“I had plenty of time
when my daughter was a baby,”
my friend tells me.
“It was just lost in the transitions.”
She means the transitions
between eating and sleeping
between dishes and laundry
between what was and what is.
Motherhood means dwelling within these transitions.
Residing in the space between one necessity and the next
nodding to the time that slips away
and surrendering all expectation.
Inefficiency is the name of the game
a game that moves at its own speed, just as
yellow leaves fall slowly, inexorably into the creek
and the creek flows slowly, inexorably into the sea.
I wallow in the throes of inefficient adoration
the crinkle of a brow
the grasp of a hand
the gurgle in a breath.
I used to minimize the transitions
to live more fully in the spaces before and after.
Now I linger luxuriously in the creases and joints that
link what I used to call ‘real life.’
The time that is lost while I linger in the transitions
is simply an exhale of breath
an internal rotation toward accepting
the beauty of the present moment.
