This love has got no ceiling

I've often wished to have a kind of cosmic tape recorder, something I could use to document moments in my life that I want to replay over and over or tuck away as keepsakes. Some of the moments are big ones, like meeting MB or exchanging vows on our wedding day. Some of the moments are small ones, significant only to me, things like seeing the Pacific for the first time, watching the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain, standing beneath the trees in the temperate rainforest.

Since Nico was born, my fondness for the idea of a memory recorder has (predictably) intensified. I want a recording of the moment I first heard him cry; of the moment I first saw his face, his tiny fingers and toes, his tufty red hair; of the way it felt when the nurse placed his little nearly-naked body on my chest. I want to play back the way he smells, that sweet undefinable baby scent that I have to soak up before I leave him for the day, burying my face in his neck and breathing it in. I want to feel the weight of him in my arms, back when he was tiny and now that he must top at least 15 pounds. I wish I had a recording of the way his kicks and tumbles felt while I was pregnant with him, of his newborn cry.

In the absence of such a wonderful gadget, I do my best. I take dozens of photos, I spend minutes that add up to hours just watching him and trying to memorize everything about him, and I write. Hoping each time that the words will call back the feelings and the sounds and the sights, I write.