August 12, 2006

Olfactory Memory

It is autumn. We are matched with birthparents, all of us waiting for you to be born. I spend whole evenings in your room, folding clothes, smoothing bedsheets, sorting diapers and formula into tidy rows. I am willing my hope to be as solid as the items I touch. Before bed each night I slip into the darkened room to look at the empty cradle and think of you sleeping in your birthmother’s womb. The space is filled with the smell of baby lotion, diapers, fresh linens, new clothes--sweetly mingled into an almost overwhelming scent.

It’s nine and a half months later and I’m reaching to the back of a shelf in your room when from deep inside the cupboard the scent hits me. Suddenly I’m feeling all of it again—the longing, hope, worry, joy, vulnerability. Again I’m waiting to hold you, waiting to know you, waiting for someone else to make me your mother.

August 08, 2006

Into the Void

Ten days from now we are moving, packing up our things and ourselves for what was meant to be a more affordable, sustainable life one thousand miles away. Leaving behind the heat, smog and soul-crushing compactness of the city, but also the vibrancy and color. This metropolis has been my home for the whole of my adult life. It is where I forged my identity. It is where we have built networks of dear friends. And it is the place where Puppy came to me.

The move date was set much sooner than we expected, leaving us busy with details and not sure how to say good-bye in the short time we have left. I was flipping through my date book this evening, looking at how the little squares were filling with last visits with friends, appointments and tasks.

Suddenly I turned to the day after the move and saw nothing but page after page of blank white. Time to write a new life, but also time to fall in to the emptiness with nothing left to catch you.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...