White Nights

Lately, in the evenings after dinner, when the baby is asleep and Kevan is home, I go into the bathroom, pry open the lid to the gallon of paint that sits on the counter and dip a brush into the white liquid. I smear it into the corners and across the walls of baby blue.

I don't have the energy to pull out the roller and the tray, mainly because of cleanup. I only last about fifteen or twenty minutes anyway. And then, when the room is just a little whiter, I run the brush under the water until the water runs clear. I push the lid back on with a tap of my fist.

And then it's time for bed.

When I Can

There is a certain pocket of morning when the words slip easily onto the page. I think I've missed it today, like the other days this week. I find I feel most compelled to write in the moments of early morning when I'm holding my baby in my arms. He sleeps on my half naked chest while the sun rises through our bedroom window, casting light and shadows across the walls.

Emotions swirl through me in the form of words I cannot write with my hands so full. Instead they circle in my head and seep out my ears and eyes into the morning sunlight before falling into the shadows where they rest.

It is in these moments I feel most connected to the Divine.

Now he's sleeping and my hands are free and it's late morning. I search and grasp for any lingering Divinity that might want to come back to me. I'm here, with my fingers on the keys and a white screen in front of me.

Nothing.

Maybe we think we can do certain things when we know we aren't able to. We tell ourselves we would do so much if only we could. But then when we actually can, suddenly we don't or won't or can't.

And so I am here, just trying something. Showing up to the page.

He's waking now. I didn't get enough time. I feel frustrated, but then I look at his face looking back at me. Now I really can't write, but I suppose I just wrote something. It's nothing significant or special, but it's something. And maybe that's enough.

Fulfillment

I hold his small sleeping body close against my chest in the dark of our bedroom. His skin melts into mine. Small pulses of air escape his open mouth onto my neck and into my ear. I think of putting him into the bassinet next to us so that I can return to sleep, but I just can't let go. And so I keep him close.

In this moment, I realize I have made it. This. This is the pinnacle of my success. I need nothing else.

Curdled spit-up pools in my bra between these breasts that are still unfamiliar to me. Often getting out of the house is the biggest goal of the day, and one we don't always fulfill. I am usually tired, hair almost always piled on my head, and many days I forget to brush my teeth until evening. Yet I feel more accomplished now than I have ever felt in my life. Everything I was ever chasing after was always this. I am content. Whole. At peace.

I am fulfilled.