I am standing in front of the kitchen sink, washing out a bottle like I've done blindly for the last 3.5 weeks.   Quite surprisingly, and just as fleeting an exit as its entrance, some sort of deeply-embedded bliss finds its way to my brain.  "I have a baby."  The backyard is lush and inviting, the perfect summer breeze teasing the wind-chime in just the right timbre.   It was so real.

I blink, and the moment is gone.  I hear Bowie telling me to get ready to nurse, and so back to my duties - which are not without pleasure, but are certainly, at this stage anyway, performed in a rote trance, half asleep, desperate for something unnameable.  Perhaps it's that I know (and maybe feel guilty about) I am more than a mother, that this isn't enough to culminate my existence.  My brain reminds me of this perpetually.  And so I look deeper into the crevasse of personal interest and intellectual pursuits.  What will I find there?  Where have I put those books of poetry?

Ah, false alarm.  She has put herself back to sleep as she knows she doesn't get picked up or rescued at the first sign of dismay. She will lie in her bassinet calmly, her big blue eyes roaming the room, taking in light and shadow, entertaining herself.  She's already a big girl, patient and pure.  She has given me a few moments to write, to understand my rambling self, which rambled into a moment of bliss and then rambled right back out.  

"You lived here?  But it's so beautiful."

"Oui, it was too beautiful for me, I had to leave."

French Kiss