[refine]

Refinement, so sweet. Like sugar. Like understanding light. Waves, patterns, the sacred trembling of the universe. The sound of my son's voice, ringing out around the house. The sound of life in the mornings, low-humming radio, oven buzzing, laughing baby, whimpering dog, the freeway in the not-too-distant distance. The lightwaves and the frequency.

How often do I stop to smell the rose? We go for walks down the street, takes an eternity, since we stop at every flower garden to count every butterfly and bee. I am so grateful for the bees, who are in danger of disappearing from our planet. I love how they take nectar from the morning glories or the lantana or the marigolds, and refine it into an even thicker substance, into honey. Like the light moving from the eyes down into the core of the pelvis. The place where he grew from one into eight. And then some. How orderly the division, how echoing the green, how narrow the hallway the birth canal the chance we take, to get to be born human, to be born at all, to count all the perfect fingers and toes and breathe, the deep relief I feel when I do not brace, the perfect symmetry of it all in hindsight, how much deeper. How much sweeter. How much denser, darker, lighter the unfolding. And the unfolded.

I want to tune him like my guitar, be consistent with my words, patient with my hands, loving with my eyes, firm with my voice, soft outside but strong inside. Every day it gets better. More refined. Even me, burnished by the strife and the fire and the constant grating of my will vs his. Burnished dross, turned to gold. The tiny speck of gravel turned into the pearl by the nacre. My words for him. My sense of my self. It's getting better all the time.

[real]

my favorite childhood book was "the velveteen rabbit." it's about the toy bunny who longs to be real, and the little boy who loved him into existence. every time i think about it i get this dull aching heart and my spirit soars upward, lifting my little girl face to the sky and praying, wondering, if i too will ever become real.

watching my baby boy grow up before my eyes has peeled back the layers of protection i had so carefully placed over all of me, or a moat, a shield, a circle of fire. the drawbridge of my life has opened for the wrong random strangers and left angels outside, waiting. with my boy, i feel as alive i did when i was six, seven, ten, twelve. i want him to know how everything works. he asks me a thousand times a day, "what's that?" even when he already knows the answer.

he wanted to wear his costume twice. he wanted to learn how to knock on a stranger's door and say "trick or treat!" he danced circles in the living room until he fell and hit his head on the doorframe. not to mention the fact of a doorframe, but there, i mentioned it.

so i look at him and i learn how it is that i came to be, after all: my daddy and mommy made me out of fire and food. they bred me. they bore me. and they loved me. just like we. just like i. just like he.