Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Cicadas



67 and sunny this morning.  The cafe is full of voices.  I love your eyes best in the almost dark of your room at 2am.  Only the nightlight on and your gaze momentarily alert and hung on mine. And the rapid swats of your fists, mummied bats, and the soft places on your thighs, thickening with fat.  You were fussy last night until we went out and looked at a slice of the sky.  Clouds like tumbleweeds.  We sat on the front steps next to the watermelon rinds your sister and father had left behind and we watched them play Captain Hook and Wendy in the front yard.  Thisbe in her rainbow dress tiptoe on the big rock, shrieking about walking the plank and your father, hand curved into a scythe, running the sidewalk gingerly, barefoot, growling invented threats.

Across town, our friend Jennifer is dying.  Across the world, Syria is sizzling darkly.  Today is the anniversary of people jumping out of windows, holding hands.

And so it seems petty to talk about the accumulation of crap in our house.  How the dining room table acquires objects like notebooks and paintings and erasers and watermelons.  How the carpet is taken over by play mats and bouncy chairs and blankets spread out as changing tables.  How below these items the carpet itself is dotted with crumbs and hairs and the fragments of leaves.  How I saw three thick-bodied ants yesterday, collecting their meals from our dirt.  I can feel the dirty laundry everywhere: the basket in your room, Thisbe's hamper, my hamper, the piles on the steps, the socks in the entryway.  And then all the objects that are taken out and put away, over and over again, every day: three different remote controls among the couch cushions, breast pump dangling tubes like a dead squid, pretend cookies and pretend eggs on the floor near the pretend kitchen, overturned ballet shoes, swaddling blankets and pacifiers covering every surface. 

Meanwhile, you are going through some kind of epic growth spurt.  I nursed you at 5:30am and 7:30am and Daddy fed you two ounces at 9:30am (while I was away) and still he called the cafe at 10:15am, your screams in the background, saying I think he still must be hungry.  So I fed you again at 10:30 and 12:15 and 1:00.  I feel exhausted and dry and taken.

It is a good life and a lucky life we have here.  We celebrated Thisbe's birthday two more times last week, once with cupcakes at school and once with an abundance of friends at the park.  Thisbe's first dance class yesterday--a semi-circle of girls in pink leotards and tutus on a gray floor.  The house smelled like chocolate chip cookies today and we ate bean and bacon stew and pickled beets last night for dinner.  Then, while you and your sister slept, Daddy and I drank wine and watched Newsroom, my feet in his lap and his kind hands massaging away some of the long ache of the day.


You are nine pounds and still toying with the idea of a smile.  You cry mostly when you need something tangible and can usually be satiated with sky or wind or the press of our bodies to yours.  You are a blessing to us, sweet baby boy.

The cicadas are chanting their wiry hum.  On the way home from school we count their dead bodies on the ground.

2 comments:

  1. I love that Thisbe goes to daycare where she does. The picture of Thisbe on the couch is lovely. I used to sit on that couch and I would wave as my mom left for work. I think all the kids had that ritual. When parents forgot to wave Teacher Sarah would write a reminder to our parents to wave next time. It was such a comfort.

    -martha sudermann

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