In 2004, on the last week of April, Michael and I had our very first date. He took me to the Festival of the Arts in Oklahoma City, and we picked a quiet spot in a shady patch of green grass to sit and talk for hours. Every Spring we go back to that same spot, with our wonderful food in hand, and spend time enjoying the beautiful weather, and remembering how many years have passed since our first time there, together. Both shy and 21 years old, trying not to say the wrong thing and hoping we didn't have food in our teeth.
Last night we took Elodie, and it felt like the first time we were there all over again. Through her eyes, I am starting to see the world and the memories we share in a different light. Things that have started to feel routine and ordinary are becoming new and exciting, again. We are starting over with new life, a blank canvas...and showing her the beauty of life through our eyes.
With these realizations, I am also starting to become aware that one day I will also have to teach Elodie about things that are not always easy. She will have to understand change, and how we must all go through it to move through life and keep working forward.
When we went to find our spot, it was gone. All of it. The grass, the hill, and even our tree.
photo from April 2007
Ripped out, and turned into something new for a city project. It was a place I didn't recognize, and for our 8th trip to the Oklahoma City Festival of Arts, it felt like our first time. I was a little disappointed that we never got to show Elodie our spot. The place where we fell in love every year until the first year we brought her to see the shining sun through the trees, herself.
But life changes, whether we like it or not. And on a new hill, with new sod and new memories to be made, we found another spot. One that will hopefully not be ripped out anytime soon, to make way for skyscrapers and sidewalks :)
In our new spot we ate yummy Brazilian food, and candied cashews and pecans - still warm.
Elodie slept, and cried, and ate.
I watched the sunshine and shadows from the trees dancing across her tiny face.
And fell in love with this scruffy face, all over again.
And okay, maybe our new spot isn't so bad. I could probably get used to it.
We walked around the gardens for awhile, looking at all the new changes.
Elodie snoozed through the music, walk by the water, and over bridges.
She even snoozed through her Dad racing her around full speed while making car noises.
I tried to find the most plain things to eat, so she wouldn't be gassy and fussy all night. Thinking I was safe with a chicken and avocado wrap, it turned out to be fried (gassy baby), spicy (gassy baby), and covered in raw cabbage (super gassy baby). It was worth it. Even if she farted all night in her sleep and kept me up.
When the sun went down and the crowd thinned, we went to look at all the photography, paintings, sculptures, and jewelery. We spent so long there that the artists were starting to shut down their booths, and our feet were starting to hurt.
We drove home with one tired baby in the backseat - who didn't make a peep.
And so, life begins with Elodie. A first time for every dozen + times we have followed our same traditions. Life is starting over, through her new (and sleepy) eyes.
If you live in the Oklahoma City Metro, you can find information about the Festival of the Arts here, on their website. It is going on for the rest of this weekend, so stop by and eat some yummy food from all over, look at the art, and find your own shady spot to make new memories.
The night my water broke, I started to shake. I was frozen with fear, not knowing what to expect next. Everything I had been calm and preparing for went out the window in the second I realized that you - my daydream, my imaginary baby - would be here in just a few hours.
When my midwife placed you on my chest, I remember the way you smelled. Even though I had never smelled you before, you still smelled familiar. Like an old tshirt or the way home smells when you first walk in after a long vacation. When you looked in my eyes, it was like I was looking through a mirror at myself. And in the same way I felt like I knew you....a set of eyes I had somehow looked into before, you knew me. Your body melted onto mine like complete relief. I have never felt more needed by something my entire life, and in that moment I realized we belonged to each other.
Elodie, you are one month old. You have started looking into my eyes, instead of me just looking into yours. In the middle of the night, half asleep and in a haze - you look into my eyes and you begin to smile. Before this, there has been nothing that burned a fire inside my heart like the moment I realized that you recognized me. I love you, I love you, a thousand times I love you. Beautiful little girl, this feels like the first day that I am alive. To know that I have created you, and you understand it.
Inside the working gears of my mind, there is a place that crafts together to-do lists miles long.
Goals, chores, grocery lists....all carefully comprised and organized. These parts of me thrive off of knowing I have achieved something I set out to do. And with every one thing that I cross off my list, there is a sense of accomplishment that washes over me.
My mother did, and still does the same thing. Every week she makes her cleaning lists, her lunches and dinners for the week. Vacations were always started with her long, and perfectly contrived list of items we needed. Whoever was left home was left with an equally impressive list of things to be taken care of around the house, down to what times the animals ate, and how much.
I need this game, and I play it every day.
Sometimes it feels like chains, bound tight around my throat. Only releasing if I feel that I have accomplished enough. And when I don't, and things are left undone, they weigh on my chest and closing breaths until I can hardly stand it.
...
Elodie is 3 weeks old. And in those 3 weeks I have only taken 2 naps. Both involuntary, and a product of falling asleep in the middle of what I was doing. Elodie is 3 weeks old, and I still struggle to let go of these stupid lists to just hold her for half of my day. In three weeks I have gotten a lot of things done. Laundry is done every day, the house is vacuumed and trash is taken out. And at the end of the night I miss her. I want to scoop her up and feel her skin on me, her tiny rising chest and sweet smell surrounding me.
In the same dark holes of my mind where I make my lists and hold my disappointments in myself, there is a place that reasons and argues over spoiling her with all of the love and time I have to give. In these places I realize how critical I can be of myself. All this doubt and fear and worry pools and collects until it forms a hot coal of failure. Failure in knowing that no matter how hard I try to do this all right and perfect, things will always go wrong. No doubt because I have turned to my methods of analyzing everything to death - instead of just doing what feels right.
Elodie is 3 weeks old. Each day she teaches me something about myself, a voice louder than one I have heard before. Her voice drowns the disappointment, it drowns the lists, and it drowns my doubt in myself. A tiny voice, sometimes it comes out only in a drawn-out, breathy, "haaaaa" that trails into a sweet yawn that melts my heart into an open sea.
I have 3 more weeks home with her. These will be the only first weeks. Ones that I will remember in 30 years, when she is having babies of her own. Ones that I will cry and wish to have back, when I am drowning in my to-do lists, chains bound tight around my neck.
If nothing changes, we will always stay the same. And sometimes that is the worst thing we can do for ourselves.
Today, and tomorrow, and for the rest of my time as Elodie's Mother, a to-do list will never be more important than when she just needs me to lay with her, naked, warm, and vulnerable. I will learn to let go of my lists, and throw them to the bottom of a hole marked "To-Don't."
In one week we have taken you on walks, cuddled, been pooped on, gone to the Medieval Fair, and barely slept. Baby E - we love you more than we could have ever imagined. You are my sunshine every single morning, and my moon at night. We can't wait to experience all your firsts.
Dear friends - thank you, thank you, thank you for all your sweet words, I read every single one. Mostly in the middle of the night, when I can peel myself away from her to catch my breath and resume what life was like before she was here. I'll be quiet for a couple more weeks, I am trying to be present in all these first moments.
See you soon.
