Sunday, August 7, 2011

Birth Day

I posted a picture on Facebook the other day. The young man is my son’s good friend, and he is visiting us up on the mountain. His mother posted a comment about remembering when he was a baby – as we mothers do. I love watching my sons grow into men, and marvel at the fact that, for me, they retain that quality they always had, that I loved when they were babies and young children, and still love now.

One of my sons turned twenty-five this summer. I remember when I was in labor. We were living in a beautiful farmhouse in Tuscany that belonged to a famous yoga master (I only knew her as my landlord back then, not being initiated into the realms of yoga and the like). I labored and labored, and I remember the farmhand and his wife coming to visit, dressed in their Sunday best. The day before, I had watched him picking apricots in the field below. Their daughter had started labor at the same time as me, had delivered, and was cuddling her baby in bed, so they thought I would have a baby to show off as well. We told them we would let them know when the baby was finally born, which he was in due course.

When I got home with my newborn, the landlady’s daughter came to visit, bearing a huge bunch of blue cornflowers. I can never see cornflowers growing, or apricots being picked, without thinking of those few days of labor and birth. I remember the taste of the rice ice cream I ate while I was laboring.

Apricots, ice cream, flowers, babies, love ... summertime!

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