Five Months Postpartum: On Wanting Alone Time While Mothering

It’s 5 a.m. I should be sleeping but I can’t.

It’s stormy outside. There is a small plunge pool on the balcony; it looks sexy in the sunlight, but now it’s dark and the water is splashing out onto the tiled floor, and I am wondering what the thought behind it was. I turn on the coffee maker. Bean is still sleeping, and I hope the sound of the Nespresso will blend with her white noise machine and the storm, they call it Emilia, which sounds surprisingly alike.

It’s 5 a.m. I should be sleeping but I can’t.

There is a particular aloneness to this hour that feels borrowed rather than owned, as if the day hasn’t yet decided whether it wants me. The storm keeps insisting on itself, gusts rattling the railing, rain sliding down the glass in thick, determined lines. I stand barefoot in the kitchen, one hand wrapped around a hot mug, and feel the sweet ache of wanting nothing from anyone.

I have a whole hour to myself, maybe two. I sit down and drink my coffee in peace. I knit a bit. I am not a knitter but the instructions are clear and the intentions are noble. I am knitting a sweater for Bean. Knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one—it’s almost meditative. I imagine I hold prayer beads in my hands. There are hundred forty knits in a loop. Beads vary by religion, 100 (99+1) in Islam, 108 in Hinduism and Buddhism, Pater Noster cord is 150, Catholic Rosary 59, Eastern Orthodox 100. I don’t know how or why I possess this information but I do. Bean’s sweater is 140. I love you. I love you. I love you. I imagine the sweater being magical. I don’t think you can put so much effort and love into something for it not to have any effect in the end. That’s not how the world works. I’m knitting an armour of love.

You are loved, knit one, you are safe, purl one.

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