A Snapshot, Folded, Frozen in Time...

 This picture was taken a few days before Hannah was born. I had taken the last month of my pregnancy off from work and had no trouble filling my newly liberated hours. I baked, and made frozen meals for after her arrival. I got Hannah's room in order, and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned our house. On the Friday before she was born I became wrestles and went for a walk.

It was a windy day and the clouds hung low, sailing across the sky like marshmallow sailboats. I stood there at the end of the pier taking in the horizon. The cranes stood in the distance like mechanical giraffes, and sailboats skated across the water with grace as lady liberty stood watch. My mind was clear. My life was about to change I was very much aware. However, I was experiencing a momentary stillness only felt one other time in my life.

Nineteen years earlier, though I was only 17, I felt the same fleeting wisdom as I watched a blizzard consume the view from my 8th story apartment window. I was warm and dry on the other side of the glass, but life was about to seep it's way in to my adolescent world and, for as long as I stood at that window, without fear or excitement, I knew it. I was at peace with it.

The Friday before Hannah's birth, it only took me a moment to recognize what I was experiencing. When past, present and future reside so close to one another that you can feel the knife poised waiting to cut a line between them, and for only a moment, you can dance on the edge of its blade. After twenty minutes I walked home, I was no longer restless. I can remember little else from that day, only that two days later, Hannah was born and sure enough, my life changed. 

I feel blessed for both of these moments. Even more so that I was wise enough the second time around to take a picture. This is only a snapshot, but I will forever remember both of those women, standing brave before the threshold of life and all of it's joys, it's disappointments, and all of its beautifully unreined chaos.