On the Hurry and the Bloom: a love story
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On the Hurry and the Bloom
We move from the small house, where we brought home our first baby, the one of our young love, the one behind the rock house where Grandma feeds us crystalized ice cream and the juice red slices of large tomatoes from her small garden. It’s the first neighborhood of my entire life, with a park, and dogs, and kids who ding-dong ditch. It’s a grand house in my scheme of things – three bedrooms total, a living room with a tall, well-lit ceiling.
I decorate. My mama makes my curtains, and they’re beautiful. I put everything in a place as it should be. Another baby is coming. His name is Jude. I know he is artist, how he pushes me from within and then slides his leg or arm the diameter round, feeling his space, filling his space.
Seth plants seeds in a flower bed, babies of his own, his first working at dirt. He thinks of them in the night, sets the sprinkler to their attention. And I, too, think in the night how lovely it would be for something to mind my clock. I need this baby out. Doctors have put me on bed rest, and Seth works and works the dirt, hot pepper plants turning trees in the back yard.
When no one watches, I buy castor oil, and I drink it. I drink ounces and follow with coke, and then I wait for the low burn and the consistent back strain. I breathe steady and rock on my feet. I labor, and Seth works gently along. And then the drums start. It’s late dark out. And drums start.
And the drums keep drumming, inconsistent, bad drumming, in a garage, with teenagers, who grow loud and show tiny cracks up from their jeans. In an oiled stupor, I rise. I lean through the warm front door into summer night, bare-footed and pregnant, and I stomp, having just had a contraction, with just enough time to make it to their yard. I pause to breathe, and then I walk in their grass, introduce myself as a neighbor in labor at night, and I tell them to hush, and their eyes are wide moons, and they say, “yes, ma’am.”
And the drumming stops, and so do my contractions. I am so mad.
Sometimes the body misleads, all this work we have to do when the garden isn’t made for us anymore. It’s a curse, to feel the need to step in, bound by time and pain. God is Invisible, so we induce. He is invisible, but we are in Him, even when we try to lead. I cover the bed in so much blood. Six centimeters and then baby to breast within 10 minutes, Seth smothers in the idea of losing.
I hold crinkle nosed baby in my arms. I’m pale white, Seth cornered all blank, and it hits me, again, how he loves me; how I love what he’s planted; how I love my Jude; how he moves in bulk, studying faces; how gently he undoes our swaddling – full bloom from the beginning.
- January 5, 2010
- 29 Comments
- 1
- invisible, labor, motherhood, the garden
Kelly
January 5, 2010You have given me chills... I love reading your love stories. I hold my breath and I lose my breath and you give me tears that are so good...
Robin ~ PENSIEVE
January 5, 2010Oh...my.
Oh....MY.
Poetic...painful...fully felt. I love the way you Tell Things. Like no other, my friend.
Like...no...other.
Hillary @ The Other Mama
January 5, 2010Breathtaking! I love it!!
Cassie
January 5, 2010Robin is right.
No one can tell a story like you.
Amazing.
brittney
January 5, 2010I've missed your love story posts.
Kristen
January 5, 2010This was beautiful. Just like you.
Heidi
January 5, 2010Amber, this is beautiful. I love your "Love Stories", the glimpses into life, your life, the way that you make everything beautiful and poignant and real.
Kelly @ Love Well
January 5, 2010Breath-taking. You're telling your story, but in such gentle strokes, we all read our own story on your canvas.
Lora Lynn
January 5, 2010Mmmmmm.... good.
Sarah@EmergingMummy
January 5, 2010It's so true. So very true.
mandy Eoff
January 5, 2010tears, beautiful...let's trade "birth" stories i want to hear all of yours
Beth
January 5, 2010I'm thinking we should compile your blog posts into a book. They're incredible. This one is beautiful, and vivid, and blurry all at the same time. Love it.
Tiffany
January 5, 2010Never have I read anything quite like this. It was beautiful and fluid and gentle, and now I want to read more from your pen. I will most definitely be back. Thank you.
L.L. Barkat
January 5, 2010I loved this...
"and their eyes are wide moons, and they say, “yes, ma’am.” "
How wonderfully amusing.
rachel-asouthernfairytale
January 5, 2010I'm with Robin.
Your words are poetry, a gift... like. no. other.
Kelli @ 3 Boys and a Dog
January 5, 2010WOW! I am so glad you followed me on Twitter on a day when I decided to click through my new followers! You write beautifully!
Megan@SortaCrunchy
January 5, 2010I'll add to the chorus of praise for you (while you duck and run): Amber. This is so . . . beautiful doesn't even begin to say it. I realized at the end I had held my breath from nearly the beginning. Oh, Storyteller. May you keep working out the words of His Gift.
Corinne
January 5, 2010By the end of this my eyes were inches from the computer screen. Sucked me in, and every word held my attention.
Wow. Just, wow.
Muthering Heights
January 5, 2010All I can say is...incredible!
Amber
January 5, 2010Megan. Y'all, I do duck and run. I'm sorry. I don't know what to do with all this. Thank you for the encouragement.
This Love Story has really been hard to write, and I wouldn't keep going out in public if I hadn't dragged you in this far.
I'm so sorry for my lack of response. Sometimes comments paralyze me. They keep me encouraged, but they also render me speechless.
Kari Kounkel
January 6, 2010It's not prose, Amber. It's poetry.
Aunt Pam
January 6, 2010Ahhh...your poetry, you words, His love has poured on you. You are so blessed. Thanks for sharing and bringing my eyes to tears, again. Jude, the spirited one and his sweetness. Love y'all!
emily
January 6, 2010I knew your struggle and tears in writing this would produce a lovely life poem. I rushed over to see...and indeed, I was right.
Ann Voskamp @ Holy Experience
January 6, 2010This, I will read, again and again, God the Invisible breathing in such words. Uninduced.
Don't duck and run... we only long to embrace the God-gift in you.
I love you.
deb
January 6, 2010staring at the blank space .
here, silent. moved beyond.
Sarah
January 6, 2010This is just beautiful Amber! I have been reading your blog for some time! Your eloquent writing continues to draw me back again and again to your site. When I need to be inspired, this is one of the places I come to. Thank you for sharing your gift of writing with us all!
Your sister in Christ,
Sarah
http://ellasmom505.blogspot.com)
Tamara
January 7, 2010"how gently he undoes our swaddling.." All I can say is, if you don't write a book, it will be a sin of most grievous proportion. You are so gifted, it's causing me to covet. Blessings on you and your love story.
Jess
January 7, 2010Lovely! As always!
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