One Moment in Time

Every once in a while I find myself riveted on a specific moment, like a spotlight is on it, asking me to pay deep attention so it burns into my memory forever. Mind you, this never happens when we’re doing something exciting or novel. My brain usually decides to do this when we’re picking lint from our pockets, or clipping toenails. Well, not that, but you get the idea.

So this afternoon my teen said, “I want to sort the coffee beans,” and I knew it was my next opportunity for the kids and I to soak up one of those forever moments. We roasted our own coffee beans last weekend, and they’re a little uneven. So we intended to make a dark roast bag, and a light roast bag by separating them. I know, not a terribly useful or emotional event, but one that was perfect for what came next. I called Kid 2 to the table while Kid 1 set us up with sorting cloths and put music on his Bluetooth speaker.

The three of us sat, singing Tonic and Green Day together, rolling beans over, and making our little piles on the table. It was then that the memory spotlight came on, and I mentally recorded the simple act of sitting there with my two kids, doing almost nothing, singing, relaxing, and actually all wanting to be there for a minute. I occasionally think about what I’ll be doing in several years when they’re not both just hanging out in the summer, or comfortably calling themselves together over something simple, and I get a little, uh, you know, midlife-momish.

As if I needed any help, the next song was Chris’s. Yes, the teen has almost memorized as many of my hubby’s lyrics as I have. Each of our kids has a song written about them. The one that came on was one of the few creative collaborations Chris and I have done.

In spring of 2003 I was coming out of the difficult, dark space of being a new mom. I was able to see bright spots in having a small child more frequently (full disclosure: early parenthood was wicked-hard on both of us). So I picked up a pen and wrote down some lyrics when I was having one of those first days when the “memory spotlight” shined for me. I wrote some poetry, or some lyrics, or something. When I showed them to Chris, he took them, nudged them, then wrote a song which was a gentle, young version of Cat’s in the Cradle, or Father and Son. Something to capture the moment when our firstborn was so tiny: The baby doesn’t want to nap, he wants to play. He wants to fly a kite, he wants to chase butterflies. Mom just wants him to nap. The baby wins, and also shows mom something more. That’s it. It’s simple, sweet, and right here on Spotify, if you want to hear it (click on Show Me if it doesn’t come right up).

I usually get to hear songs as they come together in his home studio, but this one he worked and worked on in near-silence. When he finished recording it, we both sat bawling, listening to the little slice of life that had been captured. He laughed through tears, saying, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to ever play that one live, sniff.”

In that moment, with that song, we seemed to acknowledge that we had survived a very rough spot in our young lives, and could see even then that we were turning a corner. We had just come from this:
I was barely 6 months pregnant, just moved into our first house with a hefty new mortgage, when I was laid off. My hubby was laid off three weeks later and were new in town. So for the last 4 months of pregnancy and almost 6 months of our newborn’s life, we stared at each other wondering which thing we should worry about first. We had no close friends or family anywhere nearby since we were new to Seattle. When we lost our jobs, we lost the few companions that came with them. Our nearest family was 2600 miles away. We were an island for 10 long months, in a house we couldn’t afford, with a new baby and no insurance. The song was an emotional release from that rough patch. It was the first moment I knew we weren’t going to have to pack it up and leave Seattle. We felt like we could push through and come out okay on the other side.

So when we were sorting coffee beans, the song played and brought it all back again. Like a spotlight on a spotlight. And now I just might be a snotty, weeping mess, but I’m also happy for the spotlight on these little moments.