mommy loves to wr -

A couple weeks ago, I found a shard of green chalk at the playground while Theo was rooting around in the sand for pine cones. I wrote Theo's name on the sidewalk for him, and after he eloquently scribbled over top of that for a while, started to write my own little message to the world: Mommy loves to wr -

Interrupted by one of those lazy fall wasps, meandering just a touch too near my son's face.

I'm amused by the turnings my mind takes when a piece of chalk turns up in the sand: First, that my son's name comes first; and then, when I'm with him, I'll always write Mommy for me; and if a dash away from his danger means a dash away from my self-expression, so be it.

But also that I still love to write. It's just that, at the moment, my voice is busy singing to a little one, and rediscovering the incredibly complex syllabics of our spoken word with him, and murmuring into the chosen, holy wordlessness of mother's milk.

So be it.