Metamorphose

I can still smell the cleaner.
The sterile room was not particularly inviting. The lights were dim. The furniture was light-wood and dated. The tile floor was gray and cold.

I paced the floor so often that night. Probably a thousand times. Back and forth, back and forth. Often it was very painful to walk and when I could catch my breath, I smelled the cleaner. Pine-y, with a hint of chlorine.

The chlorine smell reminded me of early morning swimming work outs. Which reminded me of being 15. Of laughing and crying and dreaming. I had often dreamed about this very day.

My senses were given super natural powers that night. Heightened by fear, anxiety and adrenalin. The world was in painfully sharp focus. And yet, I felt surreal. Was this a dream? Was this really happening? What am I doing here? My mind was spinning like the carousel my sister and I used to ride when we were kids in San Francisco. Terror and panic began to creep up into my soul.

Just when I thought my heart would fail me I opened my eyes. My glorious sense of sight revealed the face of love. The face I dreamed about when I was in college. The face I said yes to. The face I saw through tears across an alter in a place that bound us together for eternity. The face that was going to see me through this. But seeing this wonderful face made me think about another face.

The face I was going to meet very soon. Would he have his father's ocean eyes? Would he have his cleft chin? What about his nose? I closed my eyes and thought of all the possibilities. I thought of all the faces that could contribute to this one little face. My mother, my father, my grandparents-- and mine.

The intense emotion swelled inside my chest almost to the breaking point. Darkness and pain took over again. And then bright, bright light. Pierced by the sound of joy. Complete joy in the robust cry of my first born child. My life's purpose, manifested to me in the form of a wet, wrinkled little cleft-chinned boy with a nose just like mine.

I left that not-so sterile, most wonderful room a new person with the glorious smell of cleaner lingering in the air.



*This post is being entered in Scribbit's Write Away contest for November.