July 24, 2021
Dear Ethan,
Today was a weird week. I was curious about what it would be like to document the world if I chose to see/seek joy the same ways you do, and the dreaminess of it all was stunning. I chose to be a say yes parent, and realized how much that changed the tenor of the week both for you and for me.
Here are a few things that I saw:
I can’t discount the many stages of bedtime.
Watching you sleep always brings a pang to my heart. I love you so much.
Then, your teeny tiny arcade prize which I kept trying to steal:
A handful of gem tomatoes…
Then there was this shimmery insect with iridescent wings and a brandy-colored thorax. I was so moved that it chose to perch on my hand like a ring that I sat as still as possible. The stillness was key.
It made me think of how you see anything with a hard exoskeleton as having a seashell, which charms me as much as your latest venture, to rebrand eggs: “over the moon” (scrambled), “white eggs” (hardboiled), or “big honey” (sunny side).
I love watching you stretch out on our living room rug like a cat to watch TV. I tried it, and not a bad idea.
We also made a glass of limeade for a fairy. Only a tiny thimbleful but bursting with sweetness.
I’ve been inspired by the diary of Frida Kahlo, where I learned that citlali is the Nahuatl word meaning star.
I took a sip of the Ultraviolet at Circuit Coffee and was transported over the rainbow: lemonade + coconut cream + pea flower.
We both leaned back and watched the wind blow through the sunroof of our car;
dreamed of raspberry ice cream swirl:
feasted on watermelon instead of water,
and lastly, ate the best parts of a grilled chicken, leaving the rest for later.
Should I mention this stack of books?
I’ll leave you with the sunlight through these curtains. The moral of this story is that there’s portable magic everywhere if you choose to find it.
<3 mama