Five Years Slipped Through the Fingers

Time. It is a hard thing for me to grasp; sand slipping through the fingers. Five years ago today I know exactly where I was, to the minute. It is a strange feeling reconciling the present and the past—one is a separate dimension that lives in my memory.

The omnipresent ones; past, present and future.

Turning five years old is special. It is a time when real adolescent comprehension seems to kick in, going from toddler thoughts to child thoughts. We have decided to nix birthday parties in place of birthday experiences. For instance, the experience of playing all day on the beach, until the sun gets low. Then, heading to a live oak sheltered patch of sand to build a fire with enough boy scout dinners on the grate to shield it from view. The experience of patience for slow cooking as the smell of thyme and rosemary seeps out of the aluminum foil packs of meat and vegetables. The experience includes sharpening a palmetto stalk into a marshmallow stake, and hearing silly ghost stories by lantern light.

But back to time—back to five years ago. Five years ago at this moment I was sitting on my bedroom floor, semi-conscious. My conscious thoughts were in a deep fog. The midwives call it “the trance”. The conscious mind prefers not to tolerate high amounts of pain, and back labor makes the spine feel broken. Thousands of years of birth seems to have brought on the invention of some handy tricks by the hormones for coping with pain. So there I sat in the trance on the floor, because if I’m in pain I have to be on the floor. Like a wild animal that seeks a secluded corner while in bad health, the instinct is still strong in some of us humans. When giving birth, the body needs to be grounded with the earth it descended from.

There is a red seam down the top of my scalp from the sun burning where my hair is parted. Little shell pieces stick to me in odd places, but I won’t be showering anytime soon, so I may as well accept them. The salt has stiffened my hair so that a tie is optional—a helpful little camping trick. But the food is good, and the crickets are chirping. Stars are appearing between the branches. The air is full of giggles coming from a tent that will be so covered over by sandy little feet that sleeping without the tent may not be a huge downgrade. It is a birthday experience though, so it’s okay.

Birthdays are so special—special days when mothers remember. Unfortunately, in birth the “trance” does pass. The trance abandoned me when it was time. It left me alone with my pain. The pain of a mal-positioned baby pressing those waves of contractions into my spine is not a pain that I can relive. It is too intense to exist in that memory/other dimension—only foggy things live there. One wave crashing on the shore sends a human bystander flying in the direction of the wave’s will. It is only a bit of wind put into water, but it is ridiculously strong. That is how I think of contractions too.

Birthday cupcakes have been eaten, dinners are gone, palmetto-marshmallow stakes sit idle, lantern light casts only a small gold glow into the blackness, and children are heavy-eyed. Not much to do, other than sleep. Into muggy, sandy tents we go to sleep with our bathing suits still on. A slot is opened from the rain cover, and there just outside of the tent mesh is a few bright stars for proper nightlights. The lovely inactivity of sleep is welcome to fall over us—another dimension all itself.

I labored long and hard all these hours that I am spending only typing now. Nothing worthwhile comes without hard work, so says my American upbringing. I worked hard as hell, and just after dawn I got my boy. I am grateful I did all that hard work, and I’m grateful I’m not doing it now.

Crazy, slippery time. What a beautiful thing five years is.