My tea is warm

there's not much more than this. . .

My tea is warm, and the cool East Oakland air coming in through my window feels fresh on my face. As my daughter comes down the stairs and promptly wraps her 9-year-old, gangly limbs around my body like some sort of primate or marsupial, I hold tight. Feeling her breath on my neck, smelling the sleep from last night on her skin. She doesn't quite fit the way she did 5 years ago, but somehow it feels like home just the same. There’s not much more than this, is there? Not much more than hot water in a morning shower or the scent of a perfectly ripe lemon from your neighbor's tree?

We get so caught up in everything. In the loads of laundry and what's for dinner. In sending that email or finishing that proposal. Lost in the never-ending to-do list. The constant cycle of producing. Of not feeling quite good enough or ever really arriving where you wish you were going. Let this be your reminder: you have arrived. We have arrived. Right here. Right now. This is the moment we've been waiting for. This moment. And this one and this one and this one. Where have I been living? In a box in the future or some pain in the past. But right here, this is what we get. In all its mess and glory.

My daughter got COVID this week. I landed a big contract. A katydid balanced ever so gracefully on the end of a yucca blade in my garden. I fried an egg. I watched the full moon rise through the clouds. I stepped in dog shit. He touched my face. I held her hand. I breathed thousands of breaths. My sister called.

Note to self: Life shows up again and again and again. Maybe we don't have to try quite so hard.

xo.a

Hungry Birds | A poem

.