community of mothers

It’s a rainy Wednesday. 11:00 A.M. and Lukas is sleeping. I putter about the kitchen. I clean and do laundry. I put on Billie Holiday for a little blues. My flowers from Mothers Day are on the counter and I imagine for a moment that they are from some show that I just did. That rush of excitement. Today I am missing work. I am missing a schedule. I am missing being busy. Today I feel like I am the only person in my home right now. Everyone else is off and at work. Then I remember all the other mothers out there. I imagine them in their own kitchens, washing the stray dishes from breakfast, making themselves a cup of coffee, sweeping the floor. I imagine all of us in one big kitchen together. We would talk about our babies, about the various jobs that we did “bc” (before children). We would share the cleaning. We would make a big pot of soup and sit on the floor and eat it. We would share stories...about out births....about our lives. We would drink our coffee….together.
When Lukas was first born and I would wake at all hours of the night to feed him, I would comfort myself with the image of all the other mothers who were awake with me. I imagined us all in our yellow lit hallways and kitchens, in our bathrobes and slippers... our simultaneous rocking, lulling the rest of the planet into a soft sleep. This image gave me comfort in those quiet and sometimes lonely hours of the night.
To some of you reading this, whoever you may be, if anyone, I may sound down….lonely….even a bit depressed. But I don’t feel that way exactly. I am just recording the moment with as much honesty as I can. Whatever mood you want to call it….it will change. It always does. That is what keeps me awake. That is what keeps me really alive.