Waylon turned five months old yesterday.

Five months.  I do not know how time moves, how days can go by slowly and yet months are gone in a moment.  Yesterday I took a walk alone for the first time since I can remember, only my weight to carry.  I stooped to take photos, stopped and sat on a snowy rock to write, pranced down steeper slopes in the woods.

Today I went into town for a few hours by myself, leaving Edge and Waylon at home so I could run errands and have solo-mama time.  When was the last time I lingered in the book store, or tried on clothes?  By the end of my town run, though, I felt uneasy, as if I had over stayed, and I imagined Edge back at home, wondering where I was as Waylon cried and cried.  But when I walked into the yurt, Waylon was sleeping in his hammock as Edge did dishes and the music of R. Carlos Nakai floated peacefully in the air.

I remember the lesson I learned the morning Waylon was born–to let go–and I search for the balance between independence and motherhood.

As I read through old entries in my notebook, I found this, from September 30:

My body is shrinking, trying to remember the shape before pregnancy, but there is a space I feel inside, carved out by his body as he grew inside me.  Though I may get back to a certain weight, there is a new stretch within me, a cavern that cannot close completely. I am forever changed.

Like flowing water that carves the riverbank, we shift and adapt together, independent and intertwined: earth and water, mother and son.