journey

watching yusuf learn to be himself, i think about his history- about the people who laid the groundwork for him to be here.

his four grandparents moved here almost four decades ago, leaving one of the world's oldest civilizations to make a home in one of the newest. their lives changed in ways i cannot imagine, and they became used to a completely different existence.

maybe, in our own ways, yusuf and i have been on similar journeys. i have come to inhabit a space called motherhood, which is surprising and foreign and a world apart from where i lived before. yet i've found my place within it, made it my home. yusuf's journey, though, trumps all, i think. every single day, i feel, is a different world from the day before. he has yet to find a stopping point where he can just be. rather things are always moving and changing around him, and when he finally gets his bearings, things change again.

yet he seems to be taking it all in stride. yes, there are new things to explore. new words to learn. toys and people and books and field trips and lights and music and errands and food- so much newness that it's clear he is programmed to handle it better than any habit-bound adult ever could.

he inspires me not to rest on the achievements i already attribute to myself, not to congratulate myself too heartily for the difficult things that i accomplish. yusuf accomplishes something every single day, and, determined and curious, he moves ever forward.