momma bear

when i first moved to austin seven years ago, we lived in a duplex just south of the river. kenny met our neighbor while moving a heavy couch. he was a musician and a newly crowned stay at home dad. she was the family bread-winner and proud breastmilk pumper. i'll never forget the first time i saw him after his daughter was born. he popped in to share the news and the traumas of the epidural, episiotomy, vacuumed hospital birth that he and his wife just experienced. i was 26 and baby hungry. he was 26 and looked scared. he took a long drag on his cigarette and commented, "i can't stop thinking of all the ways i'm gonna fuck her up."

at the time, i thought that was such a strange thing to say.

today river hides under tables and couches. today i am turning even more ferocious. hurt. wise. reactionary. intuitive.

i've become momma bear protecting negativites from his tender heart. in a way, protecting him from my own self. there's something about children that make you face your own fears. it's the final shove over the comfort line, where the water is just a little too hot. where you feel that anxious hole grow bigger in your belly when you think of heatstroke or internal organs being cooked alive. it makes your brow sweat from heat and blurs your vision just before the blackout. you know, when the ringing starts deep in your ears and you know it's coming when your mouth goes dry and the room becomes a tunnel as everything fades out, and then simply turns off.

it's scary yet peaceful.

children are like that.

he becomes the sponge that absorbs whatever is left laying around. the anger, the resentment, the sludge around the edge of the pantry door. the bitterness and words that we cannot keep to ourselves. we, the adults. it seeps into him, the child. the yuck you try so hard to hide, but as much as you scrub, it always remains. like some twisted version of Macbeth.

the house is quiet today. we chat to each other like old family friends. life moves slowly and methodically when it's cold and grey outside. when clouds hang like dirty quilt batting over us and our togetherness. it's nice though, this being together.

i figured a nap was a possibility today, what with getting kenny to the airport before the break of dawn. river comments that he is indeed, NOT sleepy as his head lolls from side to side and his ketchup stained mouth forms the peaks and valleys of a sleeping child. i hold him asleep during the day, something i didn't know i missed until it was gone. the day i went to see that play. the day he woke up from nap and i was gone. the day he swore to never sleep again.

but today. today he fell heavy on my shoulder and sand slipped from his shoes as i untied his laces. he woke an hour later and we sat on his bed. he was a mewing kitten in need of more. more. more. still groggy, he lay on my leg and let me stroke his face like a babe in arms. the blue veins of his temple, the fading stork bites that hide in the folds of his eyelid. he fell asleep that way. i lay down beside him. like a momma bear cradling her cub from the outside world. he drooled on my leg and i drooled on his pillow.

how do we manage to come through this life unscathed? or do we just bump into one another's broken bodies saying 'excuse me' and 'i'm sorry.' for all of eternity until we learn our lessons?

this poem popped into my inbox and it is all i wanted to say, but couldn't find the nerve or appropriate words.

Nothing Is Lost

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.
Poem: "Nothing Is Lost" by Noel Coward, from Noel Coward Collected Verse. © Methuen Publishing, Ltd., 2000.