From the Blog
One advantage to being a parent is the often unplanned early rising. There is no more effective alarm than a persistent child. This morning I woke not only to Baby J’s forceful crys (he has no snooze button!) but to something else. To the most perfect pink-purple, mottled-cloud, orange bordered sunrise.
You desperately need something to shift. To give. And you know that it will. Sometime soon. It’s the way of things. One day seeps; unstoppable into another. Today’s narrow focus; becomes lost in tomorrow’s vast forgetfulness. The single; thing that never stops ticking-on is time. You can be sure of that.
There’s nothing sweeter than watching a child sleep. Especially your own child. All that fresh, soft innocence stilled and at rest. The curl of their cheeks seem somehow plumper, squishier, under the dimmed, quieted light of night. Their eyelashes become impossibly long and thick, brushing against skin like fairy wings.
Before there was me there was my older brother Greg. Gregory David van der Kwaak. Or simply GVDK, as he was often known. Greg was, among other things (and there were many) a poet. Like many people of gifting, he started creating young. When Greg died in a car accident aged 22 he left in his wake a trail of grief the size of continents, and literally hundreds of people stumbling around in the darkness trying to stay upright his absence. But he also left behind something else. His words.
A few days ago this happened: I lost my iphone. I’m pretty sure it’s hiding somewhere in the apartment, not lost in the greater world. It’s just that no matter how many beds I look under, I can’t seem to find it. My last recollection of its being with me was a foggy 5am, when I was awake with the sun, and, as is often the case, with an over-active Baby J.
Watching my kids relate to each other fascinates me. Especially our oldest two. This earliest of bonds, this self-contained social world. I know it won’t always stay like this, but I’ll miss their cosy, uninhibited companionship when E and W grow up.
Sixteen years ago I saw a guy with a backpack across a crowded church. He was tall, dark and handsome (and in retrospect very, very young. If you doubt me at all, check out our pre-digital, pre-grey hair wedding photos…) But there was something about that guy even then.
The midwife’s wisdom She said it loud and clear
The first time I experienced acute anxiety I was twenty years old and sitting on the couch watching television. The storm of anxiety snuck up on me, and I was suddenly in its eyeball, my body lifted up from the cushions and whirled frantically around like a rag doll in a cyclone. There were people just next door in the kitchen, but I was all alone. I was helpless (or so I was convinced) before a force of such intense physical power I felt like the only way to escape would be to run with all my might.
One advantage to being a parent is the often unplanned early rising. There is no more effective alarm than a persistent child. This morning I woke not only to Baby J’s forceful crys (he has no snooze button!) but to something else. To the most perfect pink-purple, mottled-cloud, orange bordered sunrise.
You desperately need something to shift. To give. And you know that it will. Sometime soon. It’s the way of things. One day seeps; unstoppable into another. Today’s narrow focus; becomes lost in tomorrow’s vast forgetfulness. The single; thing that never stops ticking-on is time. You can be sure of that.
There’s nothing sweeter than watching a child sleep. Especially your own child. All that fresh, soft innocence stilled and at rest. The curl of their cheeks seem somehow plumper, squishier, under the dimmed, quieted light of night. Their eyelashes become impossibly long and thick, brushing against skin like fairy wings.
Before there was me there was my older brother Greg. Gregory David van der Kwaak. Or simply GVDK, as he was often known. Greg was, among other things (and there were many) a poet. Like many people of gifting, he started creating young. When Greg died in a car accident aged 22 he left in his wake a trail of grief the size of continents, and literally hundreds of people stumbling around in the darkness trying to stay upright his absence. But he also left behind something else. His words.
A few days ago this happened: I lost my iphone. I’m pretty sure it’s hiding somewhere in the apartment, not lost in the greater world. It’s just that no matter how many beds I look under, I can’t seem to find it. My last recollection of its being with me was a foggy 5am, when I was awake with the sun, and, as is often the case, with an over-active Baby J.
Watching my kids relate to each other fascinates me. Especially our oldest two. This earliest of bonds, this self-contained social world. I know it won’t always stay like this, but I’ll miss their cosy, uninhibited companionship when E and W grow up.
Sixteen years ago I saw a guy with a backpack across a crowded church. He was tall, dark and handsome (and in retrospect very, very young. If you doubt me at all, check out our pre-digital, pre-grey hair wedding photos…) But there was something about that guy even then.
The midwife’s wisdom She said it loud and clear as she paced the shiny white hospital floor, her solid black shoes tapping an inarguable beat:
The first time I experienced acute anxiety I was twenty years old and sitting on the couch watching television. The storm of anxiety snuck up on me, and I was suddenly in its eyeball, my body lifted up from the cushions and whirled frantically around like a rag doll in a cyclone. There were people just next door in the kitchen, but I was all alone. I was helpless (or so I was convinced) before a force of such intense physical power I felt like the only way to escape would be to run with all my might.
Join my email community and receive my regular e-letter, ‘The Anxie-Tea Leaves’—words steeped in hope.
