Om

I went away from you this last weekend, Thiz. I went all the way to Iowa and stared at balding trees in a valley low and sweet. Grandma Ricki and I got into the car with our clothes and our books and our computers and our coffee, directions scrawled onto the back side of an envelope and winter coats thrown on the back seat just in case. We drove through fields still green and fields with the corn shorn down to stiff, pencil-sized stubs. We drove a road that told us to slow down to 45 and then 30 when we passed through a town, we drove on a road mostly dark and sound and straight. We spent the night in the Country Inn. There was a fake fire in the lobby and a cookie jar with cookies crisp enough to leave a Hansel and Gretel trail on our shirtfronts. I spread out like a starfish in my very own hotel bed. We talked to other writers and drank wine and sat facing a stage, our bags leaning against our legs.

At home, I am told, you did absolutely entirely just fine. You fed Daddy Cheerios in bed at 6:30am and went trick-or-treating through the dorms in your dragon costume; you visited Carsten and slept and woke and slept again. You sat in your father's lap and read Curious George and the Dump Truck and you nibbled on crayons and then spit the waxy bits onto the collar of your shirt. You ran your peanut butter fingers through your hair and chased bubbles in the tub. And when I got home, you did not look at me with surprise or relief or joy. It was just me again.

And I have to be honest here and say that although I thought about you all the time, I didn't miss you in the way I thought I would. I was both ready to come home and ready to stay longer.

On Sunday afternoon, Grandma Ricki and I took you on a walk through the grasslands. The grass stands twice as high as you, brown or golden depending on the weight of the sun. You were wrapped in a pink winter coat, hat and tennis shoes and mittens. I caught a grasshopper and held it out to you on the finger of my black glove. It hopped away and I retrieved it again. Then we walked a while longer. It was a little bit hard, I admit, to suddenly be back in this life, the one with the baby and the husband, the one with burnt out light bulbs and grilled cheese for dinner and my black boots still in my open suitcase, unpacked.

I had ideas, there in Iowa, that already I've forgotten.

You learned to say "come" while I was away. "Om, om, om." And though I know this mostly has to do with Luxy, I like to think you learned the word you needed to say to bring me back to you again.