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Just got home from a visit with Jane, the new baby. Amazing! Her fingers are so long and perfect and her eyes, huge almonds with gigantic pupils surrounded by indigo. It feels so good to hold a squirming baby - especially at this age when they still like to be held horizontally and close to the breast.
My friend worries about me. She worries that I am sad because of Jane; because I can't have one of my own. And I am a little. But it is a sort of bittersweetness, this sadness. I love my life, alone, with my husband. I love the time I get to spend with my niece and nephew, the role I get to play in their lives because of my freedom from parenthood.
And I still have that ache. Can't get rid of it, even after all these years of knowing that I'll never be a mommy. I think the ache, though, has become a bit of a friend to me. It gives me character, it makes me compassionate. Really, I wouldn't want it to go away. Knowing loss is a good thing.
October may well be my favorite month. I like the October sky. And there's something about the light that makes that crisp blueness pop. The light is golden.
October is very romantic to me. There is something particularly electric about the golden-ness that makes me think back to all of these autumns that K and I have been together. One of the first and sweetest memories is actually from a "we're just friends" stage (there were several of those). We decided to go hiking in Shelby Forest, just the two of us (Danger Will Robinson!). All day up and down the hills of the Forest we walked single file - sometimes I in front, sometimes he. The Forest was filled with shocking yellow gingkos and orange maples, and the beams of light from the afternoon sun captured the dust and insects swirling in the air. I tried hard not to pant - embarrassed at how quickly I could become breathless.
What was so exciting about the day was the palpable tension that was between us. All we could think of (and we only know this about eachother in retrospect) is how badly we wanted to strip off our clothes, lie in the leaves and make love. But we didn't. And I think that's why it's really such a great memory. Because it's fun to imagine that restraint sometimes, that longing that might or might not get filled, that ache. Mmmm Mmmm. Sweet.
