The Tinkling.
She and I lie in darkness upon her fresh scented sheets; the ones her father washed for us today.
She cries and whimpers and turns to me in sorrow as she does not want to go to sleep. I cradle her in closer, feel her breath on my breasts, and the hot tears on her face melting into my skin. She slides the no spill cup, filled with ice water, along my arm.
Cold, so cold.
I try not to react to it and hum softly the lullaby she demands that I not sing as she is angry and frustrated at the dark, and at the pillow, and at the bed, and at the belief that she will somehow miss out on something if she sleeps.
Softly, I begin talking.
Talking of how she was conceived and grew within me. A tiny baby; that swam and played and grew. She was as a growing spark of life that tickled me from the inside until she was big enough to have a body all her own. Her blood mingled with my blood. Her life mingled with my life.
The whimpers fall silent as she listens now playing with a strand of my hair. Her face remains mere inches from mine in the darkness.
I ask her if it is nice to have her own body now and she nods and turns, finally relaxing her rigid body, drinking her ice water, and nodding at me to continue. So I talk about how when she was just born, her tiny body and I would snuggle just like this.
Our breath was hot and sticky on each other, our hearts would beat in syncopation. And together, infant and young mother, we would remember how close we were when she was yet within me. And that infant child, so beautiful and perfect, drank milk from my breast and grew…
"But you don't have any more milk," she interrupts and I nod in the dark though she cannot see me.
"No. I don't have a baby any more. Moms only have milk when they have babies," and she nods too though I cannot see it.
Her voice breaks, free from the cries she still held lodged in her throat from before, and now flows smoothly without the weight of sadness. Sweetly she utters words in the warmth of the night under the ceiling fan that only turns the too warm air.
She says, "I'm a big girl. Now I have an ice water juice cup."
And so I kiss her head and nuzzle into her curls, gently exhaling. I talk to her about how I love her. I talk about how a part of her will always be my baby, even now, though she is growing, because once she was inside me and born from my own life. A thought strikes me and the words tumble softly over the pillow and over her skin as we snuggle.
I love her in so many ways, loving her as a baby is but one. I love the young woman she is becoming, the smiles and giggles and laughs. I love the best friends that we already are and somehow will always be.. and I love her in all the, as yet, intangible loves to be. I love her as a promise and a covenant I half remember making to bring her into this world and keep her safe. And I love her as the idea she represents - the best within me given to help her become her own person.
She is quiet and I fall silent. I can see her eyes open, barely shining like liquid black in the dark, and she kind of nods and snuggles a little closer still. So I continue - It's as if each type of love is a different ribbon, a different colored string, that takes on the special, individual hue of that love. And they come together, woven as a tapestry of light and color that is the love between her and I.
I tell her that I love her father. In at least ten different ways and I can see the strands of individual, different types of love between him and I. I can feel the connections reach over to where he has already begun to lightly snore feel them tugging at my heart.
She takes another sip from her ice water. And we are again quiet.
She says to me quietly, "it tickles."
"It tickles? what? the love?"
She shakes her head, "No, it tinkles."
"Oh! Tinkles."
Yes.. the love there.. the strands we can see in the dark or in the mind's eye or maybe we only really ever see it when we close our eyes. They dance with music.
I nod and squeeze her and say, "Maybe that is really it. The love between us.. between everyone we love.. is a complex strand of light. A melody which makes it own music."
I am still and she remains hushed and I think long and deep of how some loves of mine are so thickly layered.
The strands which connect us are so rich in texture and so complicatedly spun as our lives have changed and our love has changed. Time and experience forging new growth and new types of love between us.
This dancing weave, this tapestry of life itself, making the texture of the love deeper, the music richer. Over time the coming together again as friends, as loves creates a deep resonance you feel within you.
Some loves are pure tones of simple colors with only one or two strands of emotion sometimes stronger than anything we could have thought possible but somehow still simple, or uncomplicated, as it was all the connection we ever needed between us. Perhaps that pure simplified union between us was enough.
The child lightly snores just then and I rest my chin on her head and listen to the sounds of the quiet room, the ceiling fan overhead, a small drip of water from somewhere deeper in the house.
I cherish the moment, the warmth. I am overpowered by the way her, now long, legs are pressed warm against the top of my thighs. I inhale pure enchantment from the full head of hair nestled into my arms.
I think of the man who sleeps, back turned away from us on the other bed, and the magic that tinkles in the dark between us. How as frail, disparate people - we created this beauty. I am painfully aware of the tenuous colors of new love I feel for him as he is becoming confident in himself in new ways and his own wry sense of humor, that I dare to enjoy spending time with him again, dare to look forward to his arrival, dare to try love anew so many years into our marriage after so much history, tangles, loss.
I think slowly of my other loves. I reflect on the many different ways in which I love them. How complex and multi-hued some connections are, and others, how strong and simple, and how I wish I had the words to tell them.
Kissing the sleeping child on her forehead and bringing the comforter up and slip it into place as I withdraw away and slide off the bed. She shifts, lying now on her back, making soft sounds and half heard words until she is again asleep.
I stand in the dark between the two beds, between the two bodies who mean the very world to me. I open the back door with its quiet creak and descend the steps to ponder over the rest of my life. Hoping, perhaps, to see something of the ineffable in the night, under the stars.
A beautiful silent sound, the sound of it all, fills my ears and washes over me. I smile in the dark and whisper wordlessly into the night as my bare feet step over the rough boards on the back deck.
She cries and whimpers and turns to me in sorrow as she does not want to go to sleep. I cradle her in closer, feel her breath on my breasts, and the hot tears on her face melting into my skin. She slides the no spill cup, filled with ice water, along my arm.
Cold, so cold.
I try not to react to it and hum softly the lullaby she demands that I not sing as she is angry and frustrated at the dark, and at the pillow, and at the bed, and at the belief that she will somehow miss out on something if she sleeps.
Softly, I begin talking.
Talking of how she was conceived and grew within me. A tiny baby; that swam and played and grew. She was as a growing spark of life that tickled me from the inside until she was big enough to have a body all her own. Her blood mingled with my blood. Her life mingled with my life.
The whimpers fall silent as she listens now playing with a strand of my hair. Her face remains mere inches from mine in the darkness.
I ask her if it is nice to have her own body now and she nods and turns, finally relaxing her rigid body, drinking her ice water, and nodding at me to continue. So I talk about how when she was just born, her tiny body and I would snuggle just like this.
Our breath was hot and sticky on each other, our hearts would beat in syncopation. And together, infant and young mother, we would remember how close we were when she was yet within me. And that infant child, so beautiful and perfect, drank milk from my breast and grew…
"But you don't have any more milk," she interrupts and I nod in the dark though she cannot see me.
"No. I don't have a baby any more. Moms only have milk when they have babies," and she nods too though I cannot see it.
Her voice breaks, free from the cries she still held lodged in her throat from before, and now flows smoothly without the weight of sadness. Sweetly she utters words in the warmth of the night under the ceiling fan that only turns the too warm air.
She says, "I'm a big girl. Now I have an ice water juice cup."
And so I kiss her head and nuzzle into her curls, gently exhaling. I talk to her about how I love her. I talk about how a part of her will always be my baby, even now, though she is growing, because once she was inside me and born from my own life. A thought strikes me and the words tumble softly over the pillow and over her skin as we snuggle.
I love her in so many ways, loving her as a baby is but one. I love the young woman she is becoming, the smiles and giggles and laughs. I love the best friends that we already are and somehow will always be.. and I love her in all the, as yet, intangible loves to be. I love her as a promise and a covenant I half remember making to bring her into this world and keep her safe. And I love her as the idea she represents - the best within me given to help her become her own person.
She is quiet and I fall silent. I can see her eyes open, barely shining like liquid black in the dark, and she kind of nods and snuggles a little closer still. So I continue - It's as if each type of love is a different ribbon, a different colored string, that takes on the special, individual hue of that love. And they come together, woven as a tapestry of light and color that is the love between her and I.
I tell her that I love her father. In at least ten different ways and I can see the strands of individual, different types of love between him and I. I can feel the connections reach over to where he has already begun to lightly snore feel them tugging at my heart.
She takes another sip from her ice water. And we are again quiet.
She says to me quietly, "it tickles."
"It tickles? what? the love?"
She shakes her head, "No, it tinkles."
"Oh! Tinkles."
Yes.. the love there.. the strands we can see in the dark or in the mind's eye or maybe we only really ever see it when we close our eyes. They dance with music.
I nod and squeeze her and say, "Maybe that is really it. The love between us.. between everyone we love.. is a complex strand of light. A melody which makes it own music."
I am still and she remains hushed and I think long and deep of how some loves of mine are so thickly layered.
The strands which connect us are so rich in texture and so complicatedly spun as our lives have changed and our love has changed. Time and experience forging new growth and new types of love between us.
This dancing weave, this tapestry of life itself, making the texture of the love deeper, the music richer. Over time the coming together again as friends, as loves creates a deep resonance you feel within you.
Some loves are pure tones of simple colors with only one or two strands of emotion sometimes stronger than anything we could have thought possible but somehow still simple, or uncomplicated, as it was all the connection we ever needed between us. Perhaps that pure simplified union between us was enough.
The child lightly snores just then and I rest my chin on her head and listen to the sounds of the quiet room, the ceiling fan overhead, a small drip of water from somewhere deeper in the house.
I cherish the moment, the warmth. I am overpowered by the way her, now long, legs are pressed warm against the top of my thighs. I inhale pure enchantment from the full head of hair nestled into my arms.
I think of the man who sleeps, back turned away from us on the other bed, and the magic that tinkles in the dark between us. How as frail, disparate people - we created this beauty. I am painfully aware of the tenuous colors of new love I feel for him as he is becoming confident in himself in new ways and his own wry sense of humor, that I dare to enjoy spending time with him again, dare to look forward to his arrival, dare to try love anew so many years into our marriage after so much history, tangles, loss.
I think slowly of my other loves. I reflect on the many different ways in which I love them. How complex and multi-hued some connections are, and others, how strong and simple, and how I wish I had the words to tell them.
Kissing the sleeping child on her forehead and bringing the comforter up and slip it into place as I withdraw away and slide off the bed. She shifts, lying now on her back, making soft sounds and half heard words until she is again asleep.
I stand in the dark between the two beds, between the two bodies who mean the very world to me. I open the back door with its quiet creak and descend the steps to ponder over the rest of my life. Hoping, perhaps, to see something of the ineffable in the night, under the stars.
A beautiful silent sound, the sound of it all, fills my ears and washes over me. I smile in the dark and whisper wordlessly into the night as my bare feet step over the rough boards on the back deck.