Rainy days always get to me, in a really good way. I’ve noticed I’m just naturally attracted to the darker side of life. To the shadows and the romance, the to underbelly of a sunny day. And some times that makes it really hard for me to see the sunlight when all there is to see IS sunlight. I get in my own way all too often. But I also dig deeper on rainy days, because on days when the skies are drumming out tears I feel at home.

I have a feeling that, wether by association or genes or just watching me, I’m passing this down to Jessica. And she baffles me. I don’t think I’ve done a great job of communicating my own feelings to Jessica so what she sees is something other than what is, I’m guessing. She sees me thoughtful, which she might interpret (at four) as sadness, and I live in this thoughtful place, always taking in and watching and learning, always turning a phrase in my mind … writing a poem, a letter, documenting a conversation. I’m ALWAYS inside my head and I think she sees that as something negative.

I have this internal struggle about how to better communicate happiness to her. How to not only tell her, but show her that life is wonderful and good and happy. How to lift her up and keep her there. How to be her mother without being her best friend because that’s a line I don’t know how to define. And I don’t even want to be her best friend. I want her to feel comfortable with me as a person and as her mother, but I want to MOTHER her. Guide her, teach her, show her the way in this world. I’m not her companion on this journey, I’m her mentor. And I’d be honored with the opportunity if it was ever extended to me to be her companion on her journey – but that would have to come from her first.

I think at her age and this stage of childhood baffles me just as much. I don’t remember a ton from my childhood – the memories I do have are vivid but the in-between’s – the moments of what my life was really made up of kind of vanished. I just don’t remember.

But I think she will. She has this amazing mind and a weave of wonders spun in her memory. She still talks about the time she was in my belly. It was dark in there. And I have no way of knowing if she really does remember it, I also don’t have any reason to doubt her. I sometimes think I try too hard to get her to understand how much I love her, because GOD! how I love her. How I can’t even explain it in one million words, it’s heart breaking and back breaking and tiring and all consuming and so much work to keep up with the love that sometimes I’m so tired I’m not myself about it. I love her that much.



There’s this connection between us that is unexplainable and I think it’s there for most mothers. The umbilical cord is gone but there’s an invisible link connecting me to her no matter where she is. When she bleeds, I feel it.
I always thought I was a twin and for some reason can remember a dream I had about how I lost my twin sister. There were these huge street drains where we lived in Texas and I used to actually see, or envision, my sister getting swallowed by one and drowning. Not unlike Jodie Foster’s character in Nell. But I was 4 when I remember this. Long before I ever saw the movie and it’s still eerie to me. I just knew part of me was gone and I’ve always missed it. Always known it. Always felt it.

Maybe she’s Jessica.

Maybe something in me knew, way back then, that I would have her in my life. That I would go through hell to get here and that I would be standing when it all happened.
Maybe I’ve always been on my way right here. To this moment. To this child. To this love.

Maybe this is why we can’t explain magic.
She’s that reason for me.