I want you to be happy here
On Motherhood: What if it’s less about the ocean, less about home?
When I think of you turning seven months I think about the sea. How we drove over four hours to introduce you to the ocean. We buckled you into the car seat that you hate and I sat in the back with you, trying to distract you from the time.
I teetered between joy and guilt the entire drive to the coast. Joy because I couldn’t wait to see your face when you put your hands in the sand. I couldn’t wait to show you the sea birds and the Spanish moss and the cobblestone streets. Guilt because it all felt so far away. So much planning and effort and time to get there.
Five years ago we lived steps from the shore. We had palm trees in the yard and the ocean mist coming through the window while we slept.
We walked the shoreline every day. There were two parts of the beach that would disappear with the tide if you weren’t paying attention to the time. Sometimes we’d lose track altogether and wade in the salty water carrying our dogs, laughing when we had to dump the wet sand from our pockets.
We’d walk in the pink of the morning, the moonlight, and the brightness of the white sun. The blueness of the waves and the sound of our own thoughts — they all came rushing back as I listened to the tires on the road and the jingle of the stuffed elephant that you love so much.
We left California because we wanted space and seasons and something new. We were living in a tiny room with a mattress on the floor. Our clothes spilled out of suitcases and books lined the windowsills. Your dad mounted a piece of wood in the corner of the room for a standup desk and that’s where I wrote the first draft of my memoir. To record music and carve rings, your dad rented a spider-infested shed with no air conditioning and a padlock on the door.
We spent more time outside than we did indoors. I remember walking the beach every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes three. I remember sand falling out of all the pages of my books and feeling the tiny grains in the bedsheets. I remember feeling grateful and present and like I was missing something. I remember feeling unhappy.
We left the sea for the mountains. California for Carolina. The west for the south.
Back in California, I went to the farmer’s market every Tuesday. I knew the booth who had the juiciest lemons and the woman who had the perfectly ripe avocados. I knew the best thrift stores, the best restaurants with the freshest burrata on toast, the wine shop with the best selection from the Rhone Valley in France. I had friends who’d have us over for dinner and make specialty cocktails in their living room. We’d picnic at the beach, hike the bluffs in spring when everything was covered in edible yellow flowers, and exchange used books with our favorite passages underlined.
In Carolina, I didn’t have any of those things. At least not in the beginning.
We made a home in a town we’d never heard of, where we knew no one.
But we were happy.
I forgot about the sea. Life became about the fog in the mornings, the rivers, the mountains that are always blue. We watched the seasons change, the trees going from bare to bud to bloom. Life became about the thunderstorms in the dead of summer and the fireflies in the field. The birds we’d never heard of and the lake full of swans. We counted weeping willows and wild blackberries and the nests of bald eagles in the trees.
We had the time and space to create. I wrote the second draft of the memoir watching a lightning storm behind the hemlocks. I wrote the third in our living room lined with books and records and dried flowers. Your dad built a recording studio in the basement and filled it with pianos and guitars and string instruments. He wrote an album and then another. He wrote you a song on the piano that I used to play for you before you joined me earthside.
When did we stop being happy here?
Was it when we were forced to stay because of a global pandemic? When travel felt like a distant memory? When being home felt like a punishment and not a privilege?
When did it become less about home and more about the ocean? I yearn for the salt and the sun and the sand in our hair. A big part of me feels like I’m robbing you of something by being so far from the sea. Like I’m keeping a certain kind of freedom from you. I don’t want you to feel like we used up all of our good days before you were born.
I want you to splash in the waves, search for hermit crabs and seashells, and make sandcastles with moats and watchtowers. I want to read to you under a beach umbrella with the sound of the waves crashing in our ears. I want to watch you chase our dogs and spread your arms in the wind like the wings of a bird.
I want so many things for you.
I want your future to be better than my past.
I want you to be happy here.
I want you to be happy.
But maybe you won’t need the ocean in the same way that I do [did]. It was my way of escaping from the desert. The desert was desolate and quiet and lonely and I could never find myself there.
But the sea,
it offered me freedom.
It was powerful and alive and had so much to say. So much to show me about myself, about life, about love.
And I think-
I wonder, maybe you won’t need to escape.
Maybe you will know who you are because I gave you the support and the space to find yourself.
Maybe loneliness will never be something you have to run from because I’ve shown you that I am always there and will always be.
I think about how you’re always smiling and laughing and I wonder if this life I’ve built for you will be enough? Will you still smile at me when you first wake up when you’re five? When you’re twelve? When you’re eighteen? Will I still be able to make you laugh?
Maybe you will be happy.
Maybe you already are.
What if it’s less about the ocean, less about home?
Maybe it’s about me and us.
And I wonder, will I be enough?