Music

I am settled in a rope hammock, my bare feet gliding over the labyrinth of shadows on the ground. Rosé is perched on my lap, her skin so very pure in the sunlight, her pale hair shimmering like the finest threads of spun gold. She is blinking up at the poplars arching over us, mesmerized by the leaves fluttering like untold emerald butterflies. We’ve spent much time here together, swinging, swinging.

Some might say motherhood is monotony, but I say it is music.

A song without a rhythm is not beautiful to the ear, just as a life without a rhythm is not beautiful but random, restless, even chaotic, dissonant to the ear of the soul. But just as a song will ebb and flow from glory to tranquility, so too does a life encompass both triumph and surrender—neither is static or predictable. The sun too will always rise and always set, but every morning and every evening the colors and clouds never cease to surprise those who take a moment to be still and look up.

Indeed, following every rising of the sun, my little acts of love for Rosé are not static but notes in the song, flowing one after another, creating a full, dynamic, beautiful rhythm in our life together. Whether I am nursing my baby, changing her diaper, engaging her with chatter and laughter, snuggling her to sleep, soothing her cries, toting her around the farm to behold all things growing—every act is part of the great masterpiece of my motherhood, of her childhood. All is music.