The love that lives

The midday sun crept over the roof, lit the top of the old oak tree, and finally reached the front yard and the little veranda of our house.

Sitting on a little chair on the veranda I rolled up my shirt under my breasts and exposed my belly, my face, and hands to the caressing warmth of the sun. I relaxed, letting the pouring light soak into my skin. Quiet music streaming from a kitchen radio lulled my mind on its waves, gently diffused the daily rush, and carried me away to the shore of the ocean. Light wind tickled my skin, and the pure air filled my chest up with joy and a sense of liberation.

My son, yet unborn, greeted the sun with me. He moved and kicked, somewhere inside, as if he was a little hot spring that seethed and bubbled under the surface of the ground. Together, we shared the instinctive and primeval joy of a sudden entry into the sunlight, unexpected awaking, sprouting, meeting with the lifegiving force in its pure raw form. After many months of being deeply hidden under the layers of clothing, protected from the Melbourne winter, he met the sun for the very first time. I could feel him delighted and I was delighted myself.

With my eyes closed, I could imagine us, soon, walking together, along the coast of the South ocean, perhaps, with our feet dipped into the salty playful water on a summer day. I will look at my son with all my love – how playful and easy he is in his childish simplicity. The joy of life beats in his every cell, in his every breath that he takes without notice. He will be a child of freedom, warm sand, waves, and the high blue sky, as much as I was a child of the snow, frosty air, and the small frozen pond covered with marks from my tireless ice-skates every winter. As we walk along, I look ahead, beyond the line of the sea converging into the sky, towards the lands that carry the people who I love, and who hold stories of my childhood. I smile, saluting them and my childhood inwardly.

As clouds cross the sky, my thought stream takes me further away, to the times where we go to school on an autumn day, chatting about plans for the coming winter, and later that night we sit together in front of a small fireplace, enjoying cosy flecks of the flame playing on our faces.

On a spring day, while working together in a front yard, he will hear the voices of his friends, calling him out to play. He will leave his tools and dash to open the gate as I am saying “have fun”. Later, I will call him for dinner, just as my parents called me, after a long day of me playing outside, building snow castles, or going to ‘the North pole expedition’ to the pond to search for a fish that turned into a still figure in the thick glass-like surface of the pond. And as my parents trusted me to be home at dinner time and to feed my dog and to grow into a good human, I will trust my son to live his life to all its potential, explore the world, new lands, and horizons, and to learn that there is no right or wrong, but only infinite possibilities.

And when the day comes, I will say to him my most sincere “good luck” and let him go, as my parents did, when I forever left our home years ago. With clarity, I envision him walking his kids to school, packing wood with them into the fireplace, and loving them, and trusting them, and letting them to fly out when they are ready.

But yet, he still is a little child inside me, excited to experience the sunlight for the first time.

My daydreams dissolved, maybe because the wind made me feel cold, or maybe the little plastic chair didn’t comfort me anymore. I opened my eyes. The sand beach turned into the floor of the veranda, still lit by the sun through the coming and going clouds.

I got up and left the chair and my small veranda, appreciating the generous offerings that they gave to me. I felt blissful, felt connected to the world, through the sun, through the dreams about freedom and happiness we share, and through the love that lives in people’s hearts eternal and deep as the vast blue sky.