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Thursday, January 24, 2013

It Starts to Feel Like Something Big





I measure the grounds, three heaping scoopfuls because I drink my coffee like gasoline, and I get the mug ready. It looks more like a soup bowl than a coffee cup but there is much to be done today, pages-long lists of writing deadlines, emails to send, assignments to complete, calls to make.

It starts to feel like something big, some days.

Writing a book or two, going to college, giving speeches and having a blog and writing deadlines and things filling up a calendar. It’s a dream come true, after all.

I ponder the bigness of it a minute, feeling all of my 33 years for a change, like my words are taken seriously, like my foolish prose might amount to something that buds from my heart someday, something worth these eye-strained hours but just the sheer love of it.

So I pour it dark and sweet and breathe it in, and think much of me with my bowl full of coffee and my little words today. I am glad I have persisted with my tiny big thoughts, glad I have kept click-clacking the keys with contemplation and questions, challenges to those with bigger brains and bigger titles than me.

I think, today, I will have my coffee hot and strong and I will nibble the end of my glasses while I think. I will drink from my bowl over an email to my publisher and feel right distinguished with myself, for a moment.

But the thought is fleeting. 

Five plump fingers rest upon the flesh of my back thigh, just beneath the pink ruffled robe he likes to be wrapped up inside. I did not hear him coming.

“Mommy,” he cracks in his sleep-stuck voice, pulling at the robe ruffles. “I don’t want breakfast yet.”

(I hadn’t offered.)

“Mommy, I just want to snuggle.”

He rubs his eyes and drags his gray blanket across the floor, across dinner crumbs and the shabby teal rug that was new only weeks ago but already looks destined for the garbage. Twelve trampling feet will do that to a carpet. 

They will do it to a mother too, from time to time.

And even though I feel it now, the strain of this body premature for my years, it stings and groans for the hours I have not sat, the years I have not rested.

Bowl-mug in hand, we head to the couch and his head finds my belly, pushing gently into the body gone soft under the laps of three babies, tempered by the gnawing worry over all those not-born babies too, the one whose face I never got to see or kiss and all the ones who wore size 11 Nikes and called me mom just for a season. I am trampled shaggy and soft, body and heart, by those pink baby feet and those smelly boy feet, and those patent-leather-heeled feet. I have gone shaggier than the teal rug in my kitchen. 

It starts to feel like something big, some days.

Like all the mothering and loving and gnawing with worry amounts to more than all the words I could collect in a lifetime.

No title is bigger than mother, I think. None which I am after, anyhow.

So I settle into stale sleep breath and blonde bedhead and savor coffee and feel rightly distinguished, here, in this. 

Not for words, not for notice, not for anything but the elevated place of being the carpet below these precious toes, of a down-pillow belly holding up this sweaty head with its drooping blonde Mohawk.

I ponder the bigness of it, and smile.

It starts to feel like something big, some days.

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Linking up at Emily's place. Join us? 

17 comments:

  1. Oh my word, Cara. These words. They're so big. So beautiful.

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  2. oh Cara.
    this just settles me. such a way children lend light to the eyes and put it all in perspective, eh?
    from the trampled rug to the soft belly, they leave their mark. and teach us what really matters.
    i love your voice. thank you for this.

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  3. Cara, this is just beautiful. You are accomplishinf so much, and yet you haven't lost yourself. Mother is the best title we could ever have. It's so hard to remember that when work bekons. I needed this reminder this early morning. Thank you for sharing in your special way.

    Jess

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  4. Cara, this is just beautiful. You are accomplishinf so much, and yet you haven't lost yourself. Mother is the best title we could ever have. It's so hard to remember that when work bekons. I needed this reminder this early morning. Thank you for sharing in your special way.

    Jess

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  5. This was so beautiful. I love the way you dropped the important to do the vital. And I take my coffee like gasoline too. :)

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  6. This, Cara, is absolutely beautiful. Your morning sounds similar to mine (without the publisher ;) and you remind us all of the bigness of the sitting and the rest and the taking time to breathe in air with them.

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  7. Huge. Great big words for this great big job, Cara. I love this and need this.

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  8. It is something big, for sure. And something more real than the rest.

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  9. Settling into the bigness of what matters, the messiness of it all. You've cracked the code Cara and motherhood, it looks good on you.

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  10. Cara, I long to drink big cups of coffee in the hazy morning with you, children draped around like furniture, hearts warmed by conversation. You write this life so well, my friend, and I am grateful to be welcomed into your words. It is kind of big, some days, these days, all the days.

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  11. and what's difficult is not resenting the morning to be stolen by the little ones...for me that is. I want to mother well, because I too see the bigness of this title. your words reach me.

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  12. BEAUTIFUL! YES...I feel this with you too! Still..I am excited for the books too!

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  13. Christie @ Random ReflectionzJanuary 25, 2013 at 6:07 AM

    This is just beautiful. All to often I find myself distracted by my non-mothering work. Your post has inspired me to prioritize the "bigness" of mothering more. Thank you.

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  14. This is just a perfect snapshot of motherhood - the worry, the strain, and also the unbearable sweetness of the whole experience. Loved it!

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  15. i LOVE how you took the time to snuggle with him friend. it's true. there is no bigger title. love you. and hope you find some time to yourself to write, too :)

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  16. OH, how I love this--as one who writes (but not without a soup-bowl size cup of coffee), who has had a miscarriage, whose body feels older than my 42 years. You've captured motherhood and the pull of other things in such a gorgeous way. I am featuring this post on The High Calling, because it fits so well what we tell our audience (and each other): every job is a high calling. (Just between us, I think Motherhood may just be the highest of all.)

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  17. Here is the link, which links out to this post: http://www.thehighcalling.org/hcb-community

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Your comments are such an encouragement. Thank you for sharing your valuable words.