Summer Girls
There were two summers where all I remember is walking laps. Walking laps during the baby witching hour between 5:30pm and 6:30pm. Walking in a rectangle in our old back yard bouncing a baby girl, telling her of all we were seeing. Each little lap saying the same whispers in her ear about the airplanes and the birds and the green we were encircled by. Baby girl one started this tradition. I, desperate for a reprieve, shuffled my fussy babe out of the kitchen where I was trying to concoct something edible for our family, to our small section of the world. Our baby sized land bustling with its own purpose. I would walk and walk and walk, not having the time to remind me of my present exhaustion from the day behind. Just the bunnies and the occasional breezes and the worship songs that made me cry.
Baby girl number two was born 2 years and 359 days after baby girl number one. Their seasons have mirrored each others and the spring/summer laps happened once more. The memories were so strong as I found myself back in this scene. This scene that had me on my knees, begging God to make the ordinary something extra-ordinary. Desperate for my daughters to know their worth, desperate to remember my own. Baby bunnies found respite in our small rectangle yard, their mama's sensing safety there. I found myself proud to share our space with those mama's and their littles. Oh but the laps seemed never ending at times. The fusses without a true remedy and my limping body could hardly bring myself to do it again. But I kept on, I walked, I ached body and spirit. Where does a tired mother go to find God?
At dusk tonight I watched my girls, 5 and 2, play pretend in our yard. A different house with a new plot of land and a stable front porch. I watched them laugh and dance and catch fireflies and I was brought back to the summer evenings where I walked laps with both of them. Lots of those baby days felt wretched for me, not poetic, but stagnant. But I am so glad I walked with them. I am filled with something unspeakable as I think about the building blocks of love and trust that those laps held for them. I am filled knowing God kept my legs moving when I didn't think they could because that means He'll do it again. He will help me do what I don't think I can do for beauty I cannot understand. Oh my magical girls and the evenings we shared that at times felt like a curse, have turned into a painting in my mind of a great big God who was delighting in the beginnings of us.
Baby girl number two was born 2 years and 359 days after baby girl number one. Their seasons have mirrored each others and the spring/summer laps happened once more. The memories were so strong as I found myself back in this scene. This scene that had me on my knees, begging God to make the ordinary something extra-ordinary. Desperate for my daughters to know their worth, desperate to remember my own. Baby bunnies found respite in our small rectangle yard, their mama's sensing safety there. I found myself proud to share our space with those mama's and their littles. Oh but the laps seemed never ending at times. The fusses without a true remedy and my limping body could hardly bring myself to do it again. But I kept on, I walked, I ached body and spirit. Where does a tired mother go to find God?
At dusk tonight I watched my girls, 5 and 2, play pretend in our yard. A different house with a new plot of land and a stable front porch. I watched them laugh and dance and catch fireflies and I was brought back to the summer evenings where I walked laps with both of them. Lots of those baby days felt wretched for me, not poetic, but stagnant. But I am so glad I walked with them. I am filled with something unspeakable as I think about the building blocks of love and trust that those laps held for them. I am filled knowing God kept my legs moving when I didn't think they could because that means He'll do it again. He will help me do what I don't think I can do for beauty I cannot understand. Oh my magical girls and the evenings we shared that at times felt like a curse, have turned into a painting in my mind of a great big God who was delighting in the beginnings of us.
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