Monday, November 15, 2010

Quiet Interlude (22’17)

I'm lying on my bed, fully dressed. I can hear my two year old in her room telling herself a story, and the creak as she rolls over and settles in for a snooze. The other kids are at school, at a friend's house. Outside, the north wind is roaring through the trees with the sound of crashing waves. Dry leaves and tan dust and deep pink rose petals are tossed through the air. A battered cardboard box tumbles down our street, flapping broken wings as it rebounds from parked cars and telephone poles.

Inside is cool and still. I sink into my husband's pillow and inhale his faint scent.

I think of all the things that have not been done, the jobs that are waiting; but tell myself that I will open my eyes at the right time. Other worries rear up. I breathe them away for later, and with each exhalation feel my legs, my fingers, my arms, my belly, my face relax. With a sense of permission and a surge of gratitude, I glide down into the space of sleeping awake.

I can hear the wind, the trees, my toddler turning in her bed; I can feel myself sleeping. The faces and events of the morning, the week, the month scroll past and I wish them well as they drift away...


 

The house of my childhood...


 

An overgrown garden...


 

A sky full of rain...


 

And it is time. My eyes spring open. Filled with sweetness, I flip my legs over the side of the bed and float down the corridor. I make coffee in a dreamy state, and stand at the kitchen sink sipping and watching chickens; then I glance at the list, sigh, and get out the vacuum cleaner.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for releasing all those memories I hold so lovingly! I've read your thoughts in Eureka Street and online and relate to all you write about. My four are further down the track- three at Univerity, one heading into VCE. But it strikes me that the experience of mothering is an ever repeating pattern - joy, loneliness, pride, pain, boredom, wonder, entrapment, freedom. But through the years, we are as one. I once had a trolley full of groceries and three exuberant sons! A woman walked past me and gloatingly proclaimed, "Been there, done that!" I loved her for it. She acknowledged my experinence at that moment and to where I was heading! So in someways I want to say the same,

    "Been there, done that!"

    In 5 and 10 years when you look at the photos...all will be romaticized!

    Marg Yore

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  2. Hi Marg,
    I find myself saying 'been there done that' to women with babies even now - my youngest is 2, and I, having just left the baby stage behind, feel so wise! It is a great feeling to pass through a stage, and be able to share some of the stuff - good and bad - with others; and it's lovely to know that we'll get through it somehow, despite the messiness, boredom, loneliness and chaos... looking forward to romanticising it a bit more. Thanks for the view from further down the track.
    Alison.

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