Not-Pregnant Musings (Part II)

We have a room in the new house that would make a perfect nursery. There is a window facing the front yard with a view of our now purple tree. Sometimes it is red, sometimes green, like a painting that can’t make up its beautiful mind. I picture putting the rocking chair there, where Evan or I could sit with her in the middle of the night, or on a sleepy afternoon, creating a rhythm with just the soft pump of our feet. When we first moved in, I chose white wallpaper with whimsical, silver trees to accent the wall. I only got halfway done, so part of the room is still covered in dull pink stripes, while the other half looks like an emerging Hundred Acre Woods. I am content. But I also wonder what her hair would smell like. 

Right now the room is an “office” - the place where I put my desk and stack our unsorted boxes and mail. My paintings clutter the floor and folders and canvases crowd out my laptop. I make space. And I have made peace with this life. I love writing and making perfect poached eggs for breakfast. I love leading worship, caring for the hurting, and being able to show up for coffee with someone who just needs to talk. And if it is only ever the two of us in this house, I will count myself blessed beyond measure. I will look at my cup and wonder how it hasn’t burst open and shattered from the influx of living water. 

Still, I write this remix of a previous sketch. Because that is the way my brain works. I have to say things more than once, in different ways, to work them out. To untangle the knots. To reach a sort of conclusion. And my conclusion is that there will always be something I long for--something just out of reach--because that is what it means to be human this side of heaven. 

Some days I store these longings up as anxious energy, or “rotten meat,” as Langston Hughes writes in his poem, “Dream Deferred.” It is too easy for me to view desire as an enemy. But maybe desire is a gift. A reminder that this isn’t all there is. That we were made for more, and our bodies and breath feel it, knowing, deep down, that there is more to come. Until that day, may we brim with hope and expectation. 

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