i was thinking about belly buttons today.
A__ was nursing again late tonight. she’s fighting a cold, so i didn’t fight her desire for comfort.
i don’t bother to try and cover my tummy when it’s just me and her, so i had a good view of my belly button tonight. it used to be pierced. i had to take it out 6 months or so into my pregnancy because it was stretching the skin above my belly button and getting uncomfortable. so, instead of a pretty jewel, i have a pretty belly button topped by a stretch mark and the scar of a piercing.
number one: the scar of my own birth.
number two: the scar of my eighteenth birthday.
number three: the scar of creating a child.
not bad scars at all.
and then i thought about my daughter’s belly button. she has a half-outey. her cord fell off too soon and left behind a half-closed belly button. so they cauterized her little navel, but did it poorly. so the poor little thing has the cutest little half-outey button the world has ever seen.
someday, maybe, she’ll add a piercing to it. and maybe a few stretch marks too.
how neat to think that even if she doesn’t, we still share the same initial scar of birth. it is a scar given to us to remind us that we used to be connected, actually physically connected, to another human being.
so freaking cool.
November 20, 2007 at 9:18 am |
I read this the other day, but couldn’t comment because it was too “so freaking cool” to even want to respond.
I do that a lot on your blog–I read it, but it’s like those books or poems that you just want to read and love–you don’t like when the English class that you’re in messes them up by too much talking. Me being the English class in this analogy.
November 25, 2007 at 7:32 am |
That is such lovely imagery and head space. Dreamy post.
November 25, 2007 at 9:50 pm |
Marjorie – thank you. so much. blogging has become a little passion for me. i get to write the little stories that float around in my head and be the writer i always wanted to be. but without the stress of actually being a writer. the fact that anybody would want to read any of this leaves me somewhat speechless.
bluemilk – thank you to you too. i did actually write this post at 2am so i was half asleep, and enjoying feeling half asleep, while awake. it’s a lovely state sometimes, if you have the time to really enjoy it.
August 2, 2008 at 9:44 pm |
[...] Teeth and Panties When I turned 18, I gifted myself a pierced belly button. This was long before every ‘it’ girl in town flaunted her bejeweled navel. This [...]