changes

Change always comes bearing gifts.
-Price Pritchett

Somehow he escaped his swaddle AGAIN (Houdini, that one. I'm not even sure why I try anymore) and liberated his feet from what I'm sure he would tell you is the harsh prison that is his yellow flannel receiving blanket. You know, if he could form sentences and speak and what not.

Before I took the picture, I sat on the floor for a minute and watched him sleep, his face partially hidden from the afternoon light, his arms and legs limp with that enviable relaxation unique to babies and children.

I thought about how much my life had changed, and not changed. I remembered that before he was born, I frequently worried that I might lose myself in a black hole of diapers and baby talk. That I'd become unrecognizable, unhinged from the things that connect me to myself:

active solitude + self-possesion
simplicity of mind + body
delving + digging intellectually
discovery + creation of beauty

As I brought his tiny foot into the viewfinder of my camera, I happily realized that I was doing the thing I was worried I would lose. I was enjoying the solitude. Celebrating the simplicity of perfectly formed baby toes. Discovering and capturing a beautiful moment.

In the midst of all the overwhelms, it's comforting to know that change doesn't always have to change you.