First Mother's Day

It started with love
And an ache to love more
To experience that unknowable love
that I knew about but couldn’t fully know until becoming a mother.
It’s different than I thought it would be.
More complex, which makes sense.

In the middle there was love and desire and excitement.
Then
Commonplace magic happened:
Cells multiplied
And womb swelled, skin stretched
and more blood and water, fear and excitement, than ever before coursed through my body
We became tethered
By placenta, umbilical cord and something without a name.
I brought you into this world by water and strength and complete vulnerability, encircled by love and ancestral grace. Your father held me and whispered reminders of my power.
I gave over my young self for you and became your mother.

Now, I offer you my arms and my breast and you thank me with a suckle and a gummy smile.
You grab my nipples and sprinkle your face white.
You grab my lips and nose and hair and screech and grunt with delight.
You laugh magic, smile and twinkle when our eyes meet.
Occasionally you wakefully lay your head on my chest or shoulder and my heart soars
But not for too long as there is so much to see.

This is the season of our most immediate, physical connection.
There will be more seasons to come in which you won’t need my body in the same way— Already, I can feel the grief and gratitude of the tether extending—
And I will miss these cuddly moments
And the moments where you need me the way you do because I am your mother.
Sometimes I miss the days when my body had more freedom, when our tether was not yet formed, or when it was so close that you were still inside me and I could go where and when I pleased.

Remember, Ezra, (remember mama), that mothers have needs too—that I have needs. I may take selfless action, but I am a self.
And as much as I give, mother is not my only name.

But for now I will sit, and bounce, and rock, and rage and love and love and love. For I know each moment is fleeting. Each moment you continue to grow and change forever and you will never be quite the same.
And I will never be quite the same.

—By Ayala P.