Dear Z.,
Today we walked with Quyana in the cold wind at the Sandy River Delta, and stopped for a long while at the farthest point of land, a few dozen meters from Gary Island. Surrounded by rivers high from recent rains, we watched a Great Egret hunt for food nearby. Flocks of Canadian Geese flew in V-formations east. The dog ran and ran, then laid near us, alert.
Water, you said, and pointed north.
When we made our way inland again, you began to cry when I pushed your stroller out of sight of the river. Knowing that even small transitions can be a thing, I pushed on for a moment. You cried harder. It was not a cry of preference, I sensed, but one of distress, and my heart heard you. It was not the first, or even the third time you’ve reacted like this at this very spot, this very river.
As a parent, I’m learning where to ascribe meaning daily. Sometimes I can see your toddler-scientist self trying every possible way to do a thing, and in those moments I sense your bodymind simply growing into an evermore complete apparatus of life.
There are other moments, like when leaving the river, when I think I can feel something happening in you that is deeper than discovery.
Perhaps it is remembering.
It is also difficult sometimes for me to discern what is whose, especially when you respond to something which bears great meaning for me, like leaving rivers.
My heart broke to hear you in such distress, and perhaps also feeling my own, I paused our uphill trek and turned you to once again face the nearby moving water.
You calmed immediately, and for many more long moments quietly gazed at the river, forgotten tears streaming down your cheeks like rain on a windowpane.
Thank you, water.
Beautiful. ❤️