There have been a lot of grey and rainy days where I live.

While I’m not one to complain about the weather, I’ve noticed how much my body—how much the depth of my bones—responds to these heavy, damp mornings.

My arms have goosebumps where the fine hair stands on end. The tip of my nose feels cold and my loose rings turn on my fingers. I turn the heat up in my house, only to turn it back down, because I realize that what I want is to fully experience this spring chill.

After all, it’ll be hot and sticky and humid soon enough.

The backs of my legs will stick to my car seat. I’ll have imprints on my thighs from the wooden bench where my daughter and I like to sit after getting ice cream.

In short, each season has its beauty and every season comes to an end.

I’m pregnant.

I feel a fullness in my belly and in my breasts that normally isn’t there.

My daughter sits in my lap and leans back as I read her a story; it’s getting uncomfortable for her to do this.

I go to yoga class and modify poses that I’d love to sink deeply into. The sweat beads on my upper lip and shoulders and instead of letting it drip sensuously down my back; I take child’s pose so as not to overheat.

Yet I’m not desiring that this period slips by, so that I might return to my typical life—I’m already shocked at how far along this baby is.

And I know that when my infant arrives, it’ll be an entirely new season.

Fall will be dawning and winter on our only slightly distant horizon. I’ll need a jacket to cover my now-empty abdomen. (I remember vividly the overwhelming urge to place my hands on my child in utero, only to remember that she’s now lying in the gentle nook of my arms.)

And autumn is my favorite season of all—the leaves crunching underneath shoes on well-worn trails, the splashes of color bringing visual awareness to places that my eyes usually skip over—but part of what makes it so special is that it comes and goes, and comes and goes.

Its arrival, much like my new baby, is happily anticipated and its transformation into something more mature—falling snow and twinkling lights—is also beautiful, although drastically new and different.

So when my bones feel heavy and my heart longs to follow—when the damp spring days seem unending and, yes, even annoying—my tendency to either wallow or become agitated is, thankfully, often squashed by a tender recognition of this moment’s impermanence.

I place my hand softly on my belly, where I’ve just begun to feel movement, and I feel intense pleasure, peace and satisfaction at being grateful for where I sit, right now.

 

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Editor: Catherine Monkman

Photos: Melinda Deas/Flickr