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3. Fluctuations

Soleia 0.8

Einstein wrote that what can be seen by the light of knowledge is inconsequential to the magnitude of the ignorance represented by the surrounding darkness.  I feel that when I look at you, when I talk to your mother.  When she talks about sore nipples, or tenderness where you exited her body, I shake my head at how I could have gone so long without knowing any of these details.  When I look at your face as you sleep and see expressions fluctuate between deeply pained expressions to serene, carefree smiles in the span of a few seconds, I wonder how come I've never read of such things, of the magical experience of observing the newly born.

What could be happening behind those eyelids, I wonder?  You were like a seed growing in the fertile soil of your mother's body and now you are a seed again.  But this time the seed is your mind: we fertilize it with kisses and touch and words, and in another way with breastmilk and formula and sunlight and vitamin D drops.  To look at your face as you sleep is to easily imagine just how much is going on within that head of yours, but it remains frustratingly opaque to observation.  Like a seedling growing below the surface of the soil before breaking into the light.

Your breathing ebbs and flows, sometimes laboured, sometimes light.  Now you just giggled and sighed.  You are a universe unto yourself and I'd give anything to see how the stories within you are unfolding.  But alas, I can only be patient, and wait for the consequences of these fluctuations to run their course and reveal to me at last the woman reading these words.

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