A Mom Saves Herself

 The magic of this life. 

My dining table is a mess. Most of the surfaces in this place would make you think they're gasping for air.  Maybe you would say that about me, too.  We hold a lot; there is a lot of space that used to see light, and now does not.  But every toy unicorn and book of nursery rhymes sends a beam straight up towards the sky.  Each one, the recent memory of a tiny voice asking for time, which is attention, which is love, which they brought into my life like oxygen.  

This house is the northern lights with moving, living beams suspended above every inch that reads, "mess."

So no, I'm not gasping for air.  I am swimming in air.  But, on occasion, I do find that I need to hold my breath for  moment.  I need to remember when the lights in my life glowed from the city, or from an island sky, or from the boats in Menemsha.  I've decided to forgive myself for needing to hold my breath.  I've decided that loving what my life is and sometimes needing to live in a different one are not mutually exclusive.  What a strange, unexpected gift to have room for both. 

And so I sit here on Sunday mornings with my coffee and a crossword puzzle, and with the silence that evades me every other day of the week.  Grateful for the quiet, and for the noise.  Grateful for the lives I've led that landed me inside this one.  Grateful for light beams dancing above surfaces that should, in a life other than mine, be empty of color.