From tree climbing to moms

Two years ago this time of summer Lou and I drove around in my parents silver sports car in search of cherry trees. She would climb up the trees and throw the cherries down, I used my skirt and shirt as buckets, one hand holding both up to make bowls for catching the fruit, my belly button and thighs exposed to the warm summer. We had bags and bags of cherries. We talked about all the pies and jams we would make. We ate cherries and threw the pits and stems out the open car onto the asphalt.

A few months later Lou got pregnant and I got married. Then I had you.

We recently met up in my parent's town again, you and her boys looked at each other, you tried to taste his head and explore him in what looked like wrestling. Lou and I exchanged birth stories. We ran around my parent's yard after her boy, you had fallen asleep. We talked about our water breaking while we threw a ball to her son, we talked about throwing up and loosing our sense of purpose during labor while we play peekaboo with her son, we circle the house chasing this sweet golden child and contemplating the horror, our strength, and the sheer absurdity of growing babies and opening our bodies to let them out.