Extra Lullabies
April 14, 2025 — 8:42pm
Dear Reese,
In the middle of the tears we lie down on my bed together and breathe until you’re happy and crawling towards the dangerous edges again.
Later, I wiggle your hips back and forth on the play mat and then lie down next to you and do the same. In the month leading up to your birth I did hip opener exercises everyday through a somatic movement course. I rock back and forth and I’m calmer and you’re smiling and crawling all over me.
I’m not sure what hurts you today — your teeth charging through your gums or the fact we were apart all day after you cried so hard for me not to leave you at daycare. You clung to my body and sobbed before I even set you on the mat. Your teachers tell me you had a good day in the end, but you’re still bothered tonight by something. I rock you when you need it before bed, singing extra lullabies.
Oh lay oh la, oh a lay a pockia, oh lay oh la, oh a lay a pockia.
Oh lay oh la, oh a lay a pockia, oh lay oh la, oh a lay a pockia.
An overwhelming urge comes over me as I hold you in the dark. I want to lay in bed and crawl in next to you, sleeping side by side all night. But I set you back down in the crib, singing another round of the Suitors chorus as I slip out the door.
Love,
Mama
The Knight & The Cursed Forest, Part 7
You wake to whispers. Asleep in a notch high in a tree, the whispers come over you — shshh, shshh. At first they fill you with dread. A sensation of power and magic reminiscent of the black swan covers your skin before you even open your eyes.
But no — shshh, shshh — that was just a nightmare. These are calming, gentle. Powerful and maybe magical by the tickling sensation roaming your skin.
When you open your eyes you see the source of the magic: a white unicorn in the forest clearing below. It’s spiral horn glimmers as it’s bathed in a ray of morning light.
The duck sleeps next to you and you give him a nudge so he can also see the unicorn. He wakes up with a load “Quack!”
You give him a disproving look and then see the unicorn has raised its head to look at you from below.
“Hello little one,” the unicorn says. The whispers — shshh, shshh — carry beneath its words. “I am honored to meet a Green Knight.” You furrow your brow and the unicorn answers your look of confusion. “I know all the knights of this world, but it has been a very long time since I’ve know a Green one. May I grant you a blessing for your journey?”
You shake your head from your perch on the tree branch above. “It is blessing enough to be in your presence,” you say. For it’s true, you’ve never dreamed you’d see a unicorn before.
The unicorn beckons you down and your duck squire flies off the tree without hesitation. His feathers seem to glow in the unicorn’s light. You follow your friend to stand in front of the unicorn.
“Let me at least leave you with this,” the unicorn says and offers a hair from his shimmering mane. You take it and wrap it around your wrist. That tickling sensation covers your skin tenfold as the magic settles.
To be continued.