As I am at the park today, my eagle eyes scan for my children as they weave in and out of a swarming maze of children and park equipment. Just the job of tracking them is enough to wear me out.
From time to time, I draw close to where they are playing and catch the words between them. This glimpse into their imaginary world together causes a pang in my heart. Maybe it is more like a catching of breath after a long run. In those moments of preciousness that is like an ache, I can suddenly get what the kindly stranger in the hardware store was talking about as he whipped out a picture from his wallet of his "baby." Now a young man smartly-dressed on his wedding day.
My two children are both now preschool age. Already. In lightning speed time. I remember just a few days ago rolling my eyes at my uncle waxing poetic about his two children. He said he never imagined feeling love and adoration like how he feels. He said he never imagined that would happen to him. He said he never imagined loving every little new thing they learned. He said he was so fascinated with his children. At the time, in my artistic early twenties, I thought he spoke in cliches. Now his two children, baby days long past, are ending their high school years and considering what college to go to. And here I am, feeling no older myself than the day I listened to my uncle, as I follow around my two as well as I can as they two run in different directions. And here I am as my two babies do crazy acrobatics on the park equipment that makes my hair stand up like a dog under attack.
My best friend just had a baby two weeks ago. I hold her slice of perfection in my arms today, as the wind plays with my hair and cools my cheeks just the right amount. The day is unusually sunny. In the Northwest that means, it is sunny. Everyone who could make it was out at the park. In the fray my children meet up with school friends and make new friends as the parents hover around, buzzards on the perimeter. We all bask in the sun of the moment.
Our kids migrate to the newly-designed splash park area, and my two head in fully dressed. He drenches his jeans until they sag down baring the crevice of his bottom. Her dress is plastered to her form as her feet pad eagerly and quickly after her big brother. I have that stop-my-heart feeling again.
My son finds a little girl he goes to school with and is holding her hand, running under streams of water, round and round together. They look like dancers in a waltz. My daughter, my no-longer baby, holds the edges of her completely drenched pink dress like she is going to curtsey, and runs with insistence after the two older ones like she does not want to miss the dance. A tiny bare-foot Cinderella with an upturned face. As I stand there loving them, I am suddenly rocking on the porch-swing of my future, looking back at this moment. Nostalgic for their little faces, their still-chubby hands, their zest for the adventure of life, the almost defiant way they play without stopping. I stand there and wish there was some way to pause the reel of my life. I stand there and wish to treasure this moment as they play in all seriousness. Vital, soaked, circling together.
I am still holding my dear friend's little newborn. I just know I am going to turn around and this tiny little child is going to be talking to me the world she imagines, about what she likes to explore. I will not feel any older. I can not explain the experience of how time flies, especially around the children and this season of life. It is like being on a train that does not stop. I look at her tiny eyes opening, the curve of a cheek beginning to fill in from being well-loved and much nursed. I smell her like a flower as the kids squeal and splash.
