The Wonder(ful) Years

We walked through the doorway of our Uncles new(old) home, and though I’d never been there before I was flooded with feelings of calm and familiarity. The first thing I noticed was the expansive(cozy) living room flanked in ivory paint. The warm(cool) cream colored functional furniture filled the room with life, and tucked behind the large sofa was a stairway creeping up all the way back towards my childhood.

First things first, I did not dare conquer the second flight without first exploring its foundation, although I found my eyes wandering up with curiosity and excitement. I began the inaugural dance, glance by glance from room to room. The kitchen seemed to cling on to the vestiges of its youth and filled my eyes with visions of its former inhabitants. What was once a stylish kitchen for its time, is now only a misunderstood skeleton of a former life. The cabinet knobs with inlaid paintings of tulips in colors so faint, and above the windows were carved wood borders so quaint I just had to appreciate. I basked in the vintage feel of the room, wondering why homes are not built this way any longer. Though its corners and walls were clearly many years of age, the home showed no real evidence of grit and seemed to have only absorbed the lives which passed through it.

And I felt it emanate through the walls, and breathed it in like a sponge.

To the second floor! My eyes floated above scampering feet to greet the next level. With soft cushion-y(firm) carpet nestled between my toes, my heart was aflutter. Which way? In love with the feeling of new(old)ness and not knowing where anything was, who’s room is this?

Discovery.

In the smallest bedroom with angled misshapen ceilings, shelves and drawers built directly into its walls and more nooks and crannies than an... I saw my younger self curled up into one of its crevices. Inventing games, poems, and stories about the real purpose of each slant of the roof and every minute detail of the space. But the real treasure was hidden inside one of the closets. As if an ordinary closet did not encase enough curiosity for a child’s imagination, a brave soul once ventured forth beyond the hanging garments, toward the darkness and revealed another door! A place all to yourself, any child’s(adult’s) dream.

With my eyes open wide like flashlights I examined the simple(complex) wooden door. Not too small and not very tall, just low enough that you’d have to crouch slightly to enter. No doubt the secret entrance to an ultra secret universe where I was a Princess with access to all the Barbie dolls and jaw breakers my heart could conjure. Or maybe it was the gateway to a magic fantasy land where rivers overflowed with chocolate milk and I floated along on a giant marshmallow flaunting a jellybean encrusted candy cane baton. I was all too enamored by the limitless possibility behind that small door and I was no longer looking at my young self in the corner, I became her. And it was a welcomed(welcomed) reunion.

For in that moment, I was catapulted back to the times when things were exactly what they seemed to be, untainted by the cunning of the world that surrounded. A time when every tile in the bathroom, and every pattern in the carpet held infinite prospect for my fibrillating imagination. The lines between the tiles became a road map to a secret treasure, and the squares on the fiery red carpet were islands floating atop scorching lava, so you’d better be careful not to slip between. When the mirror was much more than a reflecting glass, but the evil abode of an elusive Bloody Mary. The years when everything around me held and radiated awe.

I stood melting into the dreams of my youth while composing new ones of a childhood I might have had if I spent it within these walls. Thawed out by the warmth of this home I was brought back(returned) to the years of wonder.

So, remember.

From Nothing

In the long quiet hours that I find myself imparting life from my life into my new little babe, I am given many moments to enjoy the silence of night. It is as if it is just her and I in the entire world. Quiet.

Outside my window I look for inspiration, but I find that I’m holding it instead. Looking through the window all I am returned with is the shallow wind whispering to her slumbering neighbors, that yes... the world is still here awaiting you when you open your eyes. The leaves quiver in response. The lights turn on and off on the street as if unnoticed, muttering its own language as the lights turn on and off through the windows in return.

Her eyes open and close and and pierce my heart with each movement and the anticipation of each movement. My entire world is curled up in a ball right before me, now my life is suddenly made more important through hers. As I sit and watch her fluttering eyelashes, like the folding back of petals in the sun, I cannot help but be completely and utterly lost in the idea that this life emerged from nothing. My human mind may perhaps never be equipped to understand the concept, and I pray it never does because maybe in that moment I might find that life has lost its meaning.

Feeling her touch, I struggle to accept the fact that she is indeed real. A real living breathing little version of me that didn’t exist before. She is the embodiment of love, and my heart swells with the thought, ‘if love was a person...’ The petals of her face fold back revealing a beautiful perfect piece of me, the best part of me and the best part of her father. Her arms reach out to me, and with her eyes closed tight, I know they will find me. In the darkness of night, she will reach out to find that I am there with her. Always.

And my own reflection deceives me. Who is this woman?

As I catch the image of my face in the mirror as I walk passed, I had to take a pause. Who was she, holding a baby girl no less. How quickly can your world change, my eyes will take more time to adjust to this new reflection. You can walk through life and never really see yourself. It was as if I was looking at someone else holding their child so close and I realize that this person also came from nothing. From absolute nothingness into absolute and utter living breathing thinking loving trusting real-ness. I was seeing my new self for the very first time. In an instant. And it will take much more than an instant to ever attempt to understand the temporary permanence of it all.

And into nothing, we shall all return.