Meditation on impermanence as my last ‘Baby’ starts school!
Number Four
You were my last, the accumulation of a body stretched and practised enough for ease, for romance, for oxytocin, for peace in the living room… Instantly absorbed into the chaos of your big family, easy going, suck, suck, suck, slung around in the sling baby. Yoga baby.
Up at one… two… three… four… baby, but just breathed in, every stroke of your duckling hair the last, because I knew you would grow, I knew we would never be like this… like this… like this… like this… again, Baby.
The last one to breastfeed; no rush to stop, nothing to do but this, nowhere to be. You not even drinking but sucking, sucking, sucking, sucking… me drinking in the exquisite, ephemeral, exhausting nature of being needed by you, by anyone, like this… for the last time.
Four years, number Four: my little companion. No rush. Dreams, plans, practicalities… all at arms length, not waiting for but knowing they’d come, being with you in the ever shifting here and now. Each first – smiles, giggles, steps, words… the last time. Savoured.
School, the first day. The last time: the end of being Mama, like that. Not sure what like this feels like. What I am shifting again.
Breathing, tears on the surface, letting go.
