It’s Time To Go Again + The Nights Surrounding Mother’s Day
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// ramble on //
Hello friends. I so wish I could get my shit together and actually send out my writings when I write them, instead of making a whole thing about it. I hardly even change anything when I finally get to compiling, but for some reason it’s just a gigantic step for me to sit down and actually structure and send these emails. (Well, maybe the “some reason” is that I have approximately 1 hour to myself every day.) Anyway, maybe I’ll change the nature of Hi Let’s Life so the sends feel more casual for me. Maybe I won’t, as brain space for re-thinking is limited. Time will tell. Speaking of time, wtf? 2020 was a decade, and 2021 has been 5 minutes yet somehow it’s half over. I hope you’re doing okay and somehow holding it together in these still-very-trying times. Things are quite optimistic in L.A. given vaccination rates, everything opening up, and the prospect of herd immunity in July. but when you have an unvaccinated toddler, it doesn’t feel that smart to just run back into a mask-less world and resume old, free life. But at least some of the sheer fear is gone, I’ve seen my new neighbours’ faces and they all have lovely smiles, Phish tour’s been announced, etc.
Let’s get on with some recent musings…
// it’s time to go, again //
On the move.
3–4 years? Sounds about right.
About as long as I stay in one place.
They say moving is one the most stressful things one can do. Right up there with losing a loved one and the ending of a marriage. But… I’ve grown to love it. Practice makes perfect, I suppose.
Moving turns your life into neat little packets,
Tied with a bow.
In my case?
The period where I lived alone in a tiny apartment in The Annex, so independent and free. Where I fell madly in love.
The period in the condo in Toronto’s East end, where I worked hard and played hard, got engaged and married.
The period where I moved into the home I thought I’d be in for a while, before learning a couple months in that I had the opportunity to move to L.A. I stayed just a short seven months, but man that mini-packet of life was a blast. Soaking in every last moment of living in Toronto. My people.
On to my first month in L.A. Just four weeks, but a period in and of itself. Hopping from Airbnb to Airbnb, Silverlake to Santa Monica. Floating in a sunshine daydream.
And my last packet, almost four years in a little back-house bungalow in Los Feliz. The neighborhood that stole my heart. The perfect, quiet street — walking distance to the hills on one side and the main street on the other. Under the watchful spell of Griffith Observatory. Home base as I explored my new, magic city and glorious state. Where I went through pregnancy, labour, and became a new mom. Cuddled, fed, and entertained my sweet baby from infancy to toddlerhood. Sheltered-in-place for a year while a pandemic raged all around.
It’s so easy to look back at life like this.
Periods defined by time and place. What was your life like when you lived there? Most importantly: how did you feel?
My heart flutters as I remember exactly what the first light of morning looked like as it streamed through each bedroom window. I close my eyes and I’m hazily eating late-night pizza on that couch, at that table, on that floor — after nights filled with music and dance, laughter and beer.
A deep breath and my lungs fill with the air from walks in all seasons on each surrounding street. I feel the warmth of moments with friends. The frustration of stress at work. The anxiety of hard decisions made. Long hugs. Soft beds.
And in hindsight, it’s so easy to see the tremendous growth and change I went through in the years between each set of walls, before I was ready for the next. It’s always me going in the door for the first time and out for the last time. But while the space stays the same, I do not.
Is moving laborious? It’s exhausting.
Is it sad? Heart breaking.
Does it feel big? Momentous.
Do I have doubts about where I’m going? Every time.
But now that I’ve been here so many times before, I know magic is about to unfold. That I don’t know what I’ll find, but it’ll change my life and change me — and one day be a neat little packet, tied with a bow.
// the night before mother’s day //
It was the night before Mother’s Day, and I was lying in bed with my 22-month-old son thinking he’d already fallen asleep. He was finally quiet and still, his breathing slow. But then he turned his head back towards mine and said “…mummy” with a soft smile on his lips, and gently stroked my face. Then he fluttered his thick lashes on my cheeks for a few moments, before turning back over and really falling asleep.
“And this, on the night before Mother’s Day…” I thought to myself as my heart glowed.
I transferred him to his crib, went upstairs to eat takeout Thai, did nothing of value with my only spare hours of the day, then eventually got back into my bed.
At 3:32AM, I woke up to the thick smell of skunk. I got up to close the window, and as soon as I lay back down, I heard “mummy…mummy…mummy…” through the baby monitor.
He was lying down whimpering for me, but he sounded scared and I’ve always told him that no matter what, I’ll come. (It doesn’t happen often.) So I got back out of bed, and went to his room. He stood up immediately. “Mummy daddy bed. Mummy daddy bed.” I know by now there’s no other way this situation ends, so I brought him into our bed.
We shared my pillow cuddling, me with 1ft of space for my whole adult-size body, him with 4ft for his tiny one. It still reeked like skunk, so I lay with my neck twisted and my nostrils facing in the less-repugnant direction. I was contorted and uncomfortable, trying not to disturb my toddler, not to move my head… ugh.
Eventually I decided I needed to open the window again, and while I was up I got a lavender pouch from one of my drawers to keep near my face in hopes it would overpower the stench. When I got back into bed, I held the lavender up to my obviously-not-sleeping-yet son’s nose and told him to smell. He took one sniff and said “hold, hold” so I let him hold it — and that was the last of the lavender pouch for mama.
So there he lay, with his 4ft of space and my lavender scented pouch while I squeezed into my corner with no respite.
About an hour of discomfort passed, and now the open window was making me cold. I wanted to pull my blanket up to cover my arms, but his face was at my chest height… so I couldn’t even bring my blanket any higher.
And as I lay there on Mother’s Day eve, I couldn’t help but think how perfect the whole thing was. How the night had begun with him sweetly caressing my face and me melting in his love, and ended with me cold, uncomfortable, stuck, and being suffocated by a skunk while he lay sleeping like a prince.
// a quick one from the quote note //
“Is not this contribution of the devoted mother unrecognized precisely because it is immense? If this contribution is accepted, it follows that every man or woman who is sane, every man or woman who has the feeling of being a person in the world, and for whom the world means something, every happy person, is in infinite debt to a woman.”
- Donald Winnicott
// the night after mother’s day //
Tonight you fell asleep on me as if you were two-months-old. Out of nowhere, you climbed on top of me, your legs on either side of my body, and lay your head on my chest.
But unlike when you were two-months-old, you had the words to say “heartbeat, heartbeat” as you placed your ear on different parts of my chest until you found your spot. Right on top of my heart. And to my complete shock, you just lay there, my almost-two-year-old, quietly falling asleep.
I lay in absolute bliss. Soaking in every second, just as I did when you were a newborn. Feeling the warmth of your small body, the softness of your skin, your silky hair brushing my lips. I focused on the rise and fall of your breath, how it flowed with mine. And how blown to pieces with gratitude I was to get this moment with you, my darling son, once more.
And as I lay in a mother’s version of heaven, you tilted your head and looked up at me. But unlike when you were two-months-old, you had the words to sweetly say “hi mummy,” then gently stroke my face with a look of pure love in those eyes I’ve stared into daily since the moment you were born. Then you closed them again, and softly fell asleep.
I couldn’t help but think that the words you whispered were what every newborn is experiencing when they sleep on mama’s chest, with no words to express that most natural, primal, instinctual position. They search for the sound of the beating heart that’s soothed them since the womb. They know it’s mama, and want to be nowhere else. Their feelings are regulated. Their brain is quiet. And they safely fall asleep.
“heartbeat. heartbeat.
hi mummy.”
I will never forget tonight.
❤ Leora
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