Let your own spring surprise you

We still don’t know the color of our baby’s eyes.

When he was born, I thought they would be blue. He had the mysterious gray-blue, deep-sea eyes characteristic of newborns, but there was something about his that suggested a future of blue. This prospect excited me because I’ve always dreamt of a dark-haired, blue-eyed baby. I’ve always admired the striking, unexpected beauty of that combination, which seemed so much more interesting than brown-haired, brown-eyed me.

And maybe I’m attracted to the dance of the dominant and recessive traits and the seemingly infinite combinations of people who could come from us in the passion-play of genes. Of course, no matter what forms my babies take, they will forever be dreamy to me. My brown-haired, brown-eyed firstborn is anything but uninteresting, and sometimes I look at his body–so big and so small at the same time–and the sunshine of his flesh feels almost too beautiful to behold.

I’ve been watching my baby’s eyes carefully.

They have changed. They have changed. This suggests a before and after, some clear break between what they have been and what they are and will continue to be. But I still can’t categorize them. I can say that they have begun to assert themselves as not-blue. He has ripples of brown-gold now, ribbons of something distinctly not-blue, but I can’t tell if the gold-green will keep spreading and dominating or if his eyes will be a kind of chameleon hazel. They keep me guessing.

Truly, these beings will always keep me guessing. There will always be the potential for change in my children, in my husband, in myself.

The things we know about ourselves can change. We are not fixed forms, despite our tendencies to want to pin down who we are.

Our hair often darkens as we grow from childhood into adulthood.

The texture of our hair can change from curly to wavy to straight depending on our season of life and the wetness of the air, depending on whether we washed it before pillow-flat bed or at poofy dawn, depending on whether we’ve let the sunlight and oil and beach salt brush it.

My known shoe size never returned after having my first baby.

The texture of my belly skin is more slack now, stretched twice to accommodate ten and a half pounds of baby along with about three pounds of fluid and placenta, combined with two pounds of uterus grown to 500 times its pre-pregnancy size.

Wow, we are wondrously fluid and stretchy beings. Shapeshifters, change agents, planters of new beauty over and over.

Recently I’ve been feeling this shift so exquisitely in the stories I tell around my identity, as well.

Stories like: I’m not a morning person. I’m healing from trauma. I’m shy and anxious in social settings.

I’ve felt a liberation from these stories. I’ve loosened what I think I know to be true about myself. I’m free to live into them, and I’m free to depart from them. I butterfly-wing my way to one bloom and then to another and perhaps land again where I’ve already rested. Can I frolic between these stories, feel the play of air? Can I breeze on the wind for awhile and let no story touch me?

Parts of me have wintered, and they’re fertilizing the new buds and shoots that now surprise me. This is not my season of life for dominant perennial stories of self; it is a season of annuals, with new colors and new shapes beckoning. Regal stalks, brilliant colors, lush trails of fragrant blooms. Overnight I find I have crept, climbed, spread to new places. 

I meet my changed and changing body with curiosity.

Signs of fertility live alongside trumpets of eventual death. My baby unlatches, and the milk sprays his face like a summer sprinkler. But here, see two white hairs at the edge of my left eyebrow. Behold my one chin hair. In the passing of the last winter, it seems my hands have shown the weather of the past ten.

Is my changing body any less worthy of wonder and praise than the mysterious bodies of my babies? Are my developments and milestones any less remarkable?

Catherine is 376 months now. She’s discovering her hands and all the things they can do, smiling when she reaches out to touch us. She’s so snuggly and squishy! She bought some spring plants again even though she’s killed them every year. We love how much hope she brings to new seasons and how she’s not afraid to try again where she has failed before.

She loves bath time and lets out a big sigh when her body is submerged in the water. Sometimes she wants to stay in the bath for over an hour just listening to music and even closing her eyes! What an old soul and a peaceful spirit.

She’s learning to grasp and learning to let go, and she laughs when what she releases falls to the floor and makes a loud sound. She’s letting go of old narratives of self and embracing new discoveries. She thinks it’s so funny when everyone around her will pick up what she’s dropped and try to put it back in her hands.

She’s started to babble and will “talk” to us for hours; she wants to be a part of every conversation we have. She even tries to sing the songs we sing, although she clearly doesn’t know the words. What a little angel. We love her so.

Let yourself be surprised by your own spring. Lovingly release the rigid and brittle stalks to winter. More in you is designed to change than to stay the same. Greet your ever-emerging self with wonder, curiosity, and reverence. Here you are, and we love you so.