find that evasive image that's begging to be captured, the one that will encompass the moment and the feeling of being in that moment; the image that's a photograph, not just a snapshot.
And Caroline - how many times have my arms cried out for respite from the mornings of fevers, colds, fussiness when she needed to be held for hours on end to feel comfortable. (Language evades me. "Needed" is incorrect here; what's the past tense of "must?") Even I, more often than not immune to the charm of babies, cannot leave one crying in discomfort, though my body quickly grew weary of the endless steps around the house, holding her and pacing my steps to keep her rocking gently. Those steps, those hundreds of steps, ultimately led to one end - that precious moment of a downy head falling, suddenly heavy, against the blanket on my shoulder. And with that, the strain and the steps and the exhaustion is always forgotten.
Yes, Kent.
Yes, Josh.
Yes, I have been through a painful and trying time, a gathering of days that has left me weary and too deeply hurt to even feel the ache anymore. My heart is broken and my soul is bruised, and I wonder how long it will be before the gift of life itself does not make me want to weep. The fact that I can still see life, in all its richness, its crimson-golden glory, does not take away from that pain or mean that I feel it less or - God forbid - that I felt it less in the heart of darkness.
But my girls! These moments! Snatches of reminders that "real" is not a synonym only for "suffering."
O me! O life!
(Walt Whitman)
May I always be able to see the beauty in the moment.
"All this, and heaven too?"
Truly.
1:15 pm. The Malones' kitchen.
Somehow I think that if I could sit here forever -
here, with the sun streaming through the windows, just pretty, no hint of the cold air outside;
here, so silent that I think I can hear the house settling, the air full of the deep, even breathing of two napping girls -
that I would never get over the beauty of everything.
There is a serenity in this moment that is so tangibly strong that if it was a feeling of anything other than peace, it'd take my breath away. But how can peace interrupt the flow of things?
What a blessing it has been to have this haven, this comfortable house with its window-light and plush sofas and these two spirited sprites who awaken so much inspiration in my heart. Sarah brought out my camera again with her white-blond hair and soulful eyes and pouting lips, made me need my black and whites, taught me to look for the image in everything, to see past the end of my nose. Can anyone understand the concept of listening with my eyes? Vision itself is bombarding - when you're seeing, you're overloaded with stimulation. My inner photographer uses her eyes as ears, searching through the plethora of objects in view to find that evasive image that's begging to be captured, the one that will encompass the moment and the feeling of being in that moment; the image that's a photograph, not just a snapshot.
And Caroline - how many times have my arms cried out for respite from the mornings of fevers, colds, fussiness when she needed to be held for hours on end to feel comfortable. (Language evades me. "Needed" is incorrect here; what's the past tense of "must?") Even I, more often than not immune to the charm of babies, cannot leave one crying in discomfort, though my body quickly grew weary of the endless steps around the house, holding her and pacing my steps to keep her rocking gently. Those steps, those hundreds of steps, ultimately led to one end - that precious moment of a downy head falling, suddenly heavy, against the blanket on my shoulder. And with that, the strain and the steps and the exhaustion is always forgotten.
Yes, Kent.
Yes, Josh.
Yes, I have been through a painful and trying time, a gathering of days that has left me weary and too deeply hurt to even feel the ache anymore. My heart is broken and my soul is bruised, and I wonder how long it will be before the gift of life itself does not make me want to weep. The fact that I can still see life, in all its richness, its crimson-golden glory, does not take away from that pain or mean that I feel it less or - God forbid - that I felt it less in the heart of darkness.
But my girls! These moments! Snatches of reminders that "real" is not a synonym only for "suffering."
O me! O life!
(Walt Whitman)
May I always be able to see the beauty in the moment.
"All this, and heaven too?"
Truly.