I spent a lovely few hours yesterday in a hospital room on a maternity ward with Local K and her newborn baby. There is something so peaceful about that one happy corner of the hospital, where all is quiet and the outside world disappears as you gaze at tiny fingers and hustle to attend to the hint of a weak cry. M and E have been awaiting this birth for months, especially eagerly for the last week, and they were utterly besotted. They took turns holding him--I barely got my hands on him, except during transfers from one girl to the other--and their gentle bliss was almost enough to make me want another baby, though that semi-urge was easily squelched by their squabbles over who got to hold him and whether the other could come anywhere near when he was in the arms of the one.
The hospital is downtown and after we left, we had Vietnamese food for dinner and went shoe shopping before taking public transportation home (a post on spring shoes may be forthcoming--the situation is dire).
Though we've lived in Blue State for almost two years, and for S and the girls I think it is thoroughly home, I still feel oddly transitional, largely, I think, because of my job situation, but also, probably, because I am the introspective one of the family. So I think often about the fact and nature of our living here. Going to visit a new friend's new baby; hearing her tell M and E, when I say I won't have another baby, that her baby will be their little brother; public transportation; the diverse vitality of East Coast Big City; my children comfortable with all of it: these are things that make me feel at home.
[This one is for Kelly.]
1 comment:
sweetness.
I think you nail it with the fact of being the introspective one. If I look back at all of the places I've lived (many, many, many) aspects felt like home but always, always part of me waited for something else. I wonder if that will ever end? I wonder if I began to travel more if that would cure the longing?
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