She is 18 months, and I am 3.

She inched closer to the edge and gracefully slipped into the water. Just as we were about to grab her--we weren't panicked, we've been playing this game all summer--we realized she was floating. She'd discovered how to hold her head up. She kicked around, shifting from her stomach to her back. "Watch her," I say to my husband. "Do you even believe it?" It was the first time I've ever truly seen myself in any of my children. Those days in the late 1970s, wearing orange water wings, while my young mom--maybe 21 years old, single, on her own--sat in a lounge chair and watched. "You'd swim all day," she recalls. "And flirt with all the boys." I don't have photos of those scenes from my life, but I remember. I see my young, pretty mom. I see the blue water and the orange water wings. I see myself, kicking my feet, floating around, enjoying the fun and freedom.

This this latest post is from my Awakening series.