On the way home from driving my second daughter
to her school, I became the Universe, relatively speaking,
of course. The day had dawned darkly, low rain clouds
mingle-melded into seething, restless steam, boiling
with love for Mother Earth’s soothing touch. I thought
of the start of my family’s morning.

“I’m having a bad day,” my youngest daughter said.
As a mother who has had kids home for two weeks,
I was exasperated, yet, I ached with understanding.
She started crying, I wanted to. Instead, I stood
holding my daughter’s shaking form, suppressed
my need to scream, or laugh, or … disappear.
Hadn’t I just had to zoom home with the older child
because I forgot to give her money for a pizza lunch
with her Knowledge Bowl Club?

I don’t want such intense, reverberating responsibility.
Don’t want to feel fragmented, constantly, failing
to reconstruct myself correctly, a hundred times
a day. I had to filter my ‘wants’ into a funnel
redirected back into myself while the next ten minutes
dragged like a wounded clock without hands
to hold the hurt.

On the way to her school, the delicate balance
of uneasy harmony lasted until I dropped her off.
The release of tension was sublime. Hopelessness
huddled back into the cellars of my being. I opened
my mind’s windows, and absorbed the sweet
turbulent rush of Nature echoing my state of mind.

Driving up the small hill to my dead-end road,
I let the day’s weather overwhelm me,
and had a thought. I wondered if the entire
universe existed in me, if I was It, inside out.
I smiled. And studied the idea. It was possible,
I decided. In actuality, we all are the Universe,
in myriad paralleled continuity. Like my fleshed soul,
each bio-cell existing on its own, happily
drawn together to honor Life. I was primed
to Big Bang. Coalesced, I could implode any moment,
scattering tiny bits of my awareness into new
directions, patterns and creativity. I could be God.
I am sentient. How big a difference could there be
in the two concepts?

I walked into the back yard after opening the door
to lure the cats out of the house. Looked up,
through the bare limbs of the picnic table tree,
and saw clouds furiously convoluting in every
direction. Drifts and waves and twists of earth-loving
moisture dynamically collided, spun, spiraled and
laughed, with the power of God’s love, my love,
for this world’s vast womb.

I wanted to join them in their dance of joy, wanted
to fall with abandon through boundless sky,
then flow with gravity’s clasping hug of bosomly edict,
its mandate of materialized synchronicity. My eyes
became wings of desire, crying for home’s berth. And,
I felt such worth in myself, I deigned to remain
with feet on the ground, but, I sent my spirit soaring
on cosmic paths of consent and awareness.

Before we left the house, this morning,
I had penned a note, saying, “I love you.
Have a “good” day. Mom.” I placed it in her
library book, with the edge sticking up so
she would see it, then put the book in her school bag.
I hope it brings her a smile, and the touch of my love.

It’s going to be a good day.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 1/4/05