He Passes Through My Body

It was a neat trick. How eight years back, I was the size of a woman wearing a tight tee shirt and equally snug blue jeans on a late fall morning, wore my pelvis just right in those days, still slightly girlish myself and then in a spark, his dad and I conceived of a boy, not just a baby, but the idea of a boy. The idea of whole live boy. At first, he was simply the idea of a baby boy. It was an idea that took only nine months to render. Some sort of mad morphing, passing through my body.

I was me.

I was me with him inside, not showing.

I was me with him inside, showing.

I was me (a mess of me) with him in my arms, showing him off.

A very pretty mix of his dad and me. We were mad for the boy. We had a baby. Happens every day.

Slowly, milky mess and baby drool, a few months later, I was back in body and in soul. Like a photo double exposure, I still don't know how it happened, how he had passed through me completely, through my own body and then that body of knowledge -- or some version of such -- had returned and was recognizable in those blue jeans. I think I was me again. Actually I was something better.

And now, loading the washer this morning with my jeans and his jeans, chugga chugga and soap swirling -- I note with alarm, we are getting close to wearing the very same size. The jeans will be indistinguishable soon. Son jeans, mom jeans. On some points we are already in alignment. We share socks. We share sweatshirts. We shared sweat the morning I had him -- or did he birth me -- more likely. These days, he likes to come running right at me, bully boy and see if he can tackle his mom, knock her over in a pile of laundry, a rough and tumble hug -- but I stand firm, surprising him, he can't plow through me.

But as each day goes by, as if stepping through a door frame, he is in fact, passing right through me. My silhouette and sides only a slight ghostly perimeter larger than him at this point and through me he originated and if all goes well, will walk way beyond me, leaving me in the dust. Yes, I invite him to make dust of me and walk on in this world, way beyond me. And on the day I yield this world to him, it will still be a mystery I do not pretend to understand.