assignment #1

since i have deemed myself unfit for thinking up blog topics, or just too brain dead by the time i get around to doing it, i decided to ask my husband, who always has a plethora of ideas floating on the surface of the deep pools of his brain, to give me an assignment.
(that may be the third longest sentence i've ever written. high fives!)

assignment #1: write a brief description of something you remember from our time in guatemala.

just a small trigger like that lights up a racing stream of memories full of color, shapes, smells, sounds and emotions. if you search the history of my blog, you'll find abbreviated reports of those times. but words don't seem to do it justice. i know that david, a master of words, may find that impossible. but i, who adore words, simple and plain, grand and majestic, evocative and poetic, am throughly felled by the thought of putting all the thoughts of my heart into words. it is a seemingly impossible task. i so envy and admire those who make it seem effortless. perhaps that's why i fell in love with david.

the other problem is that i can't seem to stay on topic.
one idea leads to another, which leads to another, and another...

the assignment.
guatemala.
meeting my daughter.
my first days as a mother.

i remember basking in the glow of little things. like changing her diaper, even the messy ones. giving her bath- clumsily. seeing her barefeet and touching her bare limbs. and her feather soft hair. and it was long enough to be styled!
my own perfect sweaty, breathing, mouth gaping, dark eyed (so dark i must peer deeply and squintily in just the right light to see the pupils- i found them tonight at bedtime) doll baby.

belief and disbelief co-existing.
already furiously smearing the lines of what is and isn't.
my neatly drawn plan of "how it will be".
breaking me down slowly. only to build me up again. new.
i see that more now, but i had no idea, then.
i was gloriously blissfully confident. i was a mother. and i would do it right, now and always. God bless my foolish youthful pride.

Proud indeed. Proud as peaches to be the mommy of this darling, everyone-can't-stop-admiring little girl. that. that pride hasn't really gone. but it has morphed. into some kind of better pride. i think.
there is a good kind of pride. i don't exactly have that all figured out... i think it's kinda like when Paul says "i will boast in the LORD".

still.
a moment remembered.
standing her on her little feet (in the too big but so cute little tennis shoes, and the too big but so cute little ruffled at the bottom pants over little darling onsie) in front of the big mirror. watching her look at herself and me and kick jumping-like and smiling at our reflection. us. her and her new mommy. admiring us. cause we're here.

it wasn't easy getting there. it's not always easy getting where we're going. but we'll get there together. and be happy at least as many times as we are sad or mad or confused.

it's silly how it takes me by surprise sometimes, this love that wells up wave like in my heart and eyes. ever since our time in guatemala.