“I had plenty of time

when my daughter was a baby,”

my friend tells me.

“It was just lost in the transitions.”

 

She means the transitions

between eating and sleeping

between dishes and laundry

between what was and what is.

Motherhood means dwelling within these transitions.

Residing in the space between one necessity and the next

nodding to the time that slips away

and surrendering all expectation.

 

Inefficiency is the name of the game

a game that moves at its own speed, just as

yellow leaves fall slowly, inexorably into the creek

and the creek flows slowly, inexorably into the sea.

I wallow in the throes of inefficient adoration

the crinkle of a brow

the grasp of a hand

the gurgle in a breath.

 

I used to minimize the transitions

to live more fully in the spaces before and after.

Now I linger luxuriously in the creases and joints that

link what I used to call ‘real life.’

The time that is lost while I linger in the transitions

is simply an exhale of breath

an internal rotation toward accepting

the beauty of the present moment.