I Know You Know

I open my eyes on a Monday morning, the late August sun bright in my bedroom. Emerson is next to me, still asleep. She’s dressed in her silky leopard print pajamas, sleeping on her side instead of on her back like she usually does. Her angelic face is peaceful in slumber and she’s as beautiful as anything I’ve ever seen. I watch her for a moment, a painful lump in the middle of my chest, wondering of what she dreams.

In ten days she starts second grade. I cannot tell you where the minutes, days and years disappeared to, like morning mist on a autumn day in the Pacific Northwest – here one minute and gone the next. I tried to hold onto every moment. Truly, I did. But it travelled along anyway. I know you know.

Yet, still, I wish this moment could go on forever. But it cannot. I know you know.

Tomorrow my fourth novel, Riverstar, will be available for purchase (Booktrope Editions). This writing life has been a soul-giving journey, a twisting, curving country road nestled on a mountainside, with unexpected joys and successes and moments of sheer terror and doubt. Just like motherhood.

Unlike before the release of my first book, or even the second, I am strangely calm. I know I’ve done the best work I could. I wrote from my heart. I wrote for you, dear reader.

I can say the same about my girls. As they embark off to their new school year next week, I release them once again in this constant exercise of letting go that is motherhood. Yes, I release them into this joyous and terrifying life, into their life, strangely calm, knowing I’ve done my best.

They are my heart. And I give them to the world.

It is all I know to do. I know you know.