Tell me about 16 weeks

Jude, 

Last night, your father and I agreed on your name. I've been singing your name to see if it fits, and though I don't know the answer, I think it'll be one you make your own.  

I don't want to be a parent who seeks to give you everything I never had; I have all the things that matter deeply. I want to give you everything I have and learn everything else anew with you. You are teaching me madness and magic that I didn't know existed. 

I want to impart that it is okay, desirable even, to learn to wade in the discomfort. That meditation is a practice of stillness; if it hurts, you are doing it right.  If you are able to observe the things that are tea-stained with difficulty and discomfort, to name them, to catalog them, to file them under "held and let go"... that is all life requires of you. I want you to understand that things take time and tragedy can be instant, that this life is an immense gift and each second good and/or bad- is a miracle we are allowed to witness in immense brevity... we are meant to be gentle observers. Heed nature and nurture curiosity. 

I don't want to implore you to understand me as all-knowing or all-powerful. I know nothing and therefore must learn everything, each day, over and over, again and again, with fresh eyes, a curious mind, and an open heart. I want you to learn by example what it means to be a student posing as a cynic, and what it means to be critical without being a critic. I don't need to be right or exacting; rather open and vulnerable.  I want you to know me as deeply flawed but thoughtful, curious, and kind, that one day a friendship will bud from our bond as mother and child, that we laugh and laugh as your father and I do; As I do with all those I love.  It's the stuff of life. 

I want you to see the life that your father and I have built and understand that love is unconditional, unnerving, messy, and creative. It is founded on the idea that success requires daily Sisyphean work, brutal honesty, and deep deep respect for yourself and the one you love. It requires much restraint, chaos, and noise... That yelling isn't necessary but every now and then, it's fun... That we should be careful with words because they certainly matter (wars have been started for less; see: Putin and Hitler). 

I want for you to see the world as I do, a kaleidoscope of sound and color, an orchestra and echo, a song and a silence. 

I want you to be able to recognize and reconcile your feelings, thoughts, and emotions, as well as your place and responsibility in this world.  Anger and fear and guilt and shame are brethren that live in the same house, at odds with surrender, contentedness, and growth. Do not stagnate, keep swimming. Your life is your design.  I want you to see how one droplet of water in an ocean causes a ripple; how one degree of change sets your course universes apart from your starting point.  You are not siloed, and even the smallest of actions affect the world and the people around you.  

I want to fill your life with art and music, light and sound, laughter, and an abundance of the same balance of humility and frivolity that we have so carefully curated into our daily rhythms.  I want to teach you to read the waves and stars and clouds... to watch the grass hum with cicada song and the ground move with the littlest of lives. I want you to read Harry Potter and Roald Dahl, Henry and Mudge, and The Phantom Tollbooth, the Greek classics, and Dante's Inferno, and I hope that you love them as much as I do. Even more, I want you to find new things to share with me. 

This time will pass so quickly, Jude. I mean to savor every moment of it.  I was a whole person before you, but I am so much more with you. You are the product of life's longing for itself, for my deep longing to serve as a passage for better things to come.  I have never cared to be famous or regaled in the way other's seek attention (your father certainly only lives to bring others joy); I needed only to create something that honors this gift of life and adds to it in a tangible way. 

You are my love letter to the universe. 

.Mommy