Stargazing

Stargazing

Sitting up at night with my infant child, my feet rocking the glider on their own, plots begin to stir and thicken as characters bob to the surface in the sleepy cauldron of my mind.

Tomorrow, I think, swaddling my daughter and lowering her into dreams. Tomorrow, I’ll find the time.

But as the fireflies burning outside our French doors vanish with the scalding dawn, so do these aspirations. Instead, I find that breakfast — a lumberjack breakfast: eggs, oatmeal, coffee to wash away the sand of sleep — is top priority followed by laundry, then dishes. By lunchtime, my creative aspirations have condensed down to peeling an orange with both hands.

In the afternoon — post dusting, pre supper — I tie a striped hat under my daughter’s chin, and we sit in the grass beneath the bonny spring sun. While the warmth penetrates through my cotton shirt, melting the fused rod of my spine, I turn the pages of a book with one hand and cup my daughter’s supping head with the other. The author’s words simmer in my mind. I taste the sweetness of consonants on my tongue and the beauty of them sates my creative thirst.

In the kitchen, a timer goes off. The casserole is done. I unspool my legs and struggle to my feet while being careful not to disturb the magnum opus of my sleeping child.

Inside, I know, the sink is full of dishes, but the cauldron of my mind is not empty, for tomorrow — maybe tomorrow — I will find the time.