This is the stage of motherhood that doesn’t afford many glimpses in the mirror, and that proves to be good for the soul. Titus is 19 months old, and it reminds me of when Ian was this age and I was visiting Alabama with my sis, and she told me to look at her and then strongly suggested that I might want to pluck my eyebrows. Well, here I am again, in this stage with no earthly idea what’s happening to my face. It’s sun-spotted clean slate most of the time now, and Fayetteville is the perfect place for that.
It’s my hippy town, and I love it. I go to Little Bread Company as often as I can, and I weigh a happy 5 pounds heavier because of it. I nab the corner table and stand in line behind a women in her late fifties, long wavy hair, gorgeous, freshly brushed. She’s not wearing makeup either, totally unaware of me. She holds her arms out to the side and spins in circles, and her small grandson laughs so hard that he nearly falls over. His curly mess of napped up hair outlines his face like a rose. He eats a long bread-stick with seeds covering it, and once in a while it touches the floor. His daddy eggs him on, to continue in the laughing and spinning and eating of bread.
I’ve joined in now, laughing with the child, and I catch eyes with the whole family. “Isn’t it beautiful?” we think. A tambourine shakes and the rock is classic. The woman touches the hair of her son, the man. We’re laughing. It’s his birthday. Alfons Mucha is muralled on the wall.
Isn’t it raining today on the just and the unjust? Isn’t it raining on us all?
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joining Heather today for Just Write.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
What a lovely moment. I always enjoy seeing other parents taking in these fleeting moments with their children. It gives me hope.
dear amber- when i grow up i want to paint beautiful word pictures as you do. you words an open invitation to join you in the dancing and laughing and living of it all.
xo
i’m also going to learn to proof read my comments for spelling erros
The beauty in this (and for me, namely the grandmother) opened some flood gates
^^^ Didnt finish^^My boys are 8, 6 and 4 and I can forget to touch their hair NOW! what a thought…. touching my man childs hair…just grabbed me by my throat. in a good way…
Jess! That is exactly why I ditched everything I was there to write and had to write this. Seeing her made me just want to remember.
the just and the unjust. that slays me.
the humanity of this. the divinity of this. resplendent with life abundant to a seer’s eye.
thank you, Amber. i’ll be looking harder today.