I'll Save You a Seat

I’ll miss the days where two little chairs are pulled up to the bench to see what I’m making. Just like I miss how their little bodies used to soften in my arms. How a tiny sneeze would rattle each limb, how a baby lived on my hip.

I also remember the 2 and the 3 o clock stars, and how I became one with the floor next to the cot, how I became one with them. How I fell out of a routine, only to fall into theirs.

The shock of it.

There are some things I don’t miss.

It seems strange to think these early memories will only come with me, even if it’s just the outlines, surely the missing pieces, the filling if you will, grows with them.

And sometimes I’ll see the past at a table next to me, a young flustered mother wondering why she attempted a café outing with her baby, maybe the same aimless walk round the block would have been better.

I know her heavy eyes well, and admire her in a way I never could before I became a mother.

How the seasons change so fast, but never when you’re in it.

I’d never have believed it then.

The beauty to come (you just get better at seeing it through the chaos.)

The humour we share together.

How on the good days we bake, and I’m not as quick to wipe the moment away.

How I want to hold onto each and every version, so much my eyes sting.

How I am enjoying this.

And though their bodies no longer soften into me the way they used to, I have softened into motherhood.

I want to show her the two little chairs pulled up to the bench.

A mother who grew into herself, who see’s more of the sun than the stars.

To tell her that will be her too, and that I’ll save her a seat.

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