Sick Baby

She can only sleep in my arms. Every time I put her down, she coughs. We pace the floor all night long. Sometimes I sing to her, or hum, or talk, but sometimes I'm holding back tears as well.

The moon reflecting on the . . . it's just a river, really, but lagoon makes me feel I live a more romantic--and warmer--existence in in The Middle of Nowhere . . . anyway, the moon reflecting on the river, at least, can be counted on for a bit of prettiness amid the snuffly frustration of our nights.

Dim lights go on and off at various times all night next door. I spend some of these long hours wondering just what is going on over there. Too many odd things. Remind me to tell you about the birdhouse . . . with the wires snaking down the post. Too odd, really. But too tired right now . . .

Trip. Back.

We're back. We went on a very long trip. Maine to Colorado and back. Just the two of us.

Trapped with a baby on an airplane didn't seem like fun, so we just drove and drove.

The GPS thing was our guide--she spoke with a British accent. We leisurely crossed the country, staying in hotels with pools that she could splash in, sometimes driving for eight hours, sometimes for three, and listened to Sesame Street songs. But she likes Ani DeFranco much better...

The Neighbors

So far:

Man and woman next door, married, old, retired. Always, always home. He may go get a cup of coffee and a newspaper every morning, I'm not sure. Since the nearest store is about thirty minutes away, this would seem odd, but anything-to-get-out-of-the-house I do understand. Maybe that's it. They are always in their porch when I'm outside. It makes me a bit uneasy how they watch us, but they seem friendly enough. Can't remember their names--it's something so nondescript that it sounds fake. Jane and Joe Smith or something.

Across the street, a very, very old woman with a swimming pool that has no water in it. I think I saw her, or at least the back of her brown plaid wool coat, just as she walked in her front door once.

Around the corner, a young family. I think of Christmas card pictures when I see them. Really, can families like this be as perfect as they look? Surely there's some kind of drug addiction or embezzlement or something going on there.

Around the other corner, just many, many twenty-somethings. I don't know who lives there and who's visiting and who they are. But for a sleepy little cul-de-sac this far off the nearest byway, an awful lot of activity.

I don't know much about the others yet.

I wonder what they think of me. "Woman with baby, maybe thirty-five or forty. Haven't seen a man yet. Where's the baby's father?" Where indeed.

Where I Left

Marble and granite. Glossy wood floors. A nanny who followed me around because I didn't want her to take care of the baby, but I couldn't get rid of her.

Sometimes I broke branches off the shrubs and left them hanging there. They'd be gone later. Either a gardener, who was probably peering at me from the guest house, or the bush healed itself. Disorder couldn't exist there.

Where I Am

When you get off the highway, there's a gas station. It's the last one. After that, there's just a long road, a house here, a little restaurant there. Not much, though. Then you take a right. Another long road. Houses peek through the trees; I can see bricks and weathered shingles, a little more now that the leaves have fallen. The first time I came down here, I didn't even know those houses were there.

When you get to the end of that road, there's a cluster of houses by the water. One of them is mine. Better described, perhaps, as a room with a roof on it. Tiny; it's maybe the den of the house I left. And filled with baby and fresh flowers and baking gingerbread.

Not a Good Start, Or Maybe It Is

So this is blog-writing. Interesting.

My first attempt, just a minute ago, resulted in a translation to Hindi. Cool, but probably not the most useful way for me to write since I don't know Hindi. But I seem to have an inner heretofore-hidden technological genius, because I found where I had enabled the Hindi translation, then, in another stroke of genius, disabled it.

I just moved to this bitty cottage by the water, leaving the husband and the stepson behind (do you like how I just threw that in there, as if it was an afterthought?), and discovered immediately that I need something else to do besides work and stare at the tiny baby who is always grinning at me. (Or is that smirking?) (Either way, I'm becoming suspicious of her.)