shedding our summer skin

i woke in a fit. hours early. before that five-thirty moonlight fights with the six o'clock sunrise and creates a jagged spill of light onto our quilt.

and when it's a fit that wakes you, falling back to sleep is unbearable. i laid in the silence and thought for an hour until it was a logical time to stretch my weary arms and rouse pablo outside. there is no stiller moment, no calmer minutes, than those before everyone wakes. even nighttime, with its blanket of black, still buzzes with the aura of exhaustion. with twisting and turning and crickets outside and creaks and cracks as this old farmhouse settles its bones into a slumber.

but the morning? the morning is for thinking, and i thought. surprisingly, i found myself reminiscing. looking over at robert, his arm tucked under his neck and his legs tangled in the covers. that yellow quilt he hates because it's hot but i love because it's vintage. and over at pablo curled up in a tiny ball, the rise and fall of his downy chest the only flutter of movement around. thinking about how even now, even this morning, time is slipping and moving and roller coastering. wondering if my one-day babies will ever know pablo, at least the pablo i know now. it's getting harder for him to jump up on the bed and it's breaking my  heart.

and i don't take enough photographs. oh i take digital pictures plenty. but they stay on my camera or on my phone. i haven't made a photo album since high school. it was this realization that made me the most sad.

and, to top it all off, the tomatoes are gone.

the tomatoes that robert's grandpa watered twice a day for months. sent home to us in paper bags with little notes from his grandma. we ate the last one yesterday. the plants have shriveled and wilted and now fall is marching in with its heavy boots.

so i prayed for time to crawl and sunk back into the darkness, cocooning myself in the sacred space of morning, willing the sun to rise a little slower, the moon suspended a little longer. just enough time to take it all in, before it all starts moving at lightning speed once again.