Metamorphosis

Today I met a friend's 10-day-old baby girl. She is beautiful, delicate, teeny tiny... and her mother, in her new role, is even more beautiful and delicate. Soft spoken and smiling, with blissfully teary eyes, she brought me back to those incredible first few weeks of life. We spoke of the transformation: the labile emotion, the complete sacrifice, the supreme responsibility. Her journey into new motherhood and my journey out of it has me reflecting today about change.

Change is most certainly in the air right now. The wind has tossed the leaves from their branches and into shivering heaps on the ground. The flag outside my window is briskly wrapping itself around its pole. And Nug's little hands return icy from our walks.

Our house has been transformed with fresh paint and refinished floors. In 16 days we will sleep under a roof that has sheltered 110 years of people and stories. There's a new permanence to our life here as I fill out address change forms and sign up for new bills.

Austin, our 16 year (+8 months) old dog, is at a crossroads. To everyone's dismay (including her own I'm sure), she pants and cries for hours at night. Despite food, bathroom breaks, pain meds, sedatives, treats, hugs, admonishment, and being shut in her own room, she continues her night song. It's as if only one Being at a time can get a night's sleep in this household. When Austin is quiet, the baby is up, and vice versa.

After nine months of pregnancy and nine months of baby-rearing, my body finally feels like it's emerging from its altered state. It's wonderful to feel able-bodied once again, although I mourn a little for having shed the symbiotic connection with the little Nug. When she was one week old, my friend Christi (the same one I mention in my first blog post) left me a sweet voicemail. "Congratulations," she gushed, "you've kept an itty bitty helpless baby alive for one week! You've nourished her and she is thriving." This, of course, made me smile and puff out my already gigantic chest (lol). And even though Nug is no longer quite so helpless, I am even more proud to have survived through nine months than that first week.