Becalmed

I don't know whether it's the settling in of the season, or the progress that we've made, or what exactly...but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The lovely truth is that, in the past week, an immense sense of calm has settled over me. I can't tell you what a relief this is after the strange form of inner hysteria that gripped me over the past three months, since mid-January. Gone is the sense of urgency, the feeling of time slipping through my fingers, the unfocused rush to get somewhere other than where I was. My inner clock has stopped racing, my heart has unclenched, and time is once again blissfully suspended, the hours ticking by as slowly as they did on a summer's day when I was three years old and had my entire life before me. I can breath again. I can lie in the hammock and hear the sound of a bee buzzing near my left ear, the song of a mockingbird three yards over, watch the path of a plane extending lazily across the sky.
This isn't to say that I'm feeling indolent. Quite the opposite, actually. I've realized once again, and with perfect clarity, how very much I have still to accomplish before we ever travel to China. But it isn't a feeling of panic or even of tremendous urgency. Just a lovely resolve, an anticipation of creative fulfillment.
I feel now as if I have exactly the time I need between today and the day I will hold our daughter for the first time. I feel like that event will happen precisely in its own time, exactly when it should happen. And I have the supremely comfortable feeling that I will fill every day between now and then with good, pleasurable, fruitful work.
I hope this feeling lasts for a while. I am quite enjoying it.