one quiet moment

the barometric pressure today was oppressive on eyelids and brain cells. oppressive as the grey sky was looming and hovering with stooped shoulders. it pressed down on us and our every movement. veins moaned and ached with each pulsing of blood. eyes were slow to blink, all of life was draped in a heavy wool blanket. not for comfort or coziness. it draped to smother.

today we drove to the gardens and bickered miserably. he and i one entity. one mind feeling oppressed with the clouds and the effect it has on us. the barometric pressure would affect his mood and sleep patterns as a baby, just as it affected my varicose veins. today is familiar in that sense. no one runs today, we drag our feet as if through mud. each clump grabbing ahold of our ankles, promising like a bully to steal our shoes with the next step.

the butterflies appear out of nowhere. light and carefree. river sees them first and is all aglow in their freedom. they fly to all the flowers again and again, in search of nectar. “i want to drink nectar!” he speaks like a sullen wood sprite not invited to the party. “i want to try flower juice!” the sky and the wind drown out his thought. in that instant we are pushed to the ground. the air pins us to the mulch. he sits in my lap and we watch the butterflies in silence, every so often he mutters “i want to look through the viewfinder” and i help him balance my heavy lens up to his eye. he drinks it in, just as they do nectar. “i want….”

the sky opens and rain drops fall. finally release! and yet as we drive home, i watch the mood in the rearview mirror. i feel it take up space in the backseat, it taps me on the shoulder while i drive. the mood will have to wait until we get home, which it does. it always does.

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all this reminds me of my mom’s old pressure cooker. it was a beast of a kitchen appliance. an army green bohemuth. i think she was terrified of the thing, she flitted around it when it got to rocking it’s lid, it was a delicate balance of detinating a bomb. i remember the fear of the thing spontaneously exploding and sending boiling shards of potato across the kitchen. it threatened to give us all third degree burns. this never happened. but i feared that it would someday. the pressure cooker seemed just that unstable.

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today was like that. the slow boil under pressure. the oppression that makes you angry, feisty, tired, and sad. it boils and boils until the top is rocking and screaming and thrashing and threatening pain. this was our afternoon. it was a quiet moment that turned loud from contents under pressure. and i, now the mother, let it happen. i no longer fear the pressure cooker. let off some steam, i say, it’ll do you some good. but you can’t kick me and hit me, so let’s sit and rock for awhile and let it all go.

he’s confessed his worries to me. stepping lightly out of the tub last night, he confessed his worry of the leaving. of the being left. i reassured him that he would never be alone. that we both love him very much. that we both will always take care of him. always.

i think of this, this promise i made him while he stood before me so vulnerable. wet and cold and wrapped in a soft towel. i think of him now, the angry green pressure cooker threatening to scald if i get too close. used to be i left, but today i tried something different. we sat. he in my lap, in my arms. he was fully capable of standing and walking away if he needed. but he stayed. and screamed bloody murder in my ears for a good five minutes. he thrashed and turned beet red. i was so calm that i was freaking myself out. thinking of cradling that pressure cooker, and i remembered those early days of mothering. his angry cries that left him breathless. that intake of air that filled the room with silence as his face grew angry. he lost that anger somewhere along the way. he shoved it down somehow. but today i saw it, and as much as it was uncomfortable, i was glad it was still there.

he blew his lid while in my arms, and i did not leave. i stayed.

and after he boiled over i dried his tears. he gave me a hug and fell hard and heavy onto my shoulder. he no longer fills my lap, he drapes in big kid legs and arms out from me on the hardwood floor. he took a sip of water and we both stood up. wondering now what to do with our afternoon.

he went to his art table and began picking up crayons one by one. ‘do you want this one?’ he asked, offering an orange crayon. ‘i can peel it for you’ and so he did. for nearly an hour i lay pinned on the couch as he sat next to me peeling crayons for imaginary play. he focused his eyes and spoke and laughed and i couldn’t believe what a release that must have been for him. how hard that was for him to let go. to let me watch. for once he didn’t go hide under the table. i wanted to thank him. but instead i watched him and my smiling eyes filled to the brim with tears.

the windows are getting dark because it’s still so grey outside as it nears 4pm. it’s as if the sun shone someplace else entirely today. but inside, we sit among a pile of 64 crayon wrappers. peeled to shreds in the most calming practice of art i have ever witnessed. in the simplicity of an hour, we have become completely surrounded by color.