Category — Letters

Dear Kid A,

You are so totally yourself.

It has been eight years since that one first siren cry and the stunned silence afterward. You took stock, sucked on your fists, and deigned to stay with us.

I don’t really know how to write about your unwavering ferocity toward life, the way you barrel forward, with your list of the top ten countries you want to visit, your wide eyes, your exuberance. Your melancholy. You are a boy of opposites, quick to laugh and get a joke, quick to notice the discrepancy between want and fulfillment. Even at eight, you get it.

Your attitude toward travel inflames all of us with love for it, I’m thankful to travel with you. I love your kindness and your thirst for knowledge.

Since we moved to India, you mythologized your best friend, the kid you’d known since you were born. And then when you saw him again, he turned out to be what you were hoping for. I don’t know how you do that. It’s like you hoped the old fighting away, there were no more arguments, only understanding, and anything less than desirable you shrugged off. It didn’t matter. I love your loyalty.

You love your dad beyond anything else. He is everything you want to be. You are two peas in a pod.

Today we sat down and I pulled you into my lap and asked how it felt to be eight. You were pleased. We hung out there for a while, my arms slung over your shoulders like a jacket, and when I went to move, you scooted so you were still with me, shifted my arms back over your shoulders.

You haven’t done that in a long time. I think I like eight already.

Happy Birthday, firstborn son.

I love you.

Hello there Fear, you stupid silly overgrown beast. This is precisely the reason I never listen to you.

All those whispers about there being a Writer’s Code that I wouldn’t understand, and the way you were throwing the words Rejection and Shame around?

Lies.

And that dream, the one where I was trying to go to the toilet, but I discovered partway through that I was in a large room full of people, somebody’s living room in fact (why was there a toilet in there anyway?).

Effective, but silly.

I’m glad I don’t listen to you, because here I am, in bliss. Guess what? Writers turn out to be people. Nice people, who use words like Empathy and Humility. Take that!

I’m so happy, so, so happy, and once again you have been unable to stop me. By now you should have figured out enough to stop trying.

But I’m sure we’ll meet again.

Hopefully then I’ll be able to ignore you, too. You may rob me of sleep, but you won’t make me change my mind.

Regards,

Rae

PS: By the way, driving in India is really fun, with the jungles speeding by and Raintrees stretching overhead. Just thought you should know that your little plans on that front didn’t work out either.

1. Tired from too many night wakings, I slept in for a couple of extra hours this bright morning, rising when the sun and the calls of my children refused to let me lay abed any longer.

2. We walked for a long time today and the kids skidded over rocks and up hills and picked up a baby goat. Mountains were brilliant in the distance.

3. One time, nine years ago, Chinua and I were lost in a valley and spend eight hours trying to reorient ourselves. Today we revisited the spot and we had four children with us, miracle of miracles. We gave each other smitten looks, retold the story, remembered the thorns that we fought our way through, trying to be found again. Remembered the tiny jeep that took us home, Chinua’s knee not quite fitting and switching off the headlights repeatedly, always right as we would take a wild corner in the dark. It could only be called careening. The adventure continues.

4. I love the potatoes here.

5. There are these sweet moments when I am not only tired, and not irritated, and I realize just how blessed I am with these children and their endless enthusiasm, the way we spend time at a small and bare-bones playground and they find 101 ways to propel themselves up and down a slide. We eat falafel and drink chai and meet people and pose for pictures with Indian tourists. I come up with a new reality TV show idea which is based on the wild fashion of one tourist attraction street here. Tibetan fashion, pop Indian fashion, Sikh gangster style, the many ways one can sport a scarf, the hippies, the monks, the simple grace of fabric. I am thankful.

Logically I know that we don’t usually remember our lives at three and four and five months.

But I still wonder, little one, whether you will remember.  When I am walking with you under the deep black of the night, singing softly along with the sea and your eyes close and then open, close and then open, I wonder whether this will stay humming inside you.  When you are a man and you journey to the water, will you feel as though it catches you up and rocks you to sleep?

You have never felt grass on the bottoms of your feet.  But you stand in the shallow surf, and I hold your hands so you can lurch around on the sand.

I love you.  This goes without saying, but I’m sure I love you now more than I did before, and not only because you cry less now, or because sometimes you co-operate now, and when it is time for bed you are reasonable and understand that screaming doesn’t help you get to sleepy land.   We are not as often trapped in a sweaty circle of insomnia, staring each other to tears.

This is good progress, my boy, but I love you because I see more of you every day.  Like the the way you were hitting yourself on the forehead with your hand today because it had just occurred to you.  My hand!  My head!  My hand!  My head!  A circular motion and they connect!  My hand! And so on and so forth with the mildest expression of surprise and experimentation on your face. This is you!

Or when you are tired, and you forget that you are far too old and dignified now to root; to mistake a cheek for a breast, and you turn your mouth to my face patiently.  It is not the grunty frantic rooting of a newborn, but more of a step of faith.  You are confident that if you form your lips into that perfect little kissable oval, the numnums will somehow be there to meet you.

Sometimes these days there are real kisses, though, not only the search for milk.  Real open mouthed baby kisses.  You kiss me and then look at me saying, I got that right?  This is the way we do it? with the most heartbreaking question in your eyes.

I kiss you back to say you got it perfectly right, and what I say out loud is a little sing song, “Oh, thank you,” which is reserved for kisses.  I said it to your brother, and your sister before him, and your oldest brother before her.

What so often occurs to me, King Solo, is how “same” this all is- all my babies of the past and present melding together in one plump heap.

But then you are different, too.  You are you.  It is enough reason to love you more, every day.

All my love,

Mama

(Photos are by Chinua)

You turned four months old a while ago, and ever since, I’ve been thinking about what I want to write to you.

First of all, Hello! Slow Down! Four months already. Jeez.

But that said, oh oh oh, I love four months.

Four months is I like it here. I think I’ll hang out a bit, check things out, open my hands instead of gripping them closed.

Four months is Trying to grab that… if I could just get a… little… closer… missed it again… must try… harder…

Four months is kick kick kick SMILE kick kick kick SMILE! And Hey! Where’d everybody go?

And Oh I love you I love you I love you.

Your eyes are eyes of healing, son. You look at us, and not one of us can keep from melting. Especially the women in the family. Of course I stare at you for hours on end, and my greatest moments are the ones where you smile at me, but I’m not the only female drawn into your deep eyes. YaYa runs to you as soon as she wakes up in the morning. She lies beside you and the two of you speak fathoms of sibling love to each other. Then Kid A comes over and gets mad. “YaYa’s attracting him away from me,” he says. We all want your smiles and your attention.

Leafy loves you too. He has nothing but goodness for you. I’m always amazed by his gentleness towards you, this rough and tumble brother of yours. But there seems to be no end to the good a baby brings to a family, the comfort of a sleeping baby in our arms, the fun of seeing you watching us more and more every day.

You’ve been talking, a lot lately. Often when you cry you vocalize frantically. You’re saying baby words, the kind that demand a reply. You communicate with utter gravity. There is an exchange in the world, of heart and response and already you know it, already you are diving in.

Here’s a secret. Don’t tell anyone. You are a drooler, just like your older brother Leafy. The Leafy boy had wet shirts for the first two and a half years of his life, but something your Daddy and I have just realized now is that a drooly baby can be used as a weapon. Forgive me son, but I often move your little face close to Daddy’s face and say, “Here, give Daddy a kiss,” and then he says ARGGGHHHH, as his entire face is covered in drool. Heh heh. It’s really funny. Maybe one day you’ll try it with children of your own?

I just love you at four months, little one. I can’t wait to know you more and more.

(After I published this I looked up Leafy’s four month post. Note that he has the SAME FACE as Solo.  Also that drool is a big factor in that post also.)

All in one piece, too. Actually, let me check. (Counting my fingers and toes…)

Okay, yes, all in one piece. But tired, oh so tired.

Oh, Baba.  Solo.

You are the best thing that has happened to our family since the Leaf Baby was born.  And although many things in my days are driving me to the brink lately, whether it be Kid A’s absentminded melancholy, the YaYa sister’s will of sharp steel and endless arguments, Leafy’s perpetual eating and drinking of things which are not meant for him to eat and drink (cooking oil, raw oats, and raw onions), or even your own gassy crying jags during which you instruct me to keep on moving if I ever try to stop walking you across the floor…

Well, it only takes a few minutes of sitting and talking with you to bring me back.  You are like a small star in our dark galaxy.  While the rest of us are behaving like beasts, galloping and complaining, nagging and slouching around in our underwear, you catch our eyes and make contact and you make us better people.

Leafy will stop pouring out the bottle of tea tree oil all over the couch cushion just to sit by you and stroke your hair, so, so softly.  YaYa tells you that she loves you in her softest, sweetest voice.  And Kid A holds you and his heart swells when you recognize him.  Your dad and I are just smitten.

I’ve never been so challenged or so blessed.  I want to say your name over and over, just to hear the sound of it, because there was a time before you were here, and I’m so glad I don’t have to go back.

Bear with me kid, I’m a mess of a mother, but I do love you so,

Love,

me.

(Photo of mother and son in a very old mirror, in India, with a too-hot flash. Explain to me why I like it so much.)

This morning you smiled right into my eyes for the first time; one of those big gummy smiles with slightly squinched up eyes. Heartbreaking stuff, my boy. I felt another small piece of my insides being filed away in a tiny box with a label. “Love for Solo’s smile,” it says, in block letters and permanent marker.

(Sometimes I imagine that there is a mosaic of sorts, inside me, and all these little bits are the bits that are devoted to small parts of my loved ones. Leafy’s lips; a blue triangle, Kid A’s eyes; a square piece of a green plate, YaYa’s edible nose; one of those dented glass marbles that you might find in a fish tank. The smell of Chinua’s neck; a small, perfect ruby. These form the most beautiful landscape, right in the center of me.)

But you, Solo. I don’t have much to say. You turned a month old a couple of days ago, and we celebrated by cuddling and having milk, just like we celebrate every day. This time around, I am amazed mostly by how physical this all is. You are held and burped and nursed and kissed. And the feelings I have for you are linked irrevocably to your smell, your sounds, the way you nuzzle your head back and forth when you are looking for me. I’m so tired, sometimes, in the middle of the night. I mean, really, it’s a nice time to sleep. And there you are, grunting and squeaking and wanting milk. Argh. But then I pick you up and your head is by my cheek and your hair is so soft, and I’d say that I would stay up all night with you every night, if I could.

I’d say that, if only your brothers and sister wouldn’t insist on waking up at such a horrific hour.

I love you, Solo. We all do.

Mama

(Letters galore around here! But there are milestones happening, just passing us by! MILESTONES! So pardon the letters.)

I remember once, when you were younger, that someone told me about a certain age that boys enter into. I shuddered, looking at you, curled in my lap, to think of this fabled time; the time when you would no longer want to hug me or snuggle with me or hold my hand. I couldn’t imagine it. I thought it would be horrid, like eel pie or a lamprey shake.

That time is here, and what I want to say is… it’s not so bad.

In fact, it seems totally natural to me, you with your bony angles, your longer than possible legs, your quick smile and sense of humor. You’ve moved away from me a little, and right you should.

It is as natural as the fact that every day I kiss Solo repeatedly, unnecessarily, and obsessively, all over his little, perfect, infant-acne’d face. It’s as natural as the rare kisses I get from Leafy, along with the fact that when I pick him up, his little arms squeeze me tight around my neck and his little legs go around my waist, like he is a monkey boy and doesn’t want to let go. It’s as natural as YaYa with her kisses and hugs and cooed, “Oh, you are so Beee-you-ti-ful, Mama!” All of these things are here, and now, and none will stay the same. Naturally.

I still want to hug you, still reach for you when you do something great, until I remember and snatch my arms back to my sides, then give you a high five instead. Sometimes I just use words to tell you. Every so often, if you’ve fallen, you’ll come to me for a quick kiss- or a hug that lasts about four seconds.

And then there is the way you idolize your dad, because he is just the COOLEST THING EVER. Cooler than cool, really. I’m glad that you recognize this about him. I do too. He rocks. It was pretty funny, the other day when we were reading that book, and there was a little girl who lost her mom when her mom was giving birth to her brothers. I looked up and saw your face, as I was reading. “That’s pretty sad, isn’t it,” I said, ready to talk about it if you needed to.

“Yeah,” you said. “I would be so so sad if DADDY or JED died.” Jed is your best friend, far across the world now, but still ranking higher than me. I laugh without sting because I know you don’t really mean it, and because I also know that this too, is natural.

This is because we have done our bonding, the way that Solo and I are now bonding, almost the same person, but slowly edging apart. And I know that you are secure enough in me that I almost become a reflex to you. You never have to wonder if I’m there. This is beautiful.

I love to see you and your dad together, see how you clench your hands a little when you talk to him, because it is so very important to you, what he says in response. Will he laugh? Was that funny? You think it was funny, but you’re not quite sure. I love it because you have a dad who will laugh, who will show you card tricks, who will praise you when you get things right, and even when you try.

And then you come and lean on me and we read together, and I am happy with this little bit of unconscious affection. I don’t ruin it by trying to cuddle, because I know you’ll edge away, and so we sit, just leaning, just reading. Just laughing at what we read. You turn a brilliant smile up at me and I smile back.

I’m always here, my Kid A.

But I know that you know that.

Love,

Mama.

Photos are Chinua’s

Yesterday you asked one of the sweetest questions I’ve ever heard.

“Where did we start?” you asked, and then furrowed your brow and thought a little.

“Where were you when Kid A came out?”

Where did we start? Such a rich question. We talked for a long time about how Kid A was born in a little town far north in California, and how you were born when we lived with lots of people in San Francisco, and how Leafy was born when we lived at the Land.

You love to talk about this.

I’m writing this letter just because that question struck my heart, and because of what shone through you today.

I had to go on some lame bank errand which involved going from bank to bank searching for the right services. You wanted to come with me, even though it was raining. It’s not raining very MUCH, you told me, putting your raincoat on. Even the fact that we were going by scooter did not deter you.

And I think I’ve never been happier. Riding along in the rain with my girl child on the scooter, both of us getting soaked, you turned to look up at me and grinned, not at all perturbed by the rain. You kept me company in each bank, you were polite to all the people who wanted to talk to you, and you kissed me a few hundred times, just to remind me that you were there, that you love me.

I see a lot of me in you. You are always searching for beauty, and when you point small things out to me I see the way that my eyes are often scanning the hillsides, looking for those elusive wildflowers. You find beauty everywhere. You love the gaudy tinselly things hanging from the ceilings of most of the places of business here. “OH, I LOVE that pink one,” you sigh, eyes locked on a burped up metallic explosion dangling from a ceiling tile.

When we walk outside, stepping around a few strewn pieces of trash and over some steel rebar lying in the road, you look up. “Flowers!” you call, exhaling happily and pointing at some wilting garland looped over the doorway.

Later, when we’re home, you collapse in tears over the prospect of walking on the floor in the bathroom, damp from someone taking a shower. (The bathrooms here have an open space for showers, no separation.)

I think of you happily looking up at me, your face covered in rain, and think that I will never fully understand you. I don’t think I have to. I’m so glad to be riding around with a small girl on my bike, I’m bursting with pride over you. I’m glad that this little clan started somewhere, in a small town in the far North of California, not so long ago.

I love you.

Your Mama.

Four years ago you slipped out so quickly that we almost didn’t catch you. In the ensuing pandemonium, I clutched your still-wet body to me, peeked down, and gasped, “It’s a girl.” I was so, so happy. I still am.

I do want to put you in a sound-proof box sometimes, though. Just for a little while, until my eyelid stops twitching from all that, um… protesting, of um… completely normal circumstances, like our need to walk places sometimes, using our legs, or the shocking fact that when we get in the car we put our seatbelts on, and it takes a little effort.

And at the same time, when the emotions zoom up and down the freeway with no apparent governor on them, I really completely understand. I mean, I myself have been known to collapse on the floor upon occasion. And there was that time that I dissolved in tears when someone ate my ice cream. I think I was about 25.

I do understand.

You are a delight. Sometimes you are unbelievably sweet. You sit and touch my face and put your “loving” look on. “You’re ssooooo beautiful,” you say in your softest voice. “I’ll love you forever and ever. You’re the prettiest girl in the world. You’re the best mama in the world.” I don’t think that I knew that these kind of compliments would come out of the little pink slippery baby that I first held that day, four years ago and a bit.

Let’s see… this year you have figured out so much of the world. Cutting and gluing, which always involves a LOT of glue. Drawing beautiful, intricate pictures of people who have dots for eyes, dots for noses, dots for cheeks and foreheads and chins. Dancing. Making conversation on the playground. I love seeing you do this, making friends with the smallest of commonalities, like, “YOU’RE FOUR? I’M FOUR TOO!” There seems to be no end to the amusement I get from comparing the social ways of children to the social ways of adults. Like if I were to give a lady in the supermarket a high five for being TWENTY-SEVEN! WHEEE, SAME AGE? Wouldn’t that be awesome?
This year your love for your older brother has reached entirely new levels. You often run to him and cling to him when in distress, a fact made slightly comical in a really heartbreaking way when he tries to walk away from you in annoyance and you get dragged along the carpet, crying all the way. Sometimes, though, his heart wakes up a bit and you get the comfort you desire.

It’s the way it goes, I guess, living with brothers. You love each other to death, but I can see that sometimes you just don’t want to play games with any fighting involved. And sometimes Kid A doesn’t want to have a “Mommy lightsaber” and a “Daddy lightsaber.” He just wants to whack things.

You are a puzzle, my girl, with so much softness within you, and yet, a will of steel. I’ve never met anyone with such a core of stubbornness. And yet, because you are usually so agreeable, so willing to be the epitome of helpfulness and sweetness and amenability, we don’t run up against that will all too often.

Except for those days when you wanted the red bowl and didn’t get it.

Really, sweetie, I wouldn’t want you any other way.

All Photos are Chinua’s and he is simply amazing.