My Aquarius Streak

Our apartment building faces the pool on one side (and a tree-lined street on the other side, thankfully). For the past few days, the maintenance guys have been getting it ready for the summer season. And Ben and I have been watching, Ben standing on his stool, me behind him. The first day they covered up the pot-holes and dents with some white goop. We remembered how the pool had filled with snow in winter. The next day they painted it sky blue. Then yesterday they cleaned it, and began filling it with pool water. This was, of course, the most exciting step. Now Ben needed to stand on his desk chair to see. It was like a giant bathtub with so many water spouts gushing water. Then it started to rain, and the apartment filled with the sound of that gushing water and the pitter-patter of rain. We listened through the wide open window.

I'd been having a lousy day. Lots of nightwaking (yes, we are still teething over here -- his very last tooth is half-through), and a queasy PMS-y stomach. The sounds of water as I walked in and out of the living room reminded me to relax. And I remembered a special moment during my labor with Ben. The doulas had just set up the birth pool, and my contractions were picking up, getting really intense. I was starting to feel entirely overwhelmed by them. Sarah was holding the hose over the pool, and Cori told me to listen to the sound of that water, that it would soothe me. And I did, and it did soothe me (I believed anything anyone told me during labor, which, in my case, worked to my advantage).

All this is feeding into my desire to live by the water, a desire which has been steading rising up in me over the past few years. It has something to do with spending my early childhood on Martha's Vineyard, and having my own child now. One day it might happen, but right now, I don't want to think about what I don't have.