Frogs

I stand in the doorway of the basement bedroom and breath in the deep smell of mold and oak. The dark is soft and surrounds me, as if it is made of the breath of my sleeping children, for they are the ones inside the room, and I am filled with both the knowledge that they are completely safe and at peace, and also the deeper pit of truth that these are merely momentary states of being. Motherhood surely is the breaking of delicate teeth on such a hard rock beneath the gush of juice and peach fuzz to which George Eliot referred.

I hold their little hands, the dimples beneath my rough thumbs, and it is all I can do to keep from breaking their little fingers in this overpowering love. If Mary Gordon did not know the emotional life of motherhood would be such physical sensation, then she was a fool. I knew what to expect in that regard; what I don't know is how to contain or channel it. The rush that comes over me could cause me to beat my children senseless or crush them with my kisses. Perhaps it is me, their own life and love giver, who stands the greatest danger to them, as Lennie Small was to his victim.

It is wet here in Vermont and all day Dylan was promised frogs. There were none at the nature preserve today and he bore up incredibly well for a three year old. So later, when his uncle found one in the garage, it was only the man's sense to give him directions ahead of time - cup it gently in leaf litter, then let it go back into the puddle, then wash your hands with soap - that preserved the tiny brown thing's slippery life. Dylan was practically hyperventilating with anticipation. It was all I could do to keep from crushing him into the moment, as wildflower into a scrapbook.