Poe Cooper

Just now as I tucked you in for your nap, and after I had sung you “Hush Little Baby” as I gently rubbed your back, you stood up in your bed and wrapped your arms around my neck.  “Hold you, Mama?”  The sweetest three words I have ever heard in my long life.  You hugged me so fully, a long, loving hug that told me I would be in your heart forever.  A hug that told me I am the light of your heart, too; that every sweet nothing I pronounce on any given day, you have taken them into your soul, and you feel loved unconditionally and safe, and happy.

Then, you pulled your head back as I thanked you for such a wonderful hug.  I kissed your delicious cheek and told you I love you.  “Butterfly kisses?” A request from you that I could hear every day for the rest of my life, and always gleefully oblige.

And so you put your eyelashes against my cheek, and I batted my eyelashes against your nose.  And as I held you there, breathing in your sweet breath, feeling the warmth of your beautiful face against mine, I looked into your soulful blue eyes.  What I read in your eyes in the most holy, most sacred, most incredible, most deeply beautiful thing that has ever happened to me.  Your love and your personhood, your warmth and curiosity, your passion and wit, your perfect sense of humor, your overwhelming inherent beauty, your powerful intelligence and empathy – flew out of your eyes and hit me like a thousand bolts of lightning.  You are my perfect child. I crossed the horizon to find you, as I heard you calling to me from the furthest reaches of infinity.  And if I can only have one memory that stays with me forever, that moment spent in the eternity of your eyes, holding your sweet face against mine – I pray and pray and pray and pray that moment will be the one.

I love you, my little girl.

Dear Diary,

This morning when I woke up, it was dark in my room.  I looked up at “camera”.  It is this weird black thing attached to my crib.  It scared me again, but I had Faraday beside me, so I decided to sing to him to calm my nerves.  I was singing songs I learned from Puppy.  Also, “How Far I’ll Go”, by Moana.  I don’t know how long I was lying there, but when I heard Mama walking up the stairs, I decided to hide under my blanket so she would play my favorite game, “Where’s Eva?”

Mama opened my door and instead of playing my favorite game, she said “Ooooohhhhh!  There’s my sweet Eva!  How aaarrrreeee yyyyooouuuuu???”  She was so excited to see me, and she was smiling so big, that I forgot about playing my favorite game and just started telling her about my morning instead.  She nodded her head, and asked why I am afraid of “camera”.  I don’t know why, I just am.

I got out of bed and tried to go fetch Caterpillar from my playroom.  But Mama asked for a hug and then just forced me to hug her.  She stuck her face in my neck and tackled me to the floor, saying “I love you, I love you, I love you” in her Cookie Monster voice.  So, I giggled because that was sweet and funny.  Then she let me go and said to go get Caterpillar.

After reading books, drinking half of my bottle and talking with Caterpillar and Dakota, Mama rushed me through the morning routine of brushing my teeth, getting my hair up into pig tails, and getting dressed.  She was already annoyed with me as she rushed me to go down the stairs.  I wanted to go up and down one or two stairs over and over again, but she threatened to carry me, so I walked down the way she wants – all down, and no up.

The rest of the morning went as usual.  Mama was aggravated every time I didn’t do exactly what she wanted.  And all I was trying to do was play or get a hug.  Mama got especially mad at me when she was taking a shower and wanted to listen to her “news podcast”, but I was lonely and wanted to see what she does in there, so I opened the shower door.  She said she was cold.  But I was lonely and curious.  So I kept opening the door.  She gave me a lecture about how she also needs to do things for herself, not always just for me.  I’m trying to understand, but I’m not sure who or what “herself” is, exactly.

After her shower, Mama left me alone at the table to eat oatmeal while she was folding clothes.  But, this morning, I didn’t really want to eat oatmeal.  What I really wanted was cinnamon yogurt.  So, I ate two bites of oatmeal, then got up the nerve to ask Mama for some cinnamon yogurt. This always makes her mad.  But, I asked anyway.  Mama sighed, then said, “Okay, I’ll get you some cinnamon yogurt”.

It was yummy.  Then she took me to the playground and I got to play with Michael for a long time.  That was fun.  When it was time to go home, Mama told me to say “Goodbye” to our friends.  I did that, and it made me feel like a big girl.  Mama seemed proud of me and when I asked her to run to the car with me, she did and she smiled and laughed.  It always makes me feel so wonderful when Mama smiles and laughs with me.  I wish she was happy more often.

I will keep trying to be a big girl, and do all the right things because it seems to make her happy.  Wish me luck, diary.  Mama’s demands never seem to end.

This morning we were dancing to Rihanna and Pit Bull, stomping around like silly monsters.  The oatmeal was hardening as it cooled on the counter.  Early morning misting rain had left the road wet, and we could hear the hiss of tires every time a neighbor rolled down the parkway, 25 MPH over the speed limit, engine revving loudly.

Eva wandered off to play on her own.  I took the opportunity to check my calendar.  And incidentally, I just happened to notice that it has been 39 days since my miscarriage.  I felt the familiar heat of loss climbing up my chest, into my throat and then I felt it’s fiery veins snaking into my cheeks.  Quietly, I slid down onto the floor so I could weep and she wouldn’t see me.

As I wrestled the demon of loss alone on my kitchen floor, I could not help but ask God the most inane and typical of existential questions.  Why do you give us this beautiful life, and then slowly strip us of everything and everyone we love and cherish?

I keep getting stuck in the thick muck of existential maternal angst.  At once I am so fucking unbelievably grateful for such an exquisite gift, while also racked with fear of the day it finally slips through my fingers.

Stay present, stay present, stay present.  There is no yesterday, no tomorrow, there is only right now.  All experts agree on the merit of this concept.  But something deep inside me – where the horror and beauty of God resides – tells a wholly different story.

Dear Eva,

You’re a funny girl.  We took a trip to the SC Aquarium a couple of weeks ago.  They have an albino alligator named Alabaster.  When you approached her tank, all 8 feet of her body were front and center.  I wasn’t sure you knew what you were looking at, so I excitedly told you to look at her hands.  Pretty quickly, you held your hands with your fingers pointed to the ground and spread apart, palms facing behind you.  Yes, Eva.  That is exactly what Alabaster was doing.  Since then, when a lull occurs or you want attention while I’m doing something else, you pull out the alligator hands and I lose my shit.

These last couple of months have been full of adventures for us.  The summer months (June – Mid-October) were swelteringly hot.  We leave regularly after breakfast for a morning outing and you have been to almost every beautiful place I can think of in this town.

Your joi de vivre inspires me moment by moment.  To name all of the things you love would take a million years.

There are a thousand tiny moments every week, where I pause and trip over how unfathomably large those moments actually are.  Like the other day when you told a neighborhood dog “Ginger, I love you!” completely unprompted.  Or, when you cried out in the middle of the night and in a stupor I ran to your bed, swooped you up and wrapped my arms around your tiny little body, caressing your back.  You pulled back your face from the nape of my neck, and kissed me gently on the lips and said “Hhhhiiiiiii Mama”, in the sweetest, most vespertine voice that has ever been created underneath the heavens on this earth.  Or, when you reached above your head and felt for the hairbrush on the dresser, snatching it readily, and then marched over to where I was cleaning up your toys and gently brushed my hair.

These thousands of sweet tiny-huge moments have begun to change me in ways that I never would have dreamt possible, and I am enthralled at the capacity for change that is inherent in motherhood.  But I don’t really have time to open that can of worms right now because I’m busy making sure you learn words, appropriate behaviors, how to have, how to be empathetic, and – most importantly – how to leave me alone for more than 30 consecutive seconds.  I mean, come on Eva.  Mama needs some time to contemplate the futility of life.  Jesus.

The other day we went to the beach at Sullivan’s Island, Station 30.  I did not dress you in a bathing suit, or even bring one.  I did not bring your sun hat.  I brought only 1 towel for us to sit on and your pail and shovel for digging in the sand.  In my mind, it was far too cold for swimming.  I thought you stick one toe in the water, shiver and say “It’s cold!”  Then run back to dry land.  Boy was I wrong.  What actually happened is that you ripped your hand away from mine and ran headlong into the water.  Before I could wrangle everything I was carrying to chase you, it was hopeless and you were in the sea, squealing in delight and relishing your freedom to FUCKING LOVE THE HELL OF OUT THIS INCREDIBLE LIFE.

That is my deepest hope for you, my little love.  Keep being you, crazy in-love with this fucked up, gorgeous, devastating, miraculous, black as pitch, sparkling, shimmering, glowing, horrifying, beautifully mesmerizing symphony of a world.

Love Always,

Mama

From Marcus Aurelius:

“True understanding is to see the events of life in this way: “You are here for my benefit, though rumor paints you otherwise.” And everything is turned to one’s advantage when he greets a situation like this: You are the very thing I was looking for. Truly whatever arises in life is the right material to bring about your growth and the growth of those around you. This, in a word, is art — and this art called “life” is a practice suitable to both men and gods. Everything contains some special purpose and a hidden blessing; what then could be strange or arduous when all of life is here to greet you like an old and faithful friend?”

If you honored me with your attention and an open mind, I would like to ask you:  what is your purpose here?  When you meet God, and God asks you “Have you loved enough?”, what will be your answer?

From the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead:

Mind itself, this clear void, all knowing, all aware, it is like sky, primal, clarity, voidness, indivisible, in the clarity of original intuitive wisdom, just that determination is reality, the reason is that all appearance and existence is known as your own mind, and this mind itself is realized, space-like, in its intelligence and clarity.

Dear Eva,

I woke up from a dream this morning and your face came to me from complete blackness.  A vision which brought with it a feeling of utter despair in the soul-destroying knowledge that some day, I will die and unless I am wrong, I won’t be near you ever again.  God and I wrestle mightily with this every day.  What I am trying to say is that I cherish you my darling girl.  I love you in a bone deep, hold you in my soul for eternity kind of way and I am constantly flickering in and out of opposing states of joyful gratitude and the type of grief that doesn’t have a name.

Some of the most common songs we sing together are:

1. You Are My Sunshine
2. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
3. Hush Little Baby
4. Bicycle Built for Two
5. La Vie En Rose (Louie Armstrong version)
6. Sweet Disposition (by “The Temper Trap”)
7. Maps (by the “Yeah Yeah Yeahs”)

When I hold you in my arms, I feel the undeniable love of God.  When I look into your eyes, I see beyond infinity in all directions.  I cannot believe we are on this journey together even now, 19 months after your birth (and 28 months after your conception).  You have blessed my life in so many ways it would take a novel to explain it all.  And knowing you has informed every aspect of my interaction with this wild world.

Nowadays, you are more of what you’ve always been.  You are loving and empathic.  Funny and adventurous.  You are a creative problem solver, curious as the day is long.  Sweeter than sugar.  A true, died in the wool wild child.  As challenging as it can be, I am grateful to my core that I can be with you all day, day in and day out, sunrise to sunset.  Together, we take on the world, and I get to be right there for the nitty-gritty of your growing-up.  I feel like this is as it should be, at least for now while you are still so small and you need to be next to, and held in the safety of your place of origin.

When you grow up, I hope you will be happy to read these words, and know how truly you have been loved all along.  And I want you to know that at least one person on this planet has cherished everything about you.  Thank you, my Misha (look up that word in Hebrew).  Thank you for being here with me.  I am honored to be the one holding you close, here in the fire of my soul, forever.

We were at the beach, at Station 28.5 in early April.  Cannon ball jellyfish littered the wet sand.  Several other small, wily children and their aggravated mothers navigated the complicated dance between autonomy and codependence nearby.

I watched as you bound eastward to the crashing shoreline, and ran to catch up with you as your gate neared the water.

We do this a thousand times a day.  My back spasms as I bend and pivot in unnatural directions, protecting your 25 pound body from all manner of harm lurking in the most banal and unsuspecting of places, drawing you like a magnet.

Running into the sea in front of you, I twisted around to block your entry into the saltwater.  In the chaos of the moment, I glimpsed your doughy little face.  Your eyes danced with reflected sunlight.  Your gaze locked on mine, asking in your wordless way for permission to touch the ocean.

For me, the most shocking thing about being a mother has been the never ending story of morbidity rambling through my mind and churning in my soul.  Looking at you in that moment while grabbing your squishy little arm, I was standing with one foot firmly planted on the wheel of the world, and the other foot sinking into a labyrinthine, disastrous vortex of fear that I will become only nothingness when I am gone – blinking suddenly and forever into silence.  Silence that is a universe without you.

Love is so fucking cruel in this way.  How it is at once pure crystalline light and absolute inescapable darkness.

Before I knew you, I had fantasies that motherhood would be the one safe place.  It was the one thing I have never had to question about my own fate – because I heard you calling to me from somewhere unnamed.

However instead, knowing you has only informed the agony, terror and exquisite gratitude that I feel about being alive.

My sweet glowing orb of a child, I cherish these days with you.  I want to hold your dewy little soft body to my breast forever, sniffing the cinnamon fragrance of your spider-silk strawberry blonde hair.

1 – To restore the generous, grateful, gracious and loving spirit that once directed my moment-by-moment inner life

2 – To foster love and kindness as my initial response to interactions with others

3 – To be the kind of mother who knows how to make my home – and thereby my child’s home – a place of happiness, acceptance, safety, playfulness, tenderness, kindness, color, light, and comfort

We’ve been reading that book a lot.  Since the beginning of February, we’ve probably read that book 10,000 times.  100,000 apples up on top.

As I sit here, all I can think about is my long list of grievances.  My right elbow has suddenly begun to have stabbing pain every time I move a certain way or lift anything heavier than an iphone.  My lower back aches all day and night.  So does my upper back, and indeed my entire, whole back.  Same for my left hip, left hamstring, and left groin.  I’m actually limping now.  Additionally, I just found out I have cervical dysplasia.  As a cancer survivor, I’m really not happy to hear that news and I really don’t even see the point in discussing it with anyone because I already know I will not feel better about it until it is healed – which could take years.  And those are just the first few of about 100 things that bother me constantly.

I know what this means.  This is the picture of a woman who is not making time for self care.  Well, I guess I do one thing.  I wake up at 5:30 AM to run.  Running technically counts as self care, but it sure as FUCK does not feel like it.  Also, it’s causing me a lot of pain, see above with hip, hamstring and groin.

Every day, I watch as my baby girl grows taller and smarter and older by the second.  A rapid progression which is bringing me both exquisite joy and deep sorrow.

I’m trying to learn how to let go of old traumas.  A task I feel completely lost within, and one wherein I have been unsuccessful in making any headway.  But I need to figure it out, and fast, because it’s the only way I won’t constantly dwell on my own fucking mortality and the futility of life as I look into the bright, sparkling eyes of my first born child.

So, I’m just going to put this out there.  I’m praying for and meditating on the conjuring of some potent magic.  Maybe it will come in the form of a better humor.  Or, some sort of drastic change for the better.  I don’t care, whatever way it wants to find me, I’m open and ready to transform into the version of me who isn’t limping anymore.

January 2017 Timeline of Illnesses

• December 19 – 29 Amoxicillin for ear infection
• January 4 – 9 Augmentin for ear infection because Amoxicillin didn’t work
• January 9 – Shot of Rocephin antibiotic because Augmentin didn’t work
• January 9 – Chicken pox vaccine because some kids at daycare had chicken pox
• January 10 – Eva Norovirus
• January 11 – Mama Norovirus
• January 13 – Nini Norovirus
• January 14 – Daddy Norovirus
• January 18 – Ear Tube Surgery – Both Ears
• January 19 – Started cutting both incisors
• Entire month of January – On and Off Diaper Rash due to 20 days of antibiotics + diarrhea from Norovirus
• Lost 1 lb when you only weighed 20 lbs

Dear Eva,

We’ve had rather a rough start to 2017.  During January you’ve been through one illness after the next.  Daddy was gone for 2 weeks.  You threw up 5 times in one day, each time screaming and terrified.  Then, you proceeded to generously give me your Norovirus.  Which landed me yet again unconscious in urgent care.  Your Nini had to leave home at 5:00 am and drive 3.5 hours to come help us because Daddy was in Norfolk, VA.  And then she caught Norovirus too.  Then, you gave it to Daddy when he got home.

You had your first surgical procedure on January 18 – ear tubes in both ears.  I was terrified to go through with this intervention, however, after 20 days of antibiotics + an antibiotic shot and we couldn’t get your ear infection to clear up – I was desperate.  That being said, you handled it like a champ!  You woke up from anesthesia and screamed and cried for about 15 minutes, nothing could comfort you.  But, eventually you calmed down, and for the rest of the day, you were fine.  In fact, January 18 is when you became a different baby in the fact that you actually started eating like a normal person.  You went from being a baby that fought with me over every single bite to someone who just eats – like a human.  Hallelujah Praise Jesus.

So, yeah.  January’s been a tough month.

All that being said, it’s also been a great month.  All that illness has meant that I’ve spent more time with you in January than I have since March 2016 (when I started working again).

Have I ever told you how much I love spending time with you?  MORE THAN ANYTHING TIMES INFINITY.

We’ve gone on daily adventures.  Isle of Palms Beach, Pitt Street Pier, Park Pointe Park, a secret park near Red Drum Street, Mt. Pleasant Recreation Center Playground, and our neighborhood playground at Rivertowne Country Club.  You love exploring nature, and I cherish every moment I have watching you get just a little smarter by the minute.

In the past month, you’ve learned to walk and run proficiently.  You are starting to say the alphabet and recite 1, 2, 3.  You have deepened your affection for dogs and cats.  You have learned how to climb up onto the couches.  You’ve thrown your first official toddler tantrum.  You bit me, pulled my hair, pinched my cheek really hard, then proceeded to pull your own hair and eventually, I just had to hold you to my heart and let you cry, while whispering words of understanding and comfort which didn’t really help, but I tried, babe.  Coincidentally, you are really into developing your fine motor skills, and are starting to feed yourself using utensils.

I try to record each of your milestones.  But, they are all happening so quickly that I can’t completely keep up.

Yesterday, I kept you home with me because you had really bad diaper rash.  I woke up with you at 6:00, eagerly warmed your bottle, and happily held you in the darkness of morning while you drank it thirstily.  Then, we engaged in the usual battles to change your diaper, put on your clothes, brush your teeth, wipe the dried snot and slobber from your face, and check your ears for drainage.  Before allowing us to leave your bedroom, you made sure we read the “Puppies Need Someone To Love” book.

Finally, we made it downstairs.  As I was preparing your breakfast, I was singing “The Wheels on the Bus” and happened to look your way.  You were standing there, just be-bopping up and down, dancing.  This is the part where I tell you how much you slay my heart.  Seriously.  To look up and see your smiling face as you dance around like a little sprite – it fills my heart with pure joy.

Even with a raw little butt, you are fully engaged in your endeavors to be happy, active and constantly learning.

I hope we have better health this coming month, and even more fun!

Love,

Mama

Dear Eva,

As I reflect back on our first year together, I am stricken dumb by the profundity of it all.  I am writing this on December 19th.  Exactly one year ago, you kicked open your amniotic sack and I went into labor.  This very hour, at 1:30 pm, my water broke and your father, Nini and I rushed to the hospital, thinking you’d be born before the day was through.

What can I say about you?  You are delicate and sweet.  You are generous.  You smile easily and are friendly to others.  You are a beautiful soul.  Allow me to account for some things about you as you are right now, on the eve of your birthday.

You love:  when I nuzzle close to your ear and make huffing or panting sounds, when I nibble on your ear, getting raspberries – all of those things make you laugh.  You love dancing with me every evening, mostly to Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, Michael Buble, and Rosemary Clooney.  Your favorite song is “Kick in the Head” by Dean Martin.  Your favorite food is “Goldfish” crackers.  You don’t like your formula anymore, but we make you drink it.  Your favorite toy is your box of shapes (circle, square, plus, star and triangle) that fit into separate holes.  You’re already walking.  You say:  “Hi, Daddy, Mama, Tree, Duh”, and you’re trying hard to learn other words.  You know what things are, and point to them when we ask you to.  There are a few character traits that have remained consistent about you.  You are curios.  You are endlessly eager to learn.  You will do anything to figure out a new task and acquire a new skill.  You are relentless and persistent and gorgeous in your resilience!  I am bursting with pride about those qualities, and I know they will serve you well throughout your long and brilliant life.

Yesterday, December 18, 2016 we threw a birthday party for you.  For which, I asked a VERY special favor to everyone.  I requested that, instead of toys and presents, all attendees write you a letter to be opened on your 18th birthday.  The letter was to be written to the 18 year old version of you, and only to be read by you.  As the prompt, I asked everyone to think about what they wanted you to know about them, why you are special to them, and what they hoped for your future.  To my surprise, everyone happily embraced the task and brought their letters to your party.

I hope that when you open and read these letters, it helps you understand how important you are, and how much you change every single life that you touch.  Because, Eva, you are of incredible consequence and your value is so high, it cannot be measured.

My sweet daughter, more than anything, I want you to know that I love you.  With everything I am, I cherish you.  My soul trembles at the awesome task before me, that I am blessed with the gift of knowing you and raising you.  My heart explodes every single time you smile.  And every time I look into your eyes, my hopes and dreams for your life grow deeper and wilder.

You, me and your Daddy are in this together.  Because of you, I finally have something I have yearned for my whole life – a chance for a healthy, happy family.  I wish I could tell you that I know with absolute certainty that we’ll be together in heaven as well.  But I cannot make that claim.  None of us can, no matter how religious and faithful any human being is, none of us has died and come back with definitive proof that there is an afterlife.  I don’t know what happens when we die, all I can do is hope that God is in fact what we think we understand God to be, and there is this magical component of infinity.  That being said, I believe that this life is extremely important, and we must cherish every single moment of it.  Our time together here on this planet is finite and precious.  Now that I have you here with me, I am having a really hard time with this existential dilemma, to be honest.  I don’t want my time with you to ever end, I love you so.  And now that you are here with me, time is moving so wretchedly fast and it frightens me.

Heart of my heart, there are very few things in life that are true and perfect.  My love for you is one of them.  Our bond as mother and daughter is another.  Thank you for bringing so much exquisite light into my life.  Thank you for teaching me, every single day, how deeply loving and alive my soul truly is.  Thank you for all of the joy and beauty you infuse into the world.  You are so fun to be around, and so difficult, and so astonishing that I miss you every moment we are not together.

What advice can I give you here in this letter?  What should I say to my 18 year old daughter, whom I cannot think about without it tugging at every infinite particle in my composition?  Wow.  It won’t be perfect, but here, I’ll try…

As you leave childhood and enter early adulthood, my hope for you is that you find your passion and true talent, then focus in like a laser beam to become excellent at whatever that may be.  Spend your time now and for the next 7 years EXTREMELY carefully because this is a magical and profound period wherein your efforts will have HUGE consequences that will echo throughout the rest of your life.  From now until you are 25, be very careful who you spend your time with.  Choose friends who are smart and kind and driven.  Collect people who inspire you and push you to become more and better.  Know that every decision you make will have repercussions throughout your life that you cannot possibly imagine right now.  Yes, this is scary, but it is important for you to learn.

From now until you are 28, be exceedingly careful with romance.  Don’t give your heart and body to just anyone.  Instead, guard your heart and your body like they are rare, precious, priceless works of art that can only be accessed by someone who has proven, over years of ACTIONS and NOT WORDS, that he or she can be trusted completely.  Because romantic love can be especially dangerous for someone your age.  And until you are older, you will be prone to making really stupid mistakes in this area of your life.  Trust me on this, I am your mother, I created you, and I love you completely.  Be careful, my darling daughter.  I want you to find love, but I hope for you that right now in your life, you focus instead on your education and personal enrichment because you are still very young.

So, now that the scary stuff is out of the way, I have a few more things I want to say to you.

Remember always that you are powerful.  Listen to your inner voice.  Learn from your mistakes, and just as importantly, learn from the mistakes of others.  Always try harder to be a better person today than you were yesterday.  Always try to leave the world a better place than you found it.  Be kind to others. Be generous with your friendship and good deeds because the more you give, the more you’ll find your heart will grow.  Don’t let the darkness in the world into your heart.  Instead, fill this dark world with your light because you are resplendent.

Embrace life, my baby girl.  It is short, so live it with exuberance.  Jump in with joy, don’t stand on the shore fearing what’s under the water.  I’m here to teach you how to swim, and how to fight off the sharks.

I love you and Happy First Birthday!

Love always,

Your Mama

We are in the woods together.  It is winter.  A hurricane twisted the wooden foot bridge that skirts along the edges of Bulls Bay.  We are crossing the salt marsh, and looking across a horizon of browning sea grasses, mesmerized by the motionless vespertine clouds.

Salt air is what you will recognize as the way home smells.

Before I met you, I had lived a whole life.  I had lost more than that.  I was an iron bellied ship, embattled and taking on water.  I was waiting for the next swell.  Adrift in the faceless sea, I drew detailed dreams of you while listening for your gossamer voice, woven into the whirling gales.

Heart of my heart.  The modern world with its endless distractions pales in the tumult of my love for you.  I don’t care that my sentiments make my friends uncomfortable because I know where you came from.  And I know where I am headed.

We, together, are divine mystery.  Your beauty enraptures my soul.

Eva, my cherished one, learn how to breath underwater.  Hold tight to the sand as it falls from between your fingers.  Lean into the rain.  Gaze at the infinite sky full of stars.  Play with your grandmothers hair.  Life is my gift to you, and you are my love letter.

Dear Eva,

Last week, something really fucked up happened.  We, as a free and informed people, elected Donald Trump to be the next President of the United States of America.  You’re just a baby, so you won’t want to learn about this for a very long time, if ever.  And, I think most of us are hoping that this HUGE political upheaval won’t be one that will be interesting – i.e. devastating, catastrophic, terrifyingly evil – enough for someone your age to ever really give a flying fuck about it.

The problem is…all signs are kind of pointing to the possibility that it might become just that.

I want you to know that on 11-8-16, your mother voted for the FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE in the history of America.  On election day, you and I both dressed in white, a symbolic gesture of solidarity with the Suffragettes that liberated the vote for all American women in 1920.  My grandmothers, up to that point in their lives, did not have the right to vote.  That’s extremely important, Eva.  So, anyway, that’s what I did.  Unfortunately, we live in a majority republican state, so my vote didn’t even really count.  But I did it anyway, because it is every American’s responsibility to take part in the design of our government.

A lot of Americans are really wringing their hands, asking “What am I supposed to tell my children about this terrible human being who was just elevated to the highest office in the entire world?”  Good question.

What I will tell you is this:

Always stay voraciously curious.  Always keep an open mind that you may be completely wrong, absolutely correct or somewhere in between.  Before you believe anything in your gut, first understand it completely – backwards, forwards, and upside down – in your head.  Your greatest asset is your mind.  Because of your unbelievable privilege and gifts, it is your responsibility to act in the best interest of those who have less than you.  Approach life from a vantage point of limitless possibility and plenty, instead of from a place of fear and scarcity.  Your capabilities are infinite, you are incredibly powerful and therefore, you will never let anyone put you down, diminish your fire, or infringe on your personal agency.

In other words, I’m not afraid for you.  I’ll make sure you’re ready for the world, my love. I will teach you that life has never been a safe place for any of us, not really.  It’s a wild, brutal and gorgeous world, and it will always be that way.  But, you will be more than strong enough, smart enough, tenacious enough, and wild enough to take it on.

Love,

Your Mama

It’s been a rough week.  So rough, in fact, that I feel like I’m about to give up in a majorly self-destructive way.

In an effort to isolate the problem, I just sat down, ignored my work duties (as Vice President of a company) and listed 64 things that are expected of me all day, every day.  A few are things that I expect of myself.  But most are things that other people expect of me.

I ranked them on a scale of 1-10 on how much these expectations stress me out, 1 being not much, 10 being panic attack inducing.

There are 24 day-in-day-out expectations of my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that rank at a level 10.  TWENTY FOUR.  Every day, I am expected to do 24 things that bring me so much anxiety that I have to fight off a panic attack.

Letting that sink in for a moment.

***

Number one in priority and importance to me of that list of expectations is that I am the primary care giver to my baby.

This week, Eva has had diarrhea and blistering diaper rash for 5 days straight.  My natural instinct is to do NOTHING but take care of her, comfort her, and make sure she gets better.  But, I couldn’t follow my instincts because I constantly have 63 other things to manage and perform every single day.

For quite a while, it has been quite literally difficult for me to breathe in any given moment.  My chest and rib cage are constantly constricted.  My breaths are short.  The muscles in my back that underscore my shoulder blades and attach to my ribs are constantly gripped as tight as they can get.

Not sure how to fix this.  Tired-as-fuck of thinking about it.

Dear Eva,

About a week ago, you turned 9 months old (275 days).  Today, you are 283 days old.  You’ve officially been on the outside as long as you were on the inside!  How does it feel?  Which brings me to another question I’ve been asking myself a hundred times a day:  what is going through that little brain of yours?

There are times I catch you staring off into space.  Daydreaming.  Normally, you are intently focused on one thing or another.  But occasionally, you slip into that state of mind where imagination takes hold.  What are you dreaming up in those moments?  What ideas are you threading together?  Are you taking in the colors of the world?  Are your thoughts floating with the radiance of sunlight as it is cast through the branches of a grove of tress?  I simply cannot wait for the day that you can tell me what is on your mind.

These days, you are crawling at Expert level.  You’ve been “cruising” for a month.  You love to walk around by pushing our little coffee tables across the hardwood floors.

Every time I change your diaper, or your clothes, you fight and fuss.  I’m certain it is frustrating to have someone controlling you like that – I get it.  The 9 month version of you is exceedingly independent, and you do not like it when I tell you “no” – in fact, it makes you cry.  Your personality hasn’t changed much at all.  You are joyful, curious, playful, focused, determined, shockingly intelligent, loving, empathetic and very skilled at social interaction.  You are stunningly beautiful and deliciously sweet.  Your eyes have clarified to a deep sky blue, with a circle of Atlantic Ocean defining the edges of your pupils.  Your lips are red, your hair is strawberry blonde, and your two bottom teeth came in!

You love other babies and children, and squeal in delight in the presence of dogs or cats.  When your toys give you kisses, you smile sweetly.  Our current favorite game is hide and seek.

Yesterday, you were in the middle of fussing at me.  You’d been at daycare all day, and once home, were kind of grumpy.  I had changed your diaper, and you were sitting beside me playing with your toys, but still grumbling to let me know how mad you were.  Then, you looked up at me, and I made fish lips at you.  I saw something incredible flash in your eyes – an understanding that I was trying to cheer you up.  And your mean little mood evaporated, and you held my gaze as you smiled so sweetly at me, then reached out your adorable, dimpled little hand and touched my cheek.

You explode my heart.

When you aren’t a parent yet, and try to imagine your life with a child, you hit a limit.  Because every moment of my life has been infused with a vibrant symphony of love and exquisite gratitude that were completely unimaginable until you came into my life.  I know these days as they pass are gone forever, and my heart aches with that knowledge.  Because right now, as we share our moments together – mother and daughter, apple and tree – this is as beautiful as life can be.

Love,

Mama

P.S. – I love nothing more than to hold you sleeping in my arms, pressed against my heart, and listening to you breathe.

When that ephemeral light sparked

When you became

By some sort of magic, luminescent and divine

You began unwinding me

Strand by strand

Then wove me into you

We are entangled souls

The drum beats of our hearts feathering out into eternity, the molecules in our blood swirled in spirals designed by infinity, the collection of our bones disappearing into nothingness

My love, my heart, my baby girl

Dear Eva,

Well, your first tooth has finally come in.  8/17/16, almost 8 months old.  It was a surprise because you’ve only been slightly more fussy than normal – something I incorrectly attributed to your transition to a new class (Infant D) at daycare.

In a trend that will undoubtedly continue throughout the rest of my life, I feel a mixture of gratitude and melancholy about this milestone.

I want to say first that I am soul-deep with gratitude that you are growing and thriving as you are supposed to do.  It is the most thrilling experience of my life to witness your becoming.  That being said, however, I am saddened by the hastening of time.  I mourn the part of our lives that I had with you as my toothless baby girl.  It feels like life is composed of sand and I am desperately trying to hold onto it as it slips through my fingers and blows away in the wind.

You are a gorgeous prism of a soul casting rainbows all over the place.  Joy of my heart – my cherished child – don’t grow up too fast, okay?  My arms still need to hold you close.

Love,
Mama

Dear XiouXiou,

Today, you are 7 months old.  Oh wow.  This past month has been very eventful, to put it mildly.

SWEET LITTLE YOU

You have learned to crawl really well, and are totally mobile.  Also, you’ve learned to pull yourself up and stand on your own.  You are getting very good at walking while I hold your hands.  And, you are eating normal food in a normal way now.  So far, your favorite food is still avocado.

You love:  pulling yourself up and standing, trying to stand on your own, walking with my assistance (you won’t do it for anyone else yet), jumping into pillows, banging the wooden spoon onto a pot, squealing, when I give you strawberries, dancing with me, reggae music, watching baseball and golf with Daddy, pinching people’s faces and sticking your fingers in nostrils and mouths, playing with my hair, touching anything new, grabbing my food, knocking over glasses and slapping the spilled beverage, splashing in water, “reading” books, tearing up and chewing on paper, bouncing in your jump-a-roo, and the following songs:  “Chick-a-Boom”, “Mama loves Mambo”, “Day-O”.

GEO-POLITICAL TROUBLE and RACISM IN AMERICA

Globally and societally, some bad things have happened.  Twice in one week, a white police officer shot and killed a black man without good reason.  These incidents happened in Baton Rouge, LA on July 5 and Minneapolis, MN on July 6.  As a reverberation, during a “Black Lives Matter” protest in Dallas, TX the following day (July 7), an African-American sniper shot and killed 5 white police officers who were only there to protect the crowd.  And during July 8 – 11, officers were shot and killed in TN, MO and GA, and on July 18, 3 officers were shot and killed in Baton Rouge.  Meanwhile, on July 14 (Bastille Day) there was a terrorist attack in Nice, France that killed 84 people.  Two days later, on July 16, a military coup took place in Turkey, in which the Turkish Military tried to overthrow President Erdogan.  The mood in America and around the world is pretty grim these days.

My baby girl, I am sorry that some day when you are grown up, you will have to grapple with your existential feelings about this painfully beautiful and extremely, extremely fucked up planet.

GREAT GRANDMOTHER DRENNON

Along a similar thread, our family had some hard news last month.  Your Memie Rivet and your Daddy lost someone they loved very much.  On June 26, your Great Grandmother Sarah Trexler Drennon (GGD) – Memie Rivet’s Mother – passed away at the age of 94.  Your GGD helped raise your Daddy.  He has fond memories of visiting her on the weekends and enjoying her special version of love that only Grandmothers can give.  I’m sure that some day, you will love hearing these stories.  They involve a t.v. show called “The X-Files”, your cigarette smoking, beer swilling Great Grandfather Drennon, and aggressive dogs.  Your Memie Rivet has spent the past decade caring for GGD in her old age, tending to her every need.  So this loss, while tempered by the comfort of knowing that GGD was blessed with a long life well lived and full of love, is deeply felt throughout your Daddy’s side of the family.  We brought you to Fort Mill for GGD’s funeral.  And while it was a sad event, you and your cousin Kylie brought much-needed joy to everyone present.

SOME FUN THINGS

Let’s take a brief intermission to also mention several fun things we’ve done together during this past month.  Our good friends and neighbors had a great July 4th weekend!  We introduced you to many new neighbors and babies, and you were happy to be outside in the extreme heat and humidity, seeing dogs play and hearing children laugh.  You slept through 4 nights of ridiculously over-done neighborhood fireworks.  Storms came and went.

Your Memie and Poppy Rivet came to visit for the weekend.  We went to the beach together and you put your feet in the water.  You looked out over the horizon of the grey Atlantic Ocean in quietude.  I loved seeing you trying to process such a huge piece of the world.  All of the sounds, the gulls, the waves, the wind, people laughing in the distance – your beautiful face didn’t crack a smile because you were very busy:  THINKING ABOUT STUFF.

Developmentally, it was so fun to watch you grab a “Cool Ranch BBQ” waffle chip from my fingers and put it up to your mouth and try to eat it!  That was the first time you intentionally brought food to your mouth.  We’ve had a lot of “firsts” this month, and I cannot wait for more!  Every day with you is extremely interesting to me.  I was warned that parenthood involved a lot of boredom.  So far, I have found that warning to be completely untrue.

THE PLAGUE HITS 2864 RIVERTOWNE PARKWAY

Back to less fortunate events.  Here at home for us, this past week has been a rough one.  I flew to Denver on Monday, July 11.  That night, your Daddy came down with norovirus.  We’re pretty sure, in retrospect, that he caught it from you when you puked on him Sunday night.  Since I was out of town, your Memie Rivet came to the rescue.  Norovirus is a tough illness for adults, and to be alone with an infant while fluid spews out of both ends is really, really hard.  So, Memie Rivet drove down from Fort Mill to help your Daddy take care of you while I was in Denver.

As luck would have it, I was able to change my flight home last minute and I arrived at Charleston International Airport on Wednesday morning at 1:00am.  I got home at 2:00 am.  After 4 hours of sleep, I woke up to feed you.  I hadn’t seen you in two days and I need you to know what it does to me to leave you.

When I have to leave town, I don’t eat for an entire day.  I get to my destination, and I feel lost.  My ability to problem solve is gone, and I inevitably have a panic attack that last 3-4 hours.  I have to take drugs to help me go to sleep.  And the entire time I am away from you, there is a frantic desperation in my heart that only abates when I finally get to hold you in my arms and kiss your succulent little face.  To that effect, I am taking steps to change my job so that I do not have to be away from you.  You are too rare and precious.  There is no amount of money that is worth losing a day of watching you grow up.

Back to the story.  Memie Rivet went home, and proceeded to contract norovirus on Thursday, July 14.  Then, I came down with it on Saturday, July 16.  Within 3 hours, I had thrown-up 8 times and had diarrhea about the same amount.  I was moaning in agony and panicking while you, me and your Daddy drove to the local urgent care where I had to have 2 bags of I.V. fluid and 3 shots of anti-nausea medication.  This was on top of a sinus infection that left me without a voice during July 6-10, and with heavy coughing and daily headaches for 2 weeks prior.

GREAT GRANDMOTHER WRIGHT

Add to all of this the toll that has been affected on me and your Nini Wright.  This week, your Nini Wright learned that, after months of caring for your Great-Grandmother Wright in her home while enduring a legal battle with her brother Kent (over who has the right to care for GGW), her brother Kent won all rights to care for and make decisions for GGW.  Someday I will tell you this story.  It is extremely unfair, and that really hurts.  You will be proud of your Nini Wright for her courage and stamina.  And I’m sure you will want to be like her when you learn about what a fighter she truly is.  But, all of this together has culminated into something resembling several swollen rivers snaking through coastal flats after a Category 5 hurricane, threatening to breaks the levees.

RUNNING ON EMPTY

My body and spirit have taken a beating over the past month, and I feel completely empty.  Some days, it is hard to smile.  Some days, I have nothing to say.  Some days, I am so bone tired that I don’t even feel human.  Those days seem harder and harder to separate lately.

I am learning how difficult it is to parent when your inner well of resources – energy, hopefullness, light-heartedness, playfullness, direction, stamina – is depleted.  I keep bumping up against the sense that I’m not being fully present for you, and I feel guilty because I know each moment that passes, we will never have back.  And I want so badly to be fully present because, honestly Eva, my life has never been so beautiful and full of love and joy; has never been so vibrant.  Every moment is alive and meaningful, and I hate being so physically exhausted that I cannot take it all in.

But do you know what I learned about you last Saturday, XiouXiou?  I learned that you have empathy for me.  Throughout my fevered cries for help and lapsing consciousness, once in a while, I would catch a glimpse of you.  And every time, you were already watching me.  And I could tell you had been watching me, because the second you caught my eye, you would smile so big at me!  You would scrunch up your little nose, your eyes sparkling with love, and you would smile that gorgeous, brilliant, toothless, pumpkin smile at me.  You were trying to cheer me up.  You knew something was not right, and you wanted me to feel better.  At almost 7 months old, you are already a kind-hearted, loving human being, and I am so proud of you for that.

Thank you, Eva.  You are a beautiful little soul.  You are tender and loving, kind and affectionate, curious and brave, determined and eager, sweet and tough, and you are very, very funny.  You are growing like a little weed, using every ounce of sunshine and rain that falls your way.  Thank you for caring about me when I was too sick to hold you and tickle you and snuggle you.  Thank you for being my little girl.

Love,

Mama

Dear Eva,

Today, you are 6 months old!  OMFG!  How did that happen?  My heart is doing two opposite things:  exploding with joy and immeasurable gratitude, and sinking into a sea of melancholy.  The first thing will be explained in full below.  The second thing is because I feel like time is moving at warp speed.  I need time to slow down. I need more time with the tiny you – kissing you, holding you, and sniffing your gorgeous, almost-always-dirty little face.

Over the course of my long life, I have dreamed about you.  Hours upon hours, days upon days; time that adds up, I would guess, to years.  Years of my internal dialogue have been spent thinking about you, going over every detail obsessively.  When would I meet you?  Or, would I ever meet you?  What would your name be?  Olivia?  Mary?  Esmerelda?  What color would your hair be?  Your eyes?  Your skin?  Would you love me?  Would you love the world?  Would you be kind, and loving, and sweet, and bossy, and sassy?  Would you be curious, and introspective, and thoughtful, and brave?  I had so many questions.  I had so many fantasies of growing you in my belly, and holding you in my arms – safe and warm and loved.

But out of a million day dreams about you, in all of the ways I yearned to know you, and throughout all of the nights I wept, longing to hold you, I never got anywhere close to imagining just how phenomenally, wholly, and astonishingly beautiful you are.  And I could never have comprehended the mind-bending amount of pure, crystalline light you bring to this too often dark and mad world.

You are a bright, glowing orb of dancing stars.  You are soulful and ebullient and wild and innocent and affectionate and loving.  Your voice is the sound of angels taking flight – ephemeral and whispery, enthralling and heart-wrenchingly beautiful.  The baby version of you, Eva, is other worldly.  You are a powerful and wondrous little creature.

You love:  laughing, squealing, being held, taking walks in the woods, putting your feet in the ocean, puppies of all shapes and sizes, Creepy Baby, “reading” books (hitting them, mouthing them, trying to tear the pages out), being read to, looking at the baby in the mirror, squeezing Mama’s cheeks, bouncing in your Jump-a-Roo, taking baths, trying to walk while holding my hands, watching anything on T.V., grabbing iPhones, playing with all toys, playing with things that are not toys, being sung to, trying to sing, jibber-jabbering, playing “airplane” with Daddy, being rocked to sleep, and being held to my heart as you take your bottle.

You are currently learning how to crawl, and how to move into the sitting position on your own.  You already sit on your own.  You are learning language, but not speaking yet.  And, you are learning how to eat baby food.  So far, your favorite is avocado and you deplore apples.

You hate:  the sun burning your alabaster skin, hot weather in general, the car seat, being left alone (even for a moment), having your nose wiped, being sick, and being made to fall asleep on your own in your crib as we try to teach you that you can – and must – learn to self-soothe.

For me, these past 6 months have been a constant navigation through fear, confusion, sadness, and stark loneliness.  Much of it I have spent feeling completely lost.  New motherhood is a frightening and, in many ways, isolating experience.  But beyond all of the hard things, there is a completely separate construct.  With you came a new, unyielding force field of love.  It is the kind of love that blasts through space and time like they do not exist.  Love with a power like the nuclear fission of our sun – unfathomable and that which divines an entire solar system.  This love grips me, drives me, compels me, radiates through me, and leaves my eyes wet with tears of joy EVERY SINGLE DAY, EVA LOUISA.

I am thankful for you.  I am grateful you called to me as my eyes wandered the horizon of a vast desert.  You were finally ready to be here; finally ready to join the symphony of this wild, untenable life.

Love,

Your Mama

Dear Eva,

On Sunday, June 12 we had breakfast at 6:00 am and were at the beach by 7:30.  We visited Sullivan’s Island Station 26.5 – it was your 25 week birthday.  It was a very hot morning, the sun was already burning my skin.  That morning, like all other Sullivan’s Island mornings, folks were out with their dogs.  Dogs everywhere, tongues flapping, running crazy circles around each other, splashing through the lapping shoreline, salty and wet and dirty.  You loved it!  Several of them approached us gingerly, all knowing somehow that there was a baby that needed a calm greeting.  They brought their wet noses to your open fingers and sniffed you sweetly, as you squealed in delight.

This was the first time I felt confident enough in your immune system to allow you to dip your feet into the water of the Atlantic Ocean.  We stood in the lapping shoreline, and I watched as your tiny feet sank into the sand.

You looked out at the big blue ocean bumping into the big blue sky and I wondered what you must have been thinking.  You hadn’t seen the ocean in a couple months, and you’re so much more aware of things now than you were then.

It was just you and me.  We brought your favorite toys, but you started to get weary of the hot sun pretty quickly.  In about an hour, we packed up and went home.

Beach Baby:  Salty Little Sweetie With Sandy Toes and a Sun-kissed Nose

Love,

Mama

Dear Eva,

I awoke at 4:30 am this morning and drug myself out of bed to go for a run at 5:00.  A lot of people would call 5:00 am an “ungodly” hour.  Not me.  Mornings are beautiful.  This morning was like most others during the summer on the coast of the southeastern U.S.  It was hot and muggy, the air was moist and laden with the smell of salt marshes as I drew it fully into my lungs.  At 5:00 am the birds are already singing.  I love that, Eva, how they call out to the sun as it nears horizon, but they sing still in the lingering dark of night.

This morning as I ran on the empty street of Rivertowne Parkway – the street where you live – I heard the bull frogs moaning, the tree frogs chirping, and the rustling of stiff fan palm fronds as I passed the areas of conserved maritime forest where the brackish water inches up, within feet of the sidewalks.  By the time I hit the half-way point and was running back home, the sky was Atlantic Ocean blue – like your eyes – almost everywhere.  But to the east, I watched as it changed from an orb-glow blue to hay yellow.  It is not possible to feel anything but peace and gratitude when you get to witness sunrise.

When I got home, it was 5:50 and I was out of the shower with your bottle in hand at 5:58.

I crept into your room and heard you rustle.  I walked over to your crib and you felt my presence and cooed and flipped over onto your tummy, awake, but just barely.  I lifted you from your crib, scooped you into my arms, pressed you against my heart and we sat down in the rocking chair.  You anxiously accepted your bottle and gulped with eyes wide open, staring blankly at the wall.  I thought to myself, “She’s still mostly asleep, come on Eva, close your eyes just a few more minutes and drink your bottle.”

Let me pause here to explain the desperation I feel for you to take in the appropriate amount of nourishment.  You are a BUSY BODY.  And you can’t be bothered to eat.  This stresses me THE FUCK OUT because your brain sprouts 700 new neurons per second and your brain needs calories to do all of the growing and connecting that will be required for you to function optimally in a complex and challenging world.

That being said, let me get back to the story.  As I silently prayed and chanted my desperation in my head, I watched you slowly take your bottle.  Holding you in my arms is something that I cherish more than almost anything else in my life.  Your tiny body is so warm, and soft, and you are crazy-beautiful.  I love to hear you breathing and feel your lungs expand as you take breath in and out, your small heart pumping, your cells rapidly dividing and making you taller and smarter every single second of every single day.  Looking at your face as you gave back in to sleep, I felt grateful and sorrowful that the baby version of my daughter Eva will not be sleeping in my arms much longer.

One thing I’ve learned as a new mother is that parenthood is a gift, a kiss from life, a love letter from the universe.  When you were only a 2 week old embryo, I loved you.  I will always love you.  You are one of my favorite things in life.  You, your Daddy, chocolate, and maybe running at 5:00 am.

Love,

Mama

P.S.  This song sounds like you:  

I know I just wrote you a letter, Eva.  But, I have more to say.

You cracked my heart open.  Since you’ve come into my life, all I can think about is the almost unintelligible profundity of every second.  I can feel each breath being spent like each breath is limitless.  But, I’m excrutiatingly aware that is not true.  Each breath, each heartbeat – they are precious and when they are gone, they are gone forever.

Anytime you love someone, the love comes with sorrow.  I don’t want it to ever end, my life with you in it.

Every minute I’m away from you I wonder if it’s worth it.  I am working to make a living, because we need to plan for your future, and because money makes the world go around.  But, you will only be the baby version of you for a painfully brief period of our lives together, and the cost of missing even an hour is too high to measure.

I guess this is to say that I miss you.  And I’m sorry I have to be away from you during the day.

Love,

Mama

Dear Eva,

Today you are 5 months old!  There are so many things to tell you, where do I even begin?

You are the joy of my heart.  I am blessed beyond anything I could have ever imagined because you are in my life, and because your father loves us.

Sweet doesn’t really come close to explaining you.  You are joyous, happy, bright, and full of life!  You smile A LOT.  Like, all of the time.  You’ve learned that smiling gets you a lot of attention and you WORK IT.  I love that about you, how you are already so responsive to positive reinforcement.  How you are already learning how to be happy in the world, and get along with people.  It’s amazing to see it, every day you make a huge leap in your awareness and capabilities.

Because of you, I feel sad for anyone who chooses to not become a parent.  I cherish this time in our lives because you are a wonder to behold.  I cannot believe how beautiful you are, and how beautiful you’ve made the world.  You bring so much light to every moment, it’s kind of like you are a star shooting out photons and warming a landscape that’s been waiting patiently for you to come along so that all of the birds can sing and all of the flowers can bloom and all of the dew can rise up to become puffy, white clouds rolling gently in the heavens.  You, me and your daddy are creating a beautiful work of art – our little family, a place in the world that is simple, safe, joyous, peaceful and fun.  Thank you for being a part of that, Eva.

What else can I say about you?  You love to stand up and dance around.  You bob up and down like the cutest little baby that ever existed.  The joi de vivre that you express in every moment of your waking life is a wonder to behold and it infects everyone around you.

That brings to mind something else I need to tell you – you are POWERFUL.  You are a force field, Eva.  I am your mother, and I am telling you – do not ever forget that.  You change everything about a person and space when you are present.  Just think about that, Eva.  How important that makes you.  Remember this always as you move through life.  You are a powerful creature, and the world responds to your existence.

I’ve very proud of you already.  Your personality is already forming, and you’re delightful.  I watch you carefully, and I have noticed that you try really, really hard.  Once you learn how to do something, you cherish it!  For instance, you recently learned how to roll from your back to your tummy.  You worked on this motor skill for several weeks, and once you finally figured out how to do it, you utilized it to its fullest capacity!  And, you think about it, and you try to figure out what else you can do that is similar.  It is amazing to watch you unfold like a beautiful rose in the dew of morning.  I love how curious you are, and how hard you try to learn and test the world around you.  I love how observant you are.  You watch your daddy and me as we speak to you, and you take it all in.  You love being read to, and looking at books.  You love being sung to, and you try to sing along.

And by the way, I love your voice.  You’ve started screaming in excitement, and it is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.  It’s not really a scream, it’s a quiet, high pitched expression of glee!  How do you exist???!!!

You give me open mouth kisses that are actually you just mawing my face with your mouth, but it is the absolute sweetest thing I have ever experienced and I never want a day to go by ever again that doesn’t have your beautiful wet kisses as a part of it.

I was telling your daddy about something I’ve been noticing.  As your mama, I feel you in the cells of my body.  My connection to you is emotional, of course.  But it is also physical.  I think it is because I grew you in my body for 40 weeks and 6 days.  Every cell in your body came from mine, and my body remembers that.  You are infused in me at the cellular level, maybe even at the genetic level.  It is hard for me to separate you from me.  And that is a crazy, gorgeous, surprising and wondrous thing to experience.  But it also leads to some difficulties.  For instance, when you are too excited or sick to eat well, I feel pain in the bottom of my lungs.  Like, it actually physically hurts me Eva.  How crazy is that?!

But what else about you?  We took you to a wedding last weekend in Hilton Head Island, SC.   We stayed in a hotel room with you and you did so well!  Everyone that met you could not believe how happy and sweet you were.  People kept commenting about that, and your beauty.  Like I said, you’ve learned how to make people like you and I’m so relieved for that.  Not because it speaks to your worth, but because it will make life a little easier for you if you can learn to like people and make them like you.

And the beauty thing?  Don’t get too caught up in it.  Beauty can make life easier in some ways and more difficult in others.  My advice to you is to focus not on your looks, but on your heart, soul, mind, health and personality.  Just keep being bright and sweet and curious and keep trying hard at everything you do, and you’ll have a wonderful life.

You cracked open my heart and love is spilling out, infernal and radiant, blasting through space and time, touching every dark corner of the universe like a billion suns.

I love you like crazy,

Mama

Dear Eva,

You have cracked open my heart and love is spilling out, infernal and radiant, blasting through space and time, touching every dark corner of the universe like the light of a billion suns.

Love,

Mama

Dear Eva,

You were due on Thursday, December 17, 2015.  But, by Saturday, December 19, I was still pregnant.  Fortunately for all of us, you were eventually born on Sunday, December 20, 2015 at 12:37 pm by cesarean section at East Cooper Medical Center, after 18 hours of labor and 5 hours of pushing.  You weighed 7 pounds and 14 ounces and were 20.5 inches long.  You had red hair, and your forehead had been squeezed into a sharp slant by the muscles in my birth canal.  Because you had been under the stress of vaginal birthing for 5 hours, your skin was a deep purple, almost magenta.  And when the doctors pulled you out of my body, you cried loudly to announce your terror at the cold air and the bright lights of the operating room.

For many weeks prior to your birth, I had been asking you to kindly “get the fuck out of me”, please.  I did not enjoy pregnancy by the end.  I was 65 pounds heavier, had heart burn so bad that I could not sleep, and was really in need of a glass of whiskey.

On Saturday, December 19, I was walking around Mt. Pleasant Towne Center with my Mom while your Daddy was getting his hair cut.  Mom and I were on our way to meet Adam at “Great Clips” when my water broke and splashed all over the sidewalk at about 2:30 pm.  It was a beautiful Saturday.  The sky was clear and blue, there was a slight breeze, and the temperature was probably in the low 60s.  I looked at Mom and said “Um, my water just broke.”  She looked at me with a big smile and asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure, do you see it splashing all over the sidewalk?”

I immediately called Adam and he flew out of the barber shop.  My Frye boots were filled with amniotic fluid as I walked back to the grey BMW X3 and we drove home to get everything that had already been packed for our impending trip to the hospital.

You had been kicking hard all day.  Earlier that Saturday we had gone to visit Uncle Kevin at his apartment on Spring Street in downtown Charleston.  I was having some pretty painful contractions and told everyone that I felt like I might go into labor that day.  As per usual, I was right.  (You’ll learn this about me Eva, I am correct about 95% of the time.)

As it turns out, all that kicking had worked.  Once we got to the hospital, it became evident that you had kicked a hole into the amniotic sack, up high where your feet were.  You wanted out!

Back to the drive home from Towne Center.  On the way, I called my doctor and left a message.  We got home and I took a shower to rinse off all the amniotic fluid, and I changed my clothes.  By the time I got out of the shower, my doctor had called back.  We were to meet her at East Cooper Medical Center immediately.

We got to the hospital at about 3:30 pm and while we were checking in, we met an elderly woman who had dementia.  It was her birthday, and she was being admitted.  We joked with the family about the crazy coincidence of birthdays.  In the end, though, we were a day off.

Once Adam, Mom and I got settled into the birthing room, Dr. Jennifer Keller came in and checked me out.  I hadn’t dialated any more than the week before, and there was still some fluid in the amniotic sack because the tear was high so not all of it had leaked out.  But, it was clear that labor needed to begin because you did not have enough fluid to be safe.  So, the doctor started me on pitocin, the notorious labor inducing drug that almost always leads to painful, ineffective contractions and c-sections.  I agreed to this because I was concerned about your well being.

It was 4:00 pm on Saturday, December 19 and I had started the long process of labor.  Mom left at about 8:00 pm.  Leaving me, your Daddy and the labor & delivery nurse.  I forgot her name.  Why will become apparent.

The contractions were getting a little worse each time, but they were progressing very slowly.  At about 11:00 pm, Dr. Keller tore the rest of the membrane, which was quite painful.  That worked.  I started dilating and from about 11:00 pm – 2:00 am, labor took off.  My contractions were getting progressively more and more painful.  At about 2:00 am, I entered transition and the pain was so intense, I was crying in agony.  So, of course, I gave in and asked for an epidural.  BIG MISTAKE.

After that, I feel asleep and woke up at around 7:30 am on December 20.  It turns out, over the night, I had dilated fully to 10 centimeters.  You were poised and ready to go, in the perfect position, head down, face pointing at my spine.  I started to push.

Unfortunately, I also started having an adverse reaction to the epidural.  I grew violently nauseous, and with the paralysis of the lower half of my body, became panic stricken when I couldn’t lean over sufficiently to vomit.  Adam helped me by holding a vomit bag to my mouth.

Thus began the hellish torture of your birth.

For the next 5 hours, I birthed you through a cycle of pushing, vomiting, dry-heaving, and passing out.  Half way through,the labor & delivery nurse positioned a mirror at my feet so that I could see the bloody red hair at the top of your head crowning my vagina.

Let me stop right here and repeat that last item for emphasis.

I. COULD. SEE. YOUR. HEAD. IN. MY. VAGINA.

Eva, if anyone ever tries to convince you that humans exist on a different value plane than other creatures in the natural world, remember this.  We are gritty, bloody animals just like the rest of them.  I have never seen something more horrifying and at the same time unspeakably beautiful than when I saw, with my own naked eyes, the top of my daughter’s head trying to burst out of my genitals.  LIFE IS WILD, Eva.  Hold on tight.

Back to the story.  Your vital signs remained impressively unshaken by the experience.  As my body tried-and-failed, tried-and-failed, tried-and-failed, tried-and-failed to deliver you, the situation grew more and more desperate.

After I watched the mirror through a few pushes/dry heaves/ pass-outs without any progress, the nurse suggested that maybe I was unable push effectively because I could not feel anything.  So, I decided to stop the epidural.  Within about 30 minutes, I was able to feel everything.  Every contraction.  Every push.  Every dry heave.  Every loss of consciousness.  At that point, Eva, I was terrified.  Honestly, I questioned whether I would make it out of that experience alive.

Through all of it, though, you remained healthy.  You hung in there through every push, and your heart rate remained strong.

Unfortunately, mine did not.  At about hour 4 of pushing (and hour 17 of labor), my blood pressure fell to 60/40, and my heart rate fell to 40 bpm.  This was cause for some alarm, and given my already borderline condition, the nurse instructed Adam to go tell our family that I was not doing so well, and not to leave.  At that point, I was under so much duress, that I was unaware of the affect this had on your Daddy.  I later learned, from my mother, that Adam left me for a moment to go talk to all of our family members that were waiting in the waiting room.  According to Mom, he walked out slowly, approached them in a daze and quietly told them that my bp and heart rate had dropped to a dangerous level, and not to leave.  Then, he turned and walked back to be by my side.

Of course, they were all terrified.  My Mother, your Step-Grandpap, Adam’s Mom and Dad – they were just left to sit there and worry.  Your poor Daddy was a mess.

When he came back into the delivery room, they shot me with Nor-adrenaline.  This brought my blood pressure back up to 80/60 and finally ended my nausea.  I bucked up and told Dr. Keller that I wanted to continue to try to get you out.

But, after another hour of pushing and passing out, the doctor came in to tell me that you were stuck.  It wasn’t that I was not pushing right, it was that your head was stuck at my pubic bone and you simply were not going to come out.  Your head was so huge (96th percentile), that if it were not for modern medicine, you and I would both have died.

At that point, I agreed to the emergency c-section.  Within 5 minutes, Adam and I were in the surgery room.  The anesthesiologist accidentally numbed me from my shoulders down, so I could not move anything but my head.  He had meant to only numb me from my waist down, but over shot.

They put the white sheet up, Adam was holding my left hand, and the anesthesiologist was talking to me, standing over my right shoulder.  They cut me open, cauterizing as they went and we could smell my burning flesh.  I could hear Dr. Keller tell the attending surgeon she needed help getting you out.  She said, “We’re gonna need four hands to pull her out, she’s stuck in the birth canal”.

As I already mentioned, when Dr. Keller pulled your tiny, bloody body out of my swollen, bloody, cut-open body, you immediately started crying.  I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude.  At that moment, I knew that you had finally made it into the world – alive.  You sounded so frightened, my sweet, sweet baby.  But, your cry was loud and steady and your voice was the most beautiful, wild, gripping sound I had ever heard.

But then, all of a sudden, I became violently nauseous again.  Trapped by the paralysis of the anesthesia, I panicked and screamed for help.  Because I was paralyzed from the shoulders down, I became extremely afraid that I would vomit and asphyxiate on the vomit because I could not move. I started screaming and crying for help.  And then, darkness.

It turns out that, when you have a c-section, after the infant is born, they have to remove the uterus and rinse it out.  So, as they removed my uterus, my body had an autonomic nervous system reaction which caused extreme nausea.  The anesthesiologist knew exactly what had happened and acted quickly to dose me with propofol, rendering me unconscious.  After about 3 minutes, he woke me up and I was – weirdly – completely fine.

While I was unconscious, they explained what had just happened to your Daddy.  And they had cleaned you up a bit, weighed you, charted your length, and done all of the normal things they do to newborns.

Once they brought me back to consciousness, Adam left to go get you and bring you to me, and I was choking back my tears.  As your Daddy rounded the corner of the curtain, I could see that your milky, dark blue eyes were open wide, and you were looking around the room wildly for me.  I called your name and you turned your head, then you locked eyes with me.  I felt as though I could not breathe, I gasped for air, and choked on my tears.  I choked out the words, “Hey my baby, I love you.  You are so beautiful…”

Unfortunately, because I was still paralyzed, I was afraid to try to hold you.  So, your Daddy stood with you by my side as they sewed me up.  Then we waited for my blood pressure to hit 80/60 before they finally sent me to the recovery room.

Your Daddy and I then waited there for the anesthesia to wear off enough for me to hold you.  It took about an hour and a half.

When I finally got to hold you, it was like you had been in my arms forever.  I do not know another way to explain it.  It felt familiar and safe and warm and wonderful.  You were sleepy and tiny and I felt like I had already loved you for a thousand years.

There are so many stories that I will share with you.  There was so much love and sweat and blood and tears and hope and fear and fate and choice and courage and ferocity and frailty and legacy and unbridled generation and amplication and perfection that all worked together to create you.  Like all other living things in this gorgeous and brutal world, you are an astonishing, mind-blowing miracle.  Thank you for hanging in there, my sweet daughter.  Thank you for surviving such a tough entry.  Thank you for getting here, so that I can get to know you.

I love you madly,

Your Mama

Dear Eva,

Clearly, you make me very happy.

To be remembered:  Baby Eva did not like sunshine or wind during early March 2016.

Finally caught a smile!  You smile all the time right now, but every time I point the phone at you to get a picture, you usually stop smiling to investigate the phone.  But I caught one!  You are so beautiful, it makes my heart EXPLODE!

Love,

Mama

This is a photo of you right after they took you out of my womb.  You came out crying, and it was the sweetest sound I have EVER heard.  You were completely healthy, and we were wholly blessed.

Dear Eva,

I have been remiss.  You were born 10 weeks ago, and I have not written a word about either your birth, or what it’s like to live with you – my beloved daughter.  December 20, 2015 was when you were born, at 12:28 pm.  You were pulled out of my womb by two pairs of doctors hands because you had gotten stuck behind my pubic bone after 18 hours of labor and 5 hours of pushing.   In fact, I could see your red hair in the delivery room through the last 2 hours of pushing, and you just would not come out.

Because of the trauma of an emergency c-section, the first six weeks of motherhood were extremely difficult for me.  Looking back on it now, I was living in the pitch dark.  My heart was dark, my mind was stunned into blindness.  Terrified, mourning, injured and confused, I did not believe I was ever going to be a good mother, be able to function as a wife, or feel like myself again.  It was one of the darkest periods of my life.

But, now that has passed.  As soon as I was able to run again, after the 6 week hiatus for my torn open soma to heal back together, the darkness began to infuse with light.  The light of my own spirit and heart began to shine through again, as it always has during every hard experience in my life.

I now find that I love motherhood.  Eva, you are the joy of my heart.  I feel truly, profoundly blessed to have the privalege of keeping you alive, and watching you as you grow into the girl you are going to be.  You are such a sweet, beautiful soul.

My sweet Eva Louisa, you are wonderful.  You are the most earnest person I’ve ever known.  You try so hard at everything you do.  When you were a newborn, you tried so, so hard to open your eyes and find me in the operating room after they had ripped you from my womb.  And you did, you found me as I spoke your name through sobs of joy at finally seeing your beautiful face.  You locked eyes with me, you needed so badly to feel close to your mother again after all that time I was trying to get you out.  And by the way, Eva.  Through 18 hours of labor and 5 hours of pushing, wherein you were stuck in my birth canal, you never showed any signs of stress.  You are a strong, strong baby and as your mother, believe me when I say:  You are meant to be here.

But back to what I was trying to say.  Eva, you are also determined.  Every day we practice lifting your head, doing push ups, standing and walking, we even practice talking.  You want to do all of those things so bad you can’t stand it.  You try so hard every day to find mobility and autonomy and talk to me.  One other thing you do that absolutely slays me is that you observe and listen with rapt attention to everything going on around you.  You even did this in utero.  You would respond to me, and I knew you were in there listening, trying so hard to figure things out, trying so hard to know how to be alive.

You are thriving, and it explodes my heart.  I am so happy that there is nothing I can do to change this about you because you were just born this way.  Determined, earnest, excited to be alive, and very, very sweet.  That is your demeanor and you are wholly blessed because those qualities in life are more valuable than all the treasure in the world.

My sweet, steam-roller daughter, I want to tell you how very much I love you.  You have grown my heart beyond the expanses of the universe, even the multiverse.  Every moment I am grateful to know you and love you.  And your father loves you, too.

On March 21, 2015 you spoke to me from the soul of me, screaming loudly, “Mama, pick me!  Pick me!  I want a chance at life!  I want to be in the world!”  I don’t know how baby, but I heard you and now you are here, and I cannot wait for every moment I have left in this life now that you are in it.

Love,

Your Mama

My darling Xiou Xiou,

This morning as I was working out on the elliptical machine at East Shore Athletic Club, I was listening to “It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)” by Arcade Fire.  It’s a pop-rock song driven by syncopated synthesizer, heart-rate drum beats, and dreamy production.  One of my favorite songs, actually.

For some reason, it made me start thinking about you inside my belly.  You are an entire universe and you don’t even know it.  I was wondering about what you might see as you begin to open your eyes for the first time.  We are at 28 weeks into this journey, and the experts say this is when that happens.  I’m sure it’s mostly darkness and blurry, but the fact that you are opening your eyes inside my belly blows my mind.

Eva, I want you to always know and never question that I wanted you, and I love you.  My dream of you started when I was 22 years old, when my father died, and I was thrust into the brutal reality of life.  This reality, my baby, is that this life is finite.  It will end.  Everything and everyone you love will disappear forever.  And that makes each spark of a moment invaluably precious.

Your eternity is something that I cannot believe I was blessed to be a part of.  You are my link to infinity, and I am yours.  As you knock around inside my womb, you have no idea that just 8 months ago, you did not exist.  And it won’t ever matter again, because now you do, and here’s what I want for you.

I want you to thrive.  I want you to embrace the wildness of this world with never-satiated hunger and desire.  I want you to be in awe of how miraculous it is that you came to be alive, and that one day you will die.  I want you to realize your power because my darling, you are a powerful creation.  But I want you to be – always – at once completely humbled by your power, while also willing to step out of your own way in order to utilize it with mastery in order to improve the lives of the people around you – as well as your own.  I want you to honor the gift of your life by allowing your force field to bend everything around you.  I want you to strive for success, and I want you to fail and get right back up to try again.  I want you to be fulfilled and find deep gratitude in the world you create for yourself.

You are such a gift in my life.  You are one of my dreams that has finally materialized and I cannot find the words to describe how vast the scope of my gratitude truly is.  But I can say that this pregnancy has been the closest I can get to a spiritual experience, and I feel transcendent.  Every decision I have made since I was 22 has been in an effort to make you real.  You are my sweet, darling girl, and I cannot wait to meet you.

Love,

Your Mama

Dear Eva,

The time of my pregnancy with you has been a time of great learning for me.  For instance, tonight I learned why I only spend my time and energy on superficial or happy commodities and entertainment.  My darling girl, I just learned that I have lost too much already, and I don’t need to exercise my losing muscles for future devastation.  I’ve been lost for so much of my life that I will never need practice on how to survive it again.  That is one thing I excel at now.

Instead, I seek things that make me laugh, or make me feel like I’m in the presence of something beautiful.

Just those two things, Eva.  Beauty and laughter.  That’s what I am going to teach you.  I am going to raise you to be beautiful and to have a sense of humor.  I am going to make sure you grasp, very firmly and with complete certainty, the wildness and the joyfulness of this life.  You are going to have a happy childhood, my darling.  You are going to learn to be a happy, courageous, and resilient person.

I feel you all day and all night now.  I call you wiggle worm.  You kick and punch in rapid fire succession.  You flip over and root around.  You get the hiccups.  You are adorable.  And I love you.

Love,

Your Mama

The baby is like a grapefruit sized knot stuck on top of my intestines.  I’m not feeling her kick yet, but the ultrasounds show her in there moving, punching, flipping over constantly.  The days where I could go hours and forget I am pregnant are over, and I can no longer fit into my clothes.  Mostly, I feel frustrated that I can’t do any of the things I most enjoy – running in the heat of the summer evenings, sun bathing at the beach, enjoying a glass of whiskey and watching the sunset from my front porch & generally subjecting my body to extreme conditions that make me feel alive, free of age, and closer to my youth.

Otherwise, alternating waves of euphoric love and transcendent gratitude capsize my heart, sending it into a deep blue abyss that feels like the safety of eternity.  What a beautiful way to bring a dream to life.  My baby girl, my oldest and hardest fought dream, is finally here, safe and sound in my belly.

12 years ago today, my father passed away. It’s so weird how significant calendar dates still stir up the same state of mourning.

I was 24, he was 49. It shouldn’t have happened.

I miss him, and feel his loss every day. But I also feel his legacy in many of my thoughts throughout each day.

Dad, if you are out there somewhere, thank you for being such a good daddy. I will always miss you.

Love,
Your sunshine

Love, innocence, laughter. Where have you gone? If I were to look for you in the sunset, golden, shimmering, would you appear to me? Bony knees against my hardwood floor, morning after morning I have prayed for your quiet return. But you have not. I beg of you, please tell me this is not what living longer is going to be. I cannot bear it without you. Please come back to me.

Fuck you, Bon Iver.

Remember the other day when I told you that I would give anything to go back in time to when the only thing that mattered to me was to lie next to you in bed, and hold you in my arms?  Well, I’ve been thinking.  I was wrong.  That is still the only thing that really, really matters to me.

My darling.  My sweet love.  I have known you a while.  There have been years between us, months on end in which we lived on different continents, and long periods of estrangement.  But, even after all of the hard things that we have said and done to one another – sometimes on purpose, but most times, by accident – even with all of that.  It is still February 2009 in my heart. It is still exactly like it was 5 years ago, when I would give every moment of my long, undefined future, just to hold you one more second.

You are my darling, sweet love.  You are the one who makes me want to be better, kinder, stronger, more generous, more gracious, less afraid, more alive, and more grateful. 

I love you.  You are so very beautiful to me.

On November 27, I’ll finally be home. Moving back to the edge of the Earth, by the salt marshes of the steely winter Atlantic Ocean. My beloved harbor. How I have longed to feel the tangles in my hair that are woven by the salty air, whipping my face in the moody, dark season. My seascape! You look like the art from “Where the Wild Things Are”! Dreamlike, timeless, my resonant sky-capped prism. You are a visual thing but you vibrate like a thousand cellos – all played in symphony and with deep yearning.

Oh, how my heart and soul rejoice in your brackish, coarse embrace. I have wholly missed you, my darling sea.

Go for a run after a long day of frustrating work.  After about 20 minutes,  turn the corner to see the bright yellow-orange sunset as “Ave Maria” by Pavarotti unexpectedly turns up on your playlist.

I dreamed that God was a golden eagle as big as the unimaginable infinity of spacetime, and that I was a single electron in a carbon atom of his feathers – myself an entire universe of magnificence and divine creation. God was flying faster than the speed of light, flying away from his own dreams and desires; his own hopes and prayers. And in this dream I knew that I did not know who or what I was in relation to God. All I could sense was a power, a current switching from on to off to on again, a manifestation like electricity but which I could not name, and I was happy to be a part of what could only be described as deep, unending mystery.

I stood in the falling snow.  It was December, before the Arab Spring.

Barely noticeable in the throng of people, I lingered, watching several 20-something Russian girls canvass the crowd asking for money.  In the shadow of Notre Dame, tourists from all over the world were taking photos of one another, smiling, ignoring the sting of the bitter winter wind.

I am just going to stand and look at this for a little while; take in the colors. How many more sunsets will occur while I am alive? Are there 24,575 left? Nobody is sure of that number, but I hope it will be at least that many.

That is why I am just going to stand here with my eyes fixed on the horizon for a while. The celestial bodies and earth will move, rolling around on the quilt of gravity. Evidence of that movement will be splashed all over the horizon, but my body is too tiny to feel it. The sky will change from a radiant palette of intense, hot organges, pinks, and golds into a smooth dome of dark purple with far away stars. It will all happen within an hour, and I want to stand here and try to be aware of every little change I can see as it occurs.

Good grief, life is short when you really think about it. The world is so beautiful, mysterious, and wild that you cannot wrap your brain around it all. One thing you can do, however, is stand still.  Just try to be quicksand and let it sink in. Sometimes, all you can do is allow yourself to feel small.

Come join me. We can allow ourselves to feel small for just a little while.

Somewhere in the realm of two o’clock in the morning, the sky is the color of the skin on a ripe plum.  Spotted and deep purple, a nebulous color; the dome of the night betrays a high ceiling of thick clouds churning slowly.  Intermittently the moon reveals its dragon eye; half of a circle sliced by a slope trending earthward and to the right, and it is the color of parchment paper doused in canola oil, almost transluscent white under a soft, glowing yellow.

It occurs to me as I am driving – the only set of headlights visible on North King Street, my tires slowly rolling over a set of worn down, rounded railroad tracks – that I have accidentally discovered yet another secret beauty of this little, hot and humid city by the sea.  Here, in the sprawling and largely abandoned warehouse district, poison ivy and confederate jasmine climb a dented stop sign.  During the day, the bright sun blanches acres of empty parking lots, harshens the angles of the sparse metal structures, influencing perception toward the distinct lack of charm; the emptiness felt here when there are no live oak trees present.  But tonight in the light of a half moon, the cityscape appears more rough and tumble; more overtaken by wildness; more storied and salty.

Less than one mile east the rivers merge with the Atlantic Ocean.  Less than one mile east, the coast of America disappears into the blue.  Less than one mile east, ocean liners are docked and big blue cranes are moving containers onto trains or trucks, and the economies of Europe and China are abandoning their sea legs for the dusty trails of the U.S.A.

You would think that a town the size of Charleston would be dead-quiet in the middle of the night, but it is not.  There is a din of crickets underneath a constant but subtle breeze.  Underneath the stirring of the wind, there is the steady and slightly random thud of tires rolling across the concrete seams of I-26, echoing off of dozens of huge, empty warehouses.  Layers upon layers of movement whir all around you; this small city breathes heavily in its sleep.

On the way to North King Street, I drove through a neighborhood of HUD houses, the projects.  Each small cinderblock home had the light on by the front door.  It struck me to see this phenomenon.  Those homes cannot be larger than 800 square feet.  There is no way that the bedroom windows are not touched by those porch lights, yet, every single inhabitant had left the light on.  It made me wonder:  are they afraid of the dark?

But back to the city, and its colors at night, and the industrial district which is my favorite forgotten corner.  Gaunt skeletal outlines of once useful constructions, the ghosts of industry, loom against the resiny background of the night sky – the color of a bruise and murky like the salt marshes.  Here is the place; here are blocks upon blocks of rectangular, sheet metal warehouses. Some with broken glass shattered on the ground, glittering; others with rust climbing up their corners like ivy; still others tattooed with graffiti. And in the dark beauty of the night, there is not a soul in sight anywhere wandering the grounds.

invisible, imperceptible physics
spooky action at a distance
history written by
the speed of light
this
this is
this is explanation

dissipation
dissolution
infinite expansion

the heart, hollowed out
dark and glittering,
but that which is no harbor,
unfathomable
unkind
unyielding to the will

a void, forbidding and crystalline
where the voice
crying out to God
for mercy
or redemption
has no carry

A dozen or more
almost empty paint cans
stacked on my kitchen counter, or
by the front door, or
in my shed
tell the story of a woman
with delicate hands trying
to fix something made of cinder block,
cement, and dry wall,
but always tiring out before the task is done.

Pruning shears with
a bit of rust
at the center bolt,
centipede grass overrun by
dollar weed and
fire ant hills –
the place is sort of a mess.