Gently In The Night

"Don't let your mind get weary and confused

Your will be still, don't try...

Don't let your heart get heavy child,

Inside you there's a strength that lies..."

Ray LaMontagne, "Be Here Now" (2006)

Got up while it was still dark this morning. Sennet was a bit fussy so I took him into the nursery and held him - hoping to give Stacie a few hours of rest. Standing at the window I could see the Cascade Range off in the far distance to the northeast. A pre-dawn light just beginning to illuminate the highest peaks. The sky still a dark slate with a myriad of stars.

I sat in the rocker and gently held my boy in the dark. I remember stories my mother told me about her holding me in those first months. We lived on the Presidio in San Francisco and she would get up in the night and rock me in an upstairs window. On clear nights she said she could see the distant lights out on the Farallon Islands, lonely pinpoints out in the Pacfic. On foggy nights the house was enveloped in a quiet shroud. The haunting fog horns marking their melancholy warnings to the ships plying the waters around the bay.

I turned on some soft music and rocked. Sennet settled in, content in the crook of my arm. Occasionally he would squeak or coo. He seemed to have an early affinity to the songs of Ray LaMontagne and Elliot Smith.

Slowly the sun rose, but I remained where I was - profoundly happy. Stacie got up and whispered if I wanted a break. Not yet. She brought me a coffee and I held the quiet little man. Kramer wandered in and sniffed the baby - giving him an approving lick on the top of his head. Puppy-flavored kisses. The morning progressed and I felt like I was just where I wanted to be. This moment etched forever in my memory. First morning at home.

KJT - Seattle (2009)