Friday, May 12, 2006

all I hear


It’s 5 AM and I can’t sleep. My mother’s been telling me she loves me again and again and squeezing me every chance she gets. It occurs to me that what she needs right now is a grandchild, as much as I wish for a family. I’m heartbroken that this perfect time in both of our lives slides by.

All of this comes over me while trying to sleep in my childhood bed, listening to the low moan of the fog horns. Funny how I never really noticed them before - I have no recollection of hearing this sound growing up, even though it must have always been there, slow and urgent. Now it’s all I hear.

4 comments:

(S)wine said...

i will never understand the urgency for our parents to become grandparents. the pressure they put on their children...
why?
life does not define lives in that way.
they will never get it.
but i have.
i think , at the core, people are lonely, especially when their children grow up, and do not know how to deal with the despair of their situation.
it would behoove them to learn.
and fast.
we are born into this alone, and we go out of it alone.
it's simple.
and very, very right.
"bzetm"

Rachel said...

I wish I could be as comfortable as you with that knowledge. It's true, but it's very scary. Humans engineer life to avoid that realization. How does it come so easy to you?

(S)wine said...

it's not comforting, really.
and it doesn't come easy, either.
on most days i wish i was ignorant of it. of everything, really.
if that were the case, then at least I could sleep.
it's a curse.
the truth is beautiful.
but always unnatainable.
we must all realize that.
when we do, well...we'll have the start of something.

"xisat"

Bwana said...

Not to pop those pretty balloons, but the interest in my kids by my mater was never quite as spectacular as I imagined it would be. I could never figure it out, but I try not to think about it.