Letter 42

Rinse, Repeat

Dear Reader,

Many of the days of when my kids were little are tucked within the corners of my mind, pulled to the forefront with the glance of a photograph or the laugh of a memory.

But I will always remember that first night at home as a mom. Our son was swaddled tightly and placed in the Moses crib beside our bed, and I was terrified. I listened to the gurgles and whimpers and I would pick him up often through that first night and unswaddle him to see his chest moving, listening for his breaths. How was I supposed to care for this little creature? I didn’t know anything about what to do except what I read from all the books, and advice I had l heard.

And then I just started doing all the things new moms did. Learning how to change diapers in the dark with my eyes closed. How to cook, walk around the house doing things one handed. Learning what all the noises meant and how to keep this being alive. I made a lot of mistakes and some things fell to the wayside, but now I can see the photos of how my two best-things have grown and the consistency added up.

Like anything done on a daily basis I somehow became competent at motherhood, or at least one who could laugh along with her kids at the many mistakes along the way.

You probably can think of something like this. Maybe it was a job, or a task assigned to you. Something you sought out to do, but fumbled around at first and then the movement becomes natural and you don’t think about it as much, and the product of it improves. It becomes something you might even be all right with telling someone you do well.

Over the last month I have reflected on the end of the day on a few things that likely wouldn’t have seemed possible to me a few decades ago. I can do an assessment in a school nursing office and confidently help the student, keeping student athletes in coband and others well with an investigative look to resources or problem solving for medical concerns. Without thinking I make homemade pasta sauce and cookies and cinnamon rolls for Mean Trains and fundraisers and the refrigerator that empties as soon as it is filled.

Am I the same person who can recall firefighters standing in my studio apartment – pointing to my big map of Ireland, reflecting which county their ancestors came – when a neighbor called them because I accidentally left a pot of boiling of water on my stove to go for a run?

I am a bit rusty on the writing, and I still keep my journals and these themes for Errant Daisy arise. I am always plotting the next adventure, but sometimes the adventure means running the hilly, rumbling grassy median near the city school where I work, or dancing in the living room with my daughter.

Thank you for reading, if you did. And, Rebecca, if you open your subscription here, I was so excited to receive you letter and laugh-cried throughout about your Indiana statehouse mission. You make the world better, brighter, and a correspondence will be on your way soon, my lovely friend.

Move with the rain, absorb the sunshine.

Love,

Traci

P.S. Post-it notes to my teenagers have evolved into Playlists I make for them. Here’s a happy song for you that demands a few torso and shoulder bounces to the beat. Full playlist here if you need a mellow mix.