Susan Senator

She walks in beauty, like the night.
–Lord Byron

What causes a change for the better? What things get the credit? It is very interesting to me how things work, or how we think things work. Just four days ago I spoke to Nat’s doc about increasing his Luvox a tad to help him feel less obsessed. And I feel like there is a positive difference already in him. This morning he got himself ready for school, and even said, “Your bus is here! Bye, Daddy!” on his own. I am looking at him right now, his angular face framed by the flowering dark purple hyacinths on the coffee table, and he is whispering and smiling. Things just seem softer around here. Maybe it’s me; maybe it’s Nat.

But — even Benj seems more content. He was giggling this afternoon because he was remembering something funny in school. “Jeremiah said that he was holding onto a stick, and I thought he said he was holding onto his dick!” His eyes were bright and his cheeks were pink as he laughed and laughed. I laughed, too. His sense of humor is very Senator — this is exactly something my dad would have said. No, we are not always the most appropriate people, but we are always good for a laugh.

Maybe Nat’s new level of serenity has been conveyed to Ben subconsciously? Maybe neither of them is that different, but I am the one who is feeling better? Because I am. The evil poison that had seeped into my skin a year ago has finally receded and I feel renewed. Friday late afternoon is ripely pregnant with potential.

I look around me and I see beauty everywhere. The physical space: the rooms I’ve decorated in the house, in soothing robin’s egg colors with splashes of hotter shades here and there. The people around me: three boys I gave birth to, each so unusual, and so beautiful to look at. I drink them in with my eyes, and gather them to me when they will allow it. My husband and best friend, Ned, and how right we are for each other. Sometimes we feel to me like part of the same person, utterly comfortable and warm, like an embrace or a snuggle on the couch; and then other times we are miraculously separate; he is the Other: foreign, male, cooling to my heat, the cold dangerous wave poised and hovering over my beach.

My garden outside, beginning to wake up, sending out yellowish green tendrils through the wet chocolatey earth. Maybe all that I sense is simply that the stranglehold of winter has let go and we are all breathing freely the gentle air of spring.

And maybe it’s because two gorgeous new bellydance costumes are hanging up on my bedpost, one a vibrant sparkling pink, red, and silver; and the other, a delicious sherbet green, just waiting for me to slip them on…