She Walks In Beauty

These days, I spend the majority of my time coaxing crushed fruit loops from the carpet, matching socks, breaking up fights over mundane things like toy trains and crayons, and managing the day-to-day life balance (balance?!?) of being a wife, mother, and woman.

But for more years than I care to count of academia, I basked in and thoroughly fell in love with the words written by Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Emerson, Rimbaud, and too many post-modern authors to mention.

After wrestling our two children to bed last night, my husband and I reminisced about the glory days of reading, discussing, thinking and dreaming - things we now hope for when life presents us with an opportunity to make a wish: blowing out birthday candles, finding a four leaf clover, seeing a shooting star, or glancing at the clock at 11:11.

What once was an integral part of who I was, is now reserved for those rare moments when the work is done, the children are fed/bathed/entertained/happy, the house is clean, the bills are paid, and the emails answered. And those moments are quite far and few between.

On our proverbial walk down memory lane, we laughed as we remembered how broke we were when we first met, but how happy we were to sit up late at night and talk for hours and hours about the book we had just read, the movie we had just seen or the tv show we had just watched.

This morning, after Brayden was gone and at school, Gage decided to actually sit down and play quietly on his own, giving me a few minutes to sip my coffee and think. I took the opportunity to joyfully recite the first line of my favorite Lord Byron poem, and vowed to myself to make more time for the things that I have loved but have fallen away.

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!