the us i want to believe in

the pandeeeemmmmiiiccc. quarantiiiine. it magnified everything, zoomed in and slowed down to a snail’s pace. i loved it, then hated it, then hated it more. then wrapped some acceptance + grace around it.

we moved here in january

(felt like cheating)

it was

Here’s the us that’s real, but only in small slices. it’s the Us i want to believe in, and it’s here–these photos are my way to prove it to myself.

I walk in silence

My feet swollen

Because I gave birth three days ago

And time is frozen but my hormones are not

Milk engorging me

The start of something else that just takes time

A body changing and finding its way home again

.

I’m alone in the sea

Showering beautiful moments alongside the slow moving pain

Coursing through a body in transition

Everything in free fall the days stretch long and wild in front of us

New frontiers we navigate wearily

Cy smiles that reflexive newborn grin

Heavy rag doll body breathing loud

I want to remember this forever

This particular flavor of heaven

Punctuated by moments of hell

Sore nipples

Cramps

Eyelids heavy as concrete

Heaven

Worth it

So beautiful you can’t look away

.

 

Another morning that feels like an extension of the night

Except for the lightening of the sky and the stirring of bodies

Not as little as yours

She called you a caboose baby and that surprised me

Four years apart isn’t that long

But they are so far apart from you

Making their own games, Legos everywhere

I wonder how you four will puzzle together

But know I don’t need to worry;

It was always meant to be this way.

.

Eyes heavy

Body still changing

It’s hard to look in the mirror, foreign

I practice saying, I love you no matter what to my reflection

Some days I feel more than others

You are three weeks earthside

I change my mind every hour

How I feel about it all

Loving you four the constant thread

Joy woven in the most unexpected places

How shiny Vienna’s hair is, soft while I run my fingers through it and we read poetry and I think,

Maybe all life is

Is a string of unremarkable moments

Waiting to be noticed

Loved to life with kind attention

The many faces of us

Swirl together, different eyes, skin colors, nose shapes shifting

We are one and I don’t understand that, really, but feel it viscerally

 

This is hard

And it’s meant to be.

This is hard

And it is worth it.

If I lusted after life and living as much as I do suffering

Where would I be

Can relish all the pain

But it’s the transformation I loathe and love

The possibility that haunts and taunts me

We are warriors in our own worlds

Spiking our swords choreographing fight sequences that replay again and again

And the truth is I’m just sleep deprived

But the drama is more fun

.

 

Does everything have to come with its own hell?

My concrete eyes want to know

When they can sleep again

My dress flutters with the artificial breeze created by the fan

I wonder how long we will live here

How long we can hold these smelly pipes

Stuffy air

I long for quiet

I realize how much silence and space I need to wander inside

It feels so good to be here with my baby boy

My body sustaining his

Writing and drinking in the quiet

The same quiet hours I despise from 2-5pm

And it’s funny

I know I’ll miss these days

But I don’t think I’ll miss long afternoons where none of us know what we’re supposed to be doing

The time fades and bleeds into itself

I am reminded of watercolor

But that connotes beauty

Of which there is a smear

But it’s colored by lust

For more more time

More minutes moments and hours

To melt into new me

Selfish, my mind throws up on me

And I can notice

But I can’t shut off Alexa

So what I really want is something uninterrupted

A vastness of space to explore

The chaos weighs on my body

My neck tight

Head that doesn’t want to hold itself anymore

..

I think of what I’ve given up to birth these four souls

It feels like everything

It makes me stop and cry

Because I feel like I don’t know how to even walk properly anymore

My body so unrecognizable to me

Tonight life feels so hard and simultaneously so easy to let go—we’re all going to be dead soon, stop taking it all so seriously

Take a chance and love

Here to access the soul that’s trying to get my attention

It taps on my shoulder by way of my pounding head

From so much crying

And yes—I’m fine

Because I’m a human, nothing wrong with that

I want to swallow the whole world

But no one’s got a throat big enough

Or a life long enough

Plod along in days

Small minutes laced with wonder I know I miss

While i chase grandeur

Visions that dance in my head

I want to know when I’ll be at peace with these two worlds

The grand and the mundane

They forever unravel me

I can’t reconcile them long enough to live in the overlap

Only to look through the windows

Obscured

Longing for the feeling

To seal it real