the mix

Chip made a list of songs for me.  Songs for the hospital, for those grueling hours of hoped-for labor and a starburst moment when Max would join us in the here and now--- changing our lives in the irrevocable way children do.

The plans we made and the things that happened are tied together in my mind in a cloudy mix of memory and wishes.

I listened to that mix in the hospital, but not in the way I envisioned.  In the hazy blue-gray of predawn I talked quietly to a tiny baby laying in solid weight on my chest.  The sounds of Chip's music filling our dark room.

And now in the weeks since his entrance, I've listened to that mix thinking about the way we plan to have our lives unfold versus the way the days fling forward in a carpet before us: messy, unkempt, sometimes painful, sometimes so sweet my teeth ache--- but always always always surprising.