I think about my days and its mundanity,
its repetitions and slow minutes,
carved into hours, into moments,
and I blink and it’s been a year,
and I see it through the inch my son gains in height,
the pounds he starts to accumulate–
while around me the dishes remain clean and then stained,
and the curve in my back deepens as I kneel in front of the dishwasher in between my workshops,
in between phone calls to patients
begging for an hour of our time–
forcing upon me this unbelievably heavy decision of when they can die –
their hour of death dependent on the presence of a nurse who can declare their time of passing during a medically assisted death,
–and I ponder these heavy choices in between cooking supper for my three-year-old son with a spatula on my right hand and a laptop on my left,
cellphone cradled in my ear,
as I speak in a voice that I hope portrays confidence and empathy,
while I struggle to be heard amongst my toddler’s cries of, “Mama”
and the oil sparking on the stove.
Days and weeks pass like this
and I barely seem to have the time to plant my feet back
on the ground
when I allow my mind to get lost,
after being woken up at the strike of dawn
by my crying toddler who’s hungry for my touch,
after breakfast and daycare drop-offs,
where I am surrounded by truly beautiful and handsome
mothers and fathers dropping off their children together,
(one stays in the car so they don’t have to drive in the cold),
while my faded, red Kia is parked haphazardly,
half on the sidewalk, half on the road, warning lights flashing,
as if apologizing for its position, for its state,
as if staring the Tesla down meant having to reverts its eyes downwards, like the lights of the Tesla was much too bright, much too glaring for the space my Kia did not want to occupy,
after I do a mini marathon between where I am parked and the front of the Montessori,
clad only in an oversized shirt,
(that I hope is seamlessly passing of as a dress),
braless and pants-less,
in pink high heels (because my taste in shoes have not yet adapted into the needs of motherhood),
while, in the corner of my eye, I can sense the stares
of perfect women in tight lululemon pants
and branded athlete-approved running shoes,
as if in addition to dropping off their kid,
they have also already ran through their required steps for the day,
dutifully announced by the mini-computers on their wrist that tells them things I DO NOT want to know,
like the pace of their hearts beating meditatively and steadily like white noise,
while mine blares and explodes like rapacious gunfire,
stuttering in bursts of piercing noise that splits through silence
violently, immobilizing gratuitously,
a second of thunder in an otherwise reticent desert,
the momentary presence of which, a brazen reminder,
that I am not (and never will be) one of those (perfect) mothers–
and I’ve barely even brushed my hair.
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