Jill and the Bear at the airport together, 2005.
A special guest post by my wife, Jill Bogle.
As I sit on the plane waiting to take off for a business trip to Houston, there’s a woman with a baby a few rows ahead of me. The baby is really young, about 6 months old, and is chewing away feverishly on a teething toy while a blue stuffed elephant is waiting patiently in the seat back pocket. The elephant has a serene look on its face. I admire the patience of stuffed animals.
The mother holds her baby securely under the arms as the little girl stands on her lap with unsteady legs. I can see that she is a wearing a tidy one piece outfit that says “Cutest pumpkin in the patch,” and while she has a good view of the cabin from her standing/bouncing position, her blue-eyed gaze is transfixed on her mother rather than peering around taking inventory of her fellow passengers, a tattered bunch in this particular patch. The baby stares directly into her mother’s eyes for a brief second. And I was caught breathless in that moment — a complete stranger, a bystander to it all, but as the scene unfolded before me, I was mesmerized.
The moment was fleeting because as my emotions soared, the cute pumpkin suddenly shrieked with joy which landed like a banana cream pie straight into her mothers face. Her squeals of glee reached me, too. My heart both swelled and ached at the scene; complex feelings that only the time and space of a crowded flight can allow.
I find bliss in the sound and the sight of pure love in front of me. Most people were flustered, nervous or tired as they boarded the plane and may not have noticed these two. The man a row in front of me let out an audible sigh, the non-verbal “oh great” often accompanying the sight or sound of a baby, even a happy one, on a plane. I saw and heard love. Joyful and perfect and beautiful and real love.
The Bear, age 6 months old, at the Newport Folk Fest, late July 2004.
I long for my babies, who aren’t so tiny anymore, as I sit on the tarmac waiting to be carried further away from them than I’m ever comfortable being. I miss their smell, their hair in my face when I give them hugs, their weight in my arms as I carry them to bed. I miss the endless kisses goodnight, the look in their eyes and the giddy happiness on their faces when I walk into the room after being away too long at work or in school. I love them deeply. But there is something else I experience when I take in the sight of mother and her small child, it’s an ache to experience the wonder and pain and love of motherhood again, those early stages you can’t ever recapture. Yes, I recognize the 200 reasons why the idea of having another child is impractical now, but love isn’t supposed to make any damn sense. I hear the reasons, I acknowledge them, and submit to the logic of it, but sense or logic or reason does nothing to squelch the natural, innate longing of motherhood.
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