Taste a mango or smell a rose or drink the rain.
This is the sweetness of creation.
I hold my baby. I feel the weight of her innocence. I surrender to her perfection. I believe there is nothing sweeter than her smell, her eyes, her voice, her smiles, her breath.
We stare at one another, both of us wonder struck. I coo and smile and she smiles back. Big smiles. Real smiles. Her lips twitch as she tries to hold it. Alas her face relaxes. It's all so much to take in.
She's so much to take in. A teeny tiny bundle of miracles, inside of me all those weeks.
I sit here on my patch of earth and I know I am a microscopic dot in the universe. But despite my smallness, the universe has generously offered me this privilege of coaxing a soul onto the planet, the joy of watching her unfold from a fetus swaddled in the warmth of my body to a little human whose arms and legs move freely in all directions.
And I feel lucky. I feel more significant than a microscopic dot. Because I am a conduit of divine intelligence; I am an instrument to demonstrate life's longing for itself; I am a mother; I can hear and feel things that others cannot.
My daughter communicates through the rhythm of her breath. When she is agitated, her breath quickens. When she needs me, her breath becomes a warning. When she is upset, her breath turns into a cry. And when she is awake, simply observing the intricacies of her surroundings, the wind of life moves quietly through her tiny body. Pliable and pure.
Six weeks ago I was full of baby, today I am full of awe. Not just for my baby, but for babies everywhere. For new life and the circle of life and the beauty of mere existence.
These things remind me why this journey is worth not only living, but loving. Breaking through the fear and the boundaries and letting ourselves love like a mother loves: with dangerous abandon.