I haven’t written much lately. I’ve had other things to do that, for once, are clearly more important. But here it is, 2:09 on a Wednesday morning, so early it is still late and so late it’s almost early.
I’m awake at this time most days, now.
It’s been more than a year since I’ve seen my family. I visited them last February on the east coast, flying into New York and out of Maryland several days later. I’m so grateful I took that chance to see them; like everyone, I locked down soon after.
This is the longest I’ve ever been away from those folks. It was a sad moment to realize so much time has passed, and I briefly felt alone in a way I don’t often feel, as if I am rattling around the world without people, without roots, without something tethering me in place.
But then I looked down, saw the little one in my arms. My thoughts changed; I became distracted by a set of perfect, tiny ears. How did my body know to create such miracles? To draw such curves, to design the pinna, to smooth the pathways inward, build the canal and the drum and so much more?
It’s one of many, many miracles I hold these days, sometimes when the world is asleep.
This baby here? Astoundingly, this is my baby, my child. My love.
There is so much to say about pregnancy in a pandemic. So much to process. But this sweet child has grown my heart a thousandfold, dwarfs the magnificent sadness I feel about the distance from people I love.
You see, it turns out that I am not far from all of my family. My family is right here, laying upon me: filling my home, filling my heart, filling my life. And to be this little person’s mom has broadened every definition I know, deepening my understanding of this whole, sweet, complicated world.
I am learning what a joy it is to be someone else’s roots, someone else’s tether; to be the place where someone, with perfect and tiny ears, begins.
The Wandering Introvert 