This

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This — holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.

— Marie Howe, from "The Gate"

In the days after the Critter was first born, I felt as though my old life — the one in which nobody wailed day and night for the sustenance of my milk, my warm arms — was like a bird, perched on the ledge just outside our bedroom window. I felt as though a day would come when, if I opened that window, the bird would fly back into our apartment. And then one day I realized: that bird has flown, never never never to come back.

And so I let go of the past (and have since forgotten what it was like), and though I had no desire to wish away the Critter's infancy and toddlerhood, I looked ahead to the future, when he will be in school and I no longer working odd hours and late into the night. And the future seemed so so distant, and I wondered if I would survive to see it.

And then one day, I realized that I had forgotten about both the bird and my dream of the future. The Critter was napping in his room and the apartment silent but for the mysterious clicking of the refrigerator, and there I was, sitting at my desk, to one side the unmade bed and to the other side a plate emptied of all but a few crumbs from my lunch, and I was no longer planning, expecting, or in any way even thinking about being anywhere else.

Though now that it comes to mind, I must say I do like to think about that bird and imagine where it has gone — somewhere far south of here, I hope, where the ocean waters are a clear and saturated blue. Or perhaps north of here, to the mountains ...

Happy Birthday, Critter!

Wasn't it just April, the leaves just beginning to appear, and the Critter not yet crawling? And now it is September, the days growing cooler, the nights falling earlier ... and the Critter one year old today!

At the beginning of August, I took on a bunch of work, which I managed poorly, and I found myself wishing away the miserable, too-hot month. I kept reminding myself, it will be over soon enough, and then the summer will be gone, and how has it gone so quickly, anyway? And before I know it, it will be Hallowe'en, and then Thanksgiving, and then Christmas and yet another year about to begin ...

I have a theory about why time seems to pass so quickly: it is because of my calendar, filled up with deadlines and plans. It was not always so. Every year my family received a Travelers Currier & Ives calendar from my Aunt Mary, who worked for Travelers. When I was very young, I would study the calendar and contemplate the mysterious words at the top of each column of numbers. Sun made sense to me, as did Mon, which I understood as moon. I decided that Tue meant two, but what did the number two have to do with the sun and the moon? And what was a Thurs? No wonder time and the seasons felt vast and spacious to me then — I had not yet learned to chop it up into hours, days, weeks, years....

Lucky Critter, unaware of any plans, or even that it is his birthday today!

Getting into Things ...

I joined the Brooklyn Botanic Garden at the end of March, and since then the Critter and I have seen it come alive. Just a few weeks ago, the trees that are now heavy with lush green were still silvery gray, and in those few weeks, so many blossoms have grown, faded, fallen, and blown away.

Two Fridays ago we went to see the bluebells growing in the shade of the tall oak and beech trees; when I told my mother-in-law about our trip to see them, she said, "Don't you wish they would last longer than just a week or so?" Indeed. I remember my disappointment upon realizing that there is no long stretch of week upon week of long summer days. In truth, the longest day of the summer lasts just one day, and after it passes, the sunlight begins to diminish.

Meanwhile, my little Critter is crawling now and getting into things—this morning, for example, he tore off the cover of my Zen training manual and crumpled it up with much babbling joy. He really wants to walk and will use just about anything to pull him up to standing. Yes, spring will come again, next year, but it will no longer be the Critter's first. Who knows what he will be doing then? Pay attention!

Whan That Aprille with His Shoures Soote ...

More things we like

I have tended to prefer May, the month of my birth, for its full, lush green. But in recent years I have begun to prefer April and its new green, a pale haze. And now—already!—the daffodils I waited through March to see are drying up, the petals of the magnolia trees are blowing away, and the forsythia have given up their gold.

As a work-from-home mommy, I have no time for novels. And so I nourish myself with poetry alone. Though I have been reading the work of other writers (Meghan O'Rourke's debut collection and, off and on since the Critter was born, Jane Kenyon), lately I find my mind turning to Robert Frost. Everyone knows about the road that made all the difference, I think; the poem unfortunately seems to have been sentimentalized, however, though its narrator seems to me more rueful than celebratory. Indeed, I love Robert Frost for his lack of sentiment, which is grounded in his being versed in country things. He knows that nature is indifferent to human fate, and that though it may be miles away, we are always headed toward winter. And even when he celebrates the new green of April, he focuses on its brevity.