A Bite of Water, a Scoop of Air

Sometimes I think my life’s purpose is to record and document, to the best of my ability, my experience in unfolding this growing, changing, marvelous human I have in my midst. It’s a full time job, with tons of overtime.

The things you notice when you decide to observe are astounding.  For example, Julian is unusual and this is nothing new. But I'm amazed by the new ways he illustrates this fact on a daily basis. They’re small ways, seemingly insignificant, but I think I’ve come to more fully understand it’s the small things that later reveal themselves to be the most significant, the things we come back to.  For instance, I looked over at him one day and saw him drinking from a glass of water.  But instead of sipping or gulping or pouring like one generally does with liquid, he was baring his teeth— trying to grab at it as if something to chew. I asked him, “what are you doing, biting the water?”  He said it’s how he likes to drink it.  Some people drink it in, taking sips or slurps or even gulps. He takes mammoth bites.  

And then one day on the way home from piano on a frosty early morning, he turned up the heat in the car and proceeded to grab at the air as if something tangible, and then brought it more closely to him, more quickly.   Taking great sweeping scoops of air and holding it to his face, to feel the warmth, because the vents were insufficient and he could not wait, as if deciding the air was something he could hold, that couldn’t find its way to him on its own, so he seized it.  I observed him and said,

“A bite of water. A scoop of air,” as if quietly announcing a summation of this person beside me, who seems to live on the underside of life.  

I think about this often, this phrase always swirling around in my brain. A Bite of Water, A Scoop of Air: A Mother's Biography. Stay tuned. 

p.s. Happy 13th to the pulse of my life.