Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Unreluctant Soul:: Forty Four

"Suppose you were shaped
like these or those!
or shaped like a BLOGG
Or a garden hose!
Of all the shapes
we might have been...
I say, Hooray
for the shapes we're in!
- Dr. Seuss (The Shape of Me and Other Stuff)

My mama belly is no longer perfectly flat, now there is a soft, small roundness where Satch once nestled...and a dent in my right pelvis where he made his entrance into the world by an unplanned incision. My boobs, like two migratory birds, have flown a little further south and will no longer roost upon their northern perch. The locale not the result of gravity, but from the ebb and flow of a tide of milk spanning over two years.

This is the shape of me and I wouldn't change a thing.

Forty four years have now passed. The passing of time (for me) is no longer journeyed by clock and rarely by calendar. When the battery in my watch died during my pregnancy, I never bothered to replace it. I have learned to navigate with a mixture of grace and stumbling by the rhythm of motherhood...by the flow of milk, by meltdowns, milestones and messes, by love and laundry, by tears and by laughter. It's a dance of equal parts exhilaration and exhaustion.

The sun raises and bows it's head boasting colors unimaginable. Seasons shift wearing their familiar scents. The hue and slant of the light is my new guide.

Yesterday we celebrated with pizza and cupcakes and kisses and song. As the sun was setting I pointed to the pink sky. Satch, in a breathy voice said, "Waaaaaaah!", and then asked. "Datchoo kiss it da pink sky"?

Beauty all around , tender and kissable.

Oh my heart!

(Thank you all for your wishes, your emails and comments. Even though I can't always respond to all of you, know that you make my heart dance. This post is dedicated to Nina, who inspired me to take a dip in a secret lake!)

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posted by Wendy at 6:40 AM

14 Comments:

Blogger Julie said...

happy birthday my friend. Sorry I didn't get a chance to call you last night.. between haircuts, doc appointments and everything else I wasn't able to get the boys to bed till 9pm.. and I knew that was too late to call.
Hope you had a great day.
P.S.. you got a rockin bod my friend and it's served you well.

8:41 AM  
Blogger nina beana said...

so proud! you are brave, and you rawk. xx

9:31 AM  
Blogger Allison said...

your words are like poetry! happy birthday beautiful mama!

10:19 AM  
Blogger jessamyn said...

just beautiful...i love how you described what guides your sense of time these days. happy birthday!

6:34 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Happy Birthday, Wendy!

12:22 AM  
Blogger Rick Hamrick said...

Gosh, I love the music of your words.

And, as already noted by others, you and your body absolutely rock!

3:04 AM  
Blogger Wendy said...

thank you all so very much.

6:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

happy birthweek, sweetie. i'm so grateful that you were born! because my own life is touched by you and your aliveness and your zestiness. and moreso, because i know that you are making the life of one special boy the most amazing thing ever. *tear*
you make a big difference, wen.

love, pixie

2:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Somehow my earlier comment evaporated in the mists and muck of Mercury retrograde. In it, I expressed extreme doubt that any pizza had ever occupied that beautiful 44-year-old belly. And if so, said pizza had left no trace. No trace. And there's a true birthday wish.

4:59 PM  
Blogger Wendy said...

i humbly thank you all.

for the record, i just wanted to be brave and say "this is me at 44 and my body is COMPLETELY different than it was 3 years ago, but i like it (maybe even more so) because as julie stated, "it has served me well".

the curves, the scars, the dent...they have stories to tell.

wonders and beauty.

9:12 PM  
Blogger Veronica TM said...

oh, the most beautiful post, wendy!

4:21 PM  
Blogger Nancy Bea Miller said...

Happy Birthday Wendy! We are the same age! But our mama bellies are very different. After full-term twins followed quickly by another big baby my own belly resembles a deflated seer-sucker balloon attached in some mysterious way to my abdomen. Not that I would want to trade, I like my battle scars, but your little gentle swell looks very enviable!

3:10 PM  
Blogger Wendy said...

a toast to belly swells, seer-sucker balloons, sagging boobies...what beautiful stories the scars tell.

2:49 PM  
Blogger jenica said...

YAY for happy mommy bellies! i'm feeling the same way right now. ;-D

1:08 AM  

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