Love in the afternoon

This could be 5 kb and her eyes would still be shiny.

She finds me, I find her. I find myself, the self I am because of her. At home, tucked in the corner of my room, upstairs, rocking in my nursing chair. The other kids come and go, to and fro, spilling strawberry milk powder on the floor, not finishing their long division. I can’t see them down below, but I know.

Last year it was them: same smell, same luscious soft skin and ducky, downy hair waving under my hushed breath. Same funny mouth crinkled and mum-mumming in sleep. I should get up, I should let her sleep in her crib, where she’ll sleep longer and dinner is waiting to get made and icy mud is crusting on the kitchen floor from tromping boots.

It will wait.

Out there I am Shannon, mommy to girlies, beijie or honey in that exasperated voice if I swore six times in the last ten minutes to Tom, concerned daughter, critical thinker, shopper of all sundries under the sun, cleaner, driver, bank depositor, mail place mail-er, errand runner, blogger, newspaper reader, online lurker.

Tomorrow I might wish to be more, want to be different, the blanket that warms us suffocating and stifling. Today that’s impossible — impossibly stupid and short-sighted and silly — other and outer-shell and not at all to do with who I am right here in this chair, this counting each inhale, this holding her in both arms.

At home, tucked in my corner, nested, snuggled in, I am what I am because of her and it is more than everything.