The Space Between Us

Weeks are speeding by. The birth of myself as someone's mother is on the horizon. Sometimes I put my hands on my belly and think about how there is no space between us. There are layers of skin and flesh that surround her body, kept some distance from my head where the wondering happens, but really she is me. And I am her. The outside of her body is bathed in the insides of mine. The inside of her body is created from what I am, what I think about. We are each other.

In creation, I want to add ingredients like dancing and pragmatism and compassion and genius. The spinach I eat for our bodies contains calcium and iron, and that part is easy, but I can only hope that the joyful tremors shaking my body from my laughter will be used in the fabrication of her light and elated heart. I hope the love I feel for simple things like hugging and cooking and springtime help to form the blue box of her mind, help to shape her ability to understand that she is a gift and a light. I want her strength to shine, and when I look at her, I want to be reminded of serendipities and synchronicities and ephemera, of lucky stars and worthy challenges and a love-filled life whose brilliance is unmistakable.

I like to think of her practicing her smiles in secret, grinning in my torso. She presses her little feet against my belly and I press back and dance her around when she gets very squirmy. I know this is the beginning of the awe I will feel for having participated in creation on this level. I hope I will always be able to remember, with gratitude, the visceral, ecstatic force of our inter-nestled lives.