Child-ache

My daughter turned 1 on Thursday, and the birthday sent me into a bizarre headspace: for her, about her, all was clear...and all around me was a blur. I forgot the day and date, almost tripped a couple of times, lost sleep, forgot my words — all while sinking into the raw realness of the last year, my daughter's smell, her impressive ability to pull herself up to stand, her singing and babbling, and my bleary-eyed memories of when she was not even 6 pounds. The sound of her cry as a newborn, her tiny legs and feet and hands (now pudgy, all), her dark eyes seeing only my face as we pressed noses, her relentless nursing, and the waves of feeling far-too-young-for-this and far-older-than-I-thought-I-was.

This week is more clear, practice is astonishing me in ways that I will try to express eventually, and I am in the midst of an intense work week that demands my full attention. But in moments like this one, this handful of minutes between projects, I turn my mind to her and I am with her: soft, ethereal, sweet, a collection of memories as much as she is a physical being. I see the mystery of a parent who looks back on the speed of a child's life; I see how it creates awe, melancholy, a frustration that it can't be paused, and a dull, blissful ache.