Thursday 9 September 2010

Time, going nowhere

My head is rushing. I woke from a dream of sorting through my drawers and putting away all the bras that no longer fit me. Which was of course most of them. At the same time I was trying to dry a library book that got soaked while I was wading through a mangrove forest in the pouring rain, trying to get somewhere.

It's 3 am in the morning and I'm wide awake.

Morning sickness, I guess, starts really, really early in the morning.

I did the usual, rolling over, eating a cracker with peanut butter, drank some water. But I can't seem to go back to sleep. I got the laptop out, checked my schedule for tomorrow morning, and the lecture is about sleep disturbances in children. Not helping.

Somewhere, in your wide, comfy bed, you are asleep, my lover. I hope you are sleeping soundly, that your body is allowing you the rest you deserve.

The space next to me is empty, but somehow I can still feel you there, see you sleeping the way you sometimes do, turned on your side, hugging the duvet like a cuddly toy, the curve of your upper lip protruding slightly, in a way that makes it almost impossible not to kiss, although that would almost certainly wake you, you are a lighter sleeper than you seem to think.

Or you are sitting, propped up against a pillow in the diffuse light from an IKEA bedside lamp, your strong hand with fingers spread out, splaying open a book with way too many pages, forehead slightly creasing up now and then, as if what you are reading surprises you. Your eyes move rapidly across the page, the same way they move when you are dreaming. I love that, how you can dream your way into a book, away from everything. How you can be called back if I touch you.

Last night, I was on the sofa, watching that episode from Season 6 of Buffy where Xander stands Anya up at the altar. My belly was doming below my hand, resting at that curiously hot spot at the bottom of my breasts (the ones that no longer fit into my bra).

I am pretty sure there is still life down there, I certainly feel as pregnant as ever, moved to tears by Extreme Makeover (House Edition), even when the parents are still alive and neither of the children are crippled.

There, on the sofa, where that baby could well have been made had we spent that particular evening in my apartment and not in yours, I was wondering whether I will ever feel contained by the company of this child, what we've created together.

But I think I will continue to miss you when you are not here, I will look at the empty spot next to me like I do now, and know that I am too far away from home, which is always where you are.