A Car Named Katie: Original Painting

I have a different relationship with three in the morning these days. I see it now, not as the haunting, the tormentor.

Three in the morning is the stolen hour. The sacred hour. A time of fire that has forged me into someone new.

How many times have I rocked this beautiful child at three am? Tonight she lays relieved and relaxed in my arms, breathing easily, safely in my arms at three am. I think about three mornings when her tummy was tight with bubbles and half her present length. I remember her unfocused eyes, startled and lonely.

Tonight, the moment I scooped her up, she became peaceful, cuddled in my lap.

It is not his job to believe in me. It's isn't anyone's really. I alone hold that responsibility.

Isn't that beautiful, powerful? My thoughts have been jumbled up for months, years, a paraglider's lines caught in the weeds on a steep hill.... and this aha moment tonight laid them out straight, clean and free.

Here by the light of the humidifier, smudged by my palm and clearer than anything I have ever written before.

Take these words as yours.