Wild Thing
I will write now of this new wild thing, this one who snuggles with the dog and revels in the little things, this one who cannot get enough of pressing up close to your soft warm body, this one who delights in each falling leaf, each photo of the grandchild who heralds a new generation that we get to dote upon without being responsible for.
I will write of this joyful one who says she is wonderful and means it, whose face reveals decades of smiling at strangers and striking up conversation and being insatiably curious about the world, this one who would go just about anywhere on your arm, and I say “just about” not because of any restriction from myself but because there are places that would not have us, where what we are and what we have would not be celebrated, and who needs that thank you very much.
I will write to this one who was born with what my grandmother called searching eyes, smiling eyes. What was I searching for then, what made me smile? Could it have been simply the marvel of having arrived here in a body, a roly-poly baby body with thighs and cheeks and such a belly, the kind you just want to reach out and squeeze?
I will write to her, this wild thing who wanted to learn every language and say, you still can, keep the dream alive, and this wild thing who pictured sitting in a rocking chair in a little house nursing her babies, which she did, I did, and how glorious those hours were, the hours that were days, weeks, and months, all the while knowing it would change and savoring it all the more because of that.
I will write to the wild thing who writes with abandon, not spell-checking or thinking first but running headlong into the next sentence and the next, saying come, come run with me down this dirt road, look at the light, look at the sky, look at this beautiful world, look at the places where our hands can help and plant and lift and feed and make things.
Look at what we can make while we’re here, this wild thing sings, and I sing along with her, and I sing out loud in the grocery store though I try not to embarrass you, and I take your hand because I want everyone to know we’re together, I don’t hide any of the evidence of my days or age because I know the alternative and to be here is the miracle.
I will write to this wild thing, I will make my days a prayer, and if that seems over the top, believe me it isn’t. It’s a perfectly reasonable response to finding myself here, finding you here, us finding each other, finding the key to the cave of the treasures we kept for ourselves to discover one day. Wild thing, one day is today. Today is the only day we’ve got. Let’s live it.