These posts always feel like letters to someone. I want to start them out. Dear
(fill in name),
I guess when I write these posts it is like I am writing to my dearest friends.
Today I woke up a bit grumpy. The time change is a bit of a killer and my body is a bit sore and out of sorts. Last night over dinner, Jenny said she would walk with me and Opal. This morning she suggested going to the Mount Auburn Cemetery. Without knowing, she picked one of my favorite places in Cambridge to walk!
This felt like a very different type of walk from yesterday. As I was at Jenny's wedding to my dear friend Jesse. But in another way, I don't know Jenny at all. As our time spent together has been short and with Jesse.What I learn on these walks, is a stranger or not. You still have so much to learn about someone. The thing is Jenny is a very poised person and very thoughtful. Hence the great walking location. This was my first walk with a child and a walker. Opal was incredibly quiet and just nursed away or sat thoughtfully in her little baby pouch resting on her mom or looking at her book we brought with. It had a gorilla as the main character. Opal is a major reader. Which Auntie Paige can get behind. :)
The great thing about the walk is that I was able to be with Jenny.
Jenny is not a huge talker and what is amazing is being with her meant
sharing the resource of energy she has storied in her body. She is
really brilliant and a power house mom, and I could feel that in her
hand. With Jenny, I felt like just being was the best gift. Which as an
over talker was a bit nerve wracking, not to fill in our talking rhythms
with words. WE tried being silent at the end of the walk and Opal
started singing when we stopped talking. :) It was so calming and
lovely at the Mount Auburn Cemetery. We ended the walk by Isabella
Stewart Gardner's mausoleum and we wrote about the walk as Opal drew.
Jenny said something really smart the first day I was in Boston. Which was with Opal, it is best to get out of the house at least once a day. It helps Opal sleep and it keeps her in a good mood. And I couldn't help but think how this is good for all of us. get out of the house, get out of the office, take an hour to go do something for yourself. The library, the grocery store, a park, and take the time to smell the flowers and look at the lobsters (Shaw's has both of these things.) Take your time and don't rush. I think it is important in this too that it doesn't cost a lot of money.
I feel very blessed to get to be a part of Opal, Jenny, and Jesse's world. It is a great example of what love looks like on a daily basis. the support it takes to take care of one child is enormous. And Jesse and Jenny do it with absolutely lovely humor, song, light, and hugs. Opal is smarter than I am already and she is almost 1.5 and can already spell her name! But what makes her amazing is her curiosity and comic facial features. She goes 100 miles a minute and we all just try to keep up with her.
As we were walking back to the car, taking pictures of flowers and trees, a funeral procession pasted. As we crested the hill to get back to the car. I heard strains of Taps being played and I thought of uncle Tom and how we played that for him just months before. Children represent so much and we put alot of hope in them for the future. For me, walking around with Opal gave me hope and solace.Life springs open again and again and again. much like the books you read Opal are read again and again and again. And they don't lose their excitement. Thank God, the cycles of birth and death are ever in motion.
I am still digesting this walk as walking with someone who makes up a part of your life is more layered I know that it hits deeper emotionally.This project is leaving my controlling hands of what it should be or could be and I am letting go and continuing to follow this ride. I don't know all of what this walk means to me. Right now, I know,
I am so glad for my time with Jenny and Opal today. That I know already.
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