pupils are wide in this little girl’s face. i rub hand worn, dry, across forehead, hear aiden down the hall and want to fall on the toilet for, another sleepless night. another night of listening to husband breathe, hearing the old-man fridge break out into listless hum, the furnace, roll over and over, and my thoughts, tumbling with the furnace like a load of laundry. and i know, i must not have eaten enough that day, and i must have worried too much.
this, my confession: i don’t take time for myself, don’t give myself pleasures. i type hard assignments, play hard with baby, serve hard husband and mother, and paint hard when i have commissions, but never let myself rest and why? as if i were a martyr to my own cause…. pride. and now, i want to fall and not rise, want to call on someone to go, pick up my baby boy and nurse and care for him while i sulk in dawn’s too early light, but my someone is gone to work, and i am here alone.
and i think, when did i get so afraid? for fear drives me… fear of not making money, fear of not knowing the future, fear of not being in control, fear of becoming lazy… fear of little production. yet the Bible says REST. to not rest, is a sin.
from somewhere in the back of cobwebbed brain i hear her: “dance long dances, sing long songs, emily” and once again i remember the meaning of life: people. not things or money or book deals. and so i walk into my baby’s room and pull the drapes and sing him his good-morning song, forcing away worries of house selling, of hubby finding job, of me finding publisher for book, of anything but the little life cooing songs from deep inside his bassinette.
and when he sees me, he squeals.
and that makes this morning worth it.
and so i learn to walk, one day at a time, all over again, as if i too were a baby, needing picking up and holding when all i want to do is fall…
for more such stories, visit 
