Just stepped out onto my balcony and had a seat, with a melting chocolate truffle between my left thumb and pointer finger - a mug of spearmint chamomile tea in my right hand.
Taking a moment.
Realizing, thinking, that tucked within the folds of the incomparable totality of being a wife and mother, are the strains of difficulty — because as a writer, and the daughter of a misanthropist hued family — I was so good at (and did find comfort in) being alone.
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And as I think this, a wife and mother in an apartment across and below from mine, done cleaning her home, brings her broom and dustpan out to her balcony. Before she turns back in, her child’s bubbles catch her eye. She opens them.
And as she blows the slick rainbow tinged soap over the balcony, closes the plastic bottle, and ducks in under the curtains - I want to yell and ask her to stay awhile.
But we’re wives and mothers, you see.
We can’t.
-s.
