Presence. 

With my children, I am present. 

The way I wait while Zoe haltingly speaks, starting and stopping before she strings her words together, until finally the garland that is her sentence is strung before me, her thought process complete . She tells me her secrets and I hold them close, I hold her close, until she is ready to move onto something else. 

I stay the course, ever present, while my teen girl travels her waves of emotion. Standing still I give her something to hold on to, I am present , if she reaches out for me. 

I am present with my husband,  as we connect in the after work hours. We sit and consider our day, filling the space of the hours we spent apart. We compare and critique and the children sometimes sneak in to our present conversation. And then we all come together again at the table for dinner. 

In the evening there is homework, and reading time and baths. Medicines and schedules, and must-do things that parents do each night. 

There is laughter and sometimes tears, and hand holding and hugs and when I am done, I am happy to be climbing into bed with my husband again. 

The bottle of Pinot Grigio I bought just for me,  still unopened on the kitchen counter.  

On my desk is the new book I want to read, still untouched. 

My favorite television show has been recorded. 

The colored threads are sorted, and the patterned muslin clipped into a hoop, where a  sharpened embroidery needle rests waiting for my hand to hold, while it gathers a fine dust. 

In the bathroom there is a deep tub , that used to only be mine,  alongside it a deeply piled grey rug to comfort my tired wet feet, after. There is also a shelf lined with bath salts for soaking,  lavender, euculyptus and green tea,  preserved to stay fresh in their unopened jars.  

In the dark, I finally sink into the softness of my pillow, alongside side my husband again, his hand is on my waist and content I can’t help,  but to fall off to sleep. 

My eyes are closed yet I can see the words I scribbled into my writers notebook today, before me, one after another. Overflowing words I need to empty onto the page.  

Tomorrow I will try harder. 

Tomorrow I will let the list of things-to- do linger and grow longer.  

Tomorrow, I  will drink some wine and pour those salts into a deep hot bath, just for me.

I will read a book sitting in our pretty room I never sit in- and then I will write the words that need to flow.  

My hands will reach for my forgotten project, and I will sit upon my couch and watch my favorite show. 

Tomorrow, I promise I will try a little harder- 

To be present with myself. 

Presence. 

I used to run right by it, before I was a Mom. Simplicity, the beauty of the simple things in the moment.

My standard pace was more of an easy run than a walk, easy to achieve with long legs that allow for leaping steps. And sometimes when my husband and I are out alone ( a sitter at home with the kids, the clock ticking) I return to this habit, when it is just he and I ."  Slow down " he tells me. " We aren't in a hurry"  he reminds me.

When Zoe began her preschool years, we started taking her walker everywhere and I learned not to ever hurry, it was unfair to rush her, so I learned to slow down even more to her speed. I would call out the flowers on the path as we passed them by, I learned to  listen to the songs of the birds in our desert. 

From our life I have gained perspective, and embraced simplicity.

The simple things, like opening the doors to our patio at Sunday dinner, because finally, the desert is cooling off. 

Delight.

Sometimes the subtle things, they can slip by. The start of school this year brought change. So. Much. Change. My first born teen girl adjusting to high school, where everything was new; the scratchy uniforms, friends,rules, hours of homework and higher expectations. My heart felt overly full her angst and excitement, with her beauty and with amazement that my first girl, is so grown up. 

My daughter Zoe started her second year of middle school with a new sense of awareness, asking me to to fix the “ little girl “ pattern on her new wheelchair seat, so sure was she, that its pale design would make her stand out, that kids would stare at it. And so I spent hours filling in pale yellow stars with a black fabric marker, eager to erase whatever unease I could. 

And then in all of this back to school flurry, Zoe got sick. Really sick. The kind of sick that causes a kid to miss twenty days of school and back and forth calls and appointments with doctors and specialists. I felt pulled back to a time when she was little and her sickness was all consuming.  

But this was different. Zoe is older and smarter and her tear-filled eyes would meet mine and she would ask me over and over, when it would stop, ask me why she was so sick.