Sublime

“No, really, I’m done.” They are reminding me of the years when they were small and it was just me in the house beneath all that snow and Joe was in the barn trying to fix a tractor he didn’t know how to fix, and I felt like the children would eat me. Nell was eating me, still at my breast, and the other two rushed to crawl in my lap whenever I sat

I know, too, that motherhood can bring a sort of violent, overwhelming love that feels like being encased in metal and dropped into a deep silent sea. This mother love can feel as raw and rare as cutting through the soft dark crimson of uncooked liver, and as unsettling as that, too.

do

am separated from another woman, my friend, because I cannot talk about this part of motherhood: the wanting and then the getting and the resenting and the missing, the longing.