Mothering the Storm

Two mamas up and down the stairs. Whispers, songs, stories, sighs. One rubs a back, the other sways with a folk melody on the deck downstairs. They pass in shadows of light while the wine bottle rests in waiting on the kitchen counter. Hit or miss tonight, but we chance it anyway. Because for the thought of the hour when the little ones finally surrender, we image a shared silence with glances to each other in the din of low lamps, overlooking city lights across the west valley. Laptops and late night, how can we resist!

I'm in my pajamas -it's my house. Holly is still in jeans, her baby falls into sleep, up a flight just fine, then cries spread through the upper floor. Again. Half-way up the steps, I prepare for my turn. No cries just yet, but I hear feet banging the mattress. I did that all through childhood.

10:54pm and we think they're down. We think. So we toast to that. Toast to being super-present to enjoy every moment that the plan is working. One plate on the small ivory-inlaid table between us, two giant chocolate chip cookies. And red wine. Perfect.

An hour of conversation, wrapped in a soft fleece blanket, everything unpeels.

Another hour and we're heading toward the horizon of insight. Seeing into and behind the facade of our hiding - the ways we refuse to flower when the flowering is a given.

I'm thinking about those boxes and wanting to open them now. I need to see Thoreau's Walden and the ink of Audre Lorde's poems. All the scraps of paper with amazing lines scribbled through the years - I want to hold them in the palm of my hand. Sequins and gold thread, pink and orange dyes, hand block prints leaking into embroidered patterns - I want to unfold the hangings that remind me of the travels - how the contours of texture take me back to real landscapes of emotion.

Holly's following my thread of words until we conclude that I will rent office space and start my practice again, alternate between client days and writing days. What a good idea!

This is the gift of friendship. When the map is unclear, someone points and says, "Look, you're not lost, you're right here...."