So You'd Know I Was Here
Grindelwald, Switzerland: In Photos
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Baby Boy
Right now the side of his face rests against my belly, skin to skin, his warmth magnified by mine. It is a wonder, an absolute awe-filled thing, that just days ago he was on the other side of me, tucked away and unseeable, a secret. Elliot. Elliot with the head full of hair. Elliot with the fifty-eight eyelashes. Elliot with the rounded nose that dips into rounded cheeks that slope to the tiny chin that quivers when he cries, lifts when he smiles in his sleep. A landscape. Elliot. Tiny boy so like and unlike all the other boys who have been born before. So like and unlike whatever small person I imagined my own son to be. Perfection is a rare if not impossible thing, but how could he not be, right now, so young, so soft, exactly as he is here, breathing in and out, making the sounds that all mothers and fathers know as first-speak. Secrets. He is revealing them to me, unspooling them by the minute, by the number of his sighs, and they tangle around my legs and body until I am war
Strasbourg, France: In Photos
The title is perfect!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Montucky! The series made me wonder what kinds of human-things we leave behind...
ReplyDeleteNatural trinkets are there for those who take time to look, and you are finding them. This should have been something you could have checked off on your 30 before thirty list!
ReplyDeleteWe humans leave lots behind, and generally its not pretty!
Bill -- There have actually been a lot of "unofficial" thirty before thirty add-ons, and I wouldn't have it any other way. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, too bad about pollution and the like, but we also leave things behind like hair strands, and sometimes I wonder about the birds that pick them up, the nests they become a part of. Kind of fun to imagine!
Lovely images, and what you mentioned about strands of hair reminded me of a rurual ritual out here. On the first of April we put on a bracelet made of red and white yarn. When you see your first swallow you're supposed to take off your bracelet and throw it onto the roof of your house. The idea is that birds will use it to make nests and although it is highly unlikely that a swallow would use it I have watched sparrows take them to line their nests...
ReplyDeleteWhat a great ritual, Julian! I think many of us want to feel we are a part of things beyond ourselves. I might have to try this bracelet-making/offering next spring, it sounds so sweet. Thanks so much for sharing!
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