Gifts (Mother, May I?)

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  • My Oliver’s tush. So pert and perfect, at the age of 7, it still fits, just barely, in one of my hands. Stop growing, sweet Ol. Stop.
  • Jack’s aquamarine crystals, aka his eyes. They flash and sparkle with so much intelligence. I think he will change the world. At the least he might set the record for single-longest single-person filibuster. 
  • Photographs. Snapshots of the best times and also some of the harder ones. Reminders of moments that feel both infinite and ephemeral. I surround myself with these.
  • Oliver's ability to quietly observe and take in everything. His creativity. Jack's too.
  • My garden.
  • My canning pot.
  • The moment I return home from dropping my boys at school and realize that my home is quiet and will be for a short while.
  • Zoloft.
  • The recent morning that Jack’s buddy was still here post-sleepover. Both boys were still in jammies, and I was still in bed, and Jack, nearly 10, came and got in bed with me for “morning snuggle” while his pal waited in my doorway. It was slightly odd but utterly dear. My darling Jack…if his head weren’t attached. He’s the best sort of clueless. “I love you, Mom” he calls out as he heads into school. He is not too cool yet. Not at all.
  • Little boy humor that makes me belly laugh until it hurts. Read: the recent USS Anus discovery.
  • Watching the world through their eyes. Two stickers given at a boat shop in North Carolina. Jack saw, realistically, a boat. Oliver saw a pair of pants. The stickers are on the rear passenger doors of my car- as a boat and as a pair of pants. When I look at them, I smile, and I remember that no one way is necessarily the right way of seeing.
  • My husband who last week fixed our broken air conditioner with an $18 part and then also mowed the lawn. He is so capable. He teaches our boys to tinker and fix, to ask questions, to want to know why and how. They are lucky for his influence.
  • A morning latte. An evening cocktail.
  • My fluffy, fat, hilarious, buff-orange dog-cat, Nutmeg.
  • Nanny.
  • That Mom came up because I needed her to. That she can teach me how to prune bushes. That she dug up, carefully packaged, and brought me a blackberry bush from Papa's original patch. He planted those about sixty years ago. I still have tears in my eyes over this gift.
  • Daddy and his glassy-lake calm.
  • My sister and our friendship.
  • Benedict Cumberbatch, my unbeknownst-to-him boyfriend.
  • Lake Nakuru and the flamingo migration.
  • Little hands slipped into mine, trusting and loving. That they are my boys!
  • Tomato plants and all that they promise.
  • A room of my own with a soft, fuzzy rug and empty journals and natural light.
  • That I am warm and safe and loved.