Waiting

A temporary place.

Not quite here.

Not quite there.

Waiting fills the spaces in between.

Time gathers softy like fabric around moments as they edge closer to that unpredictable Beginning. Little things, washed and folded, are placed in make-shift spaces, and become the visible markers of the waiting.

It's the kind of waiting that settles into your body, the way waiting is felt physically in an uncomfortable chair. I wait for him to get back home. I wait for her; her kicks becoming ever more insistent, impatient even, depending on how you look at it.

Each night I wonder what will happen. The thought lies with me as I wake in the dark and wonder and turn and shift. I will the waiting on.

Waiting... so difficult to explain to a four-year old.

"Can't the baby tell us when it's ready?"

"How long will the baby still be?"

I pull her close to me in the bed and feel her little body snuggle up to mine, seeking that comfortable, familiar intertwining of selves; her thin little arm resting over my big belly.

I can't quite believe it: two.

So soon.