The Sweet Spot

The Sweet Spot – May 26, 2012

I listened to a song today, by a beautiful songwriter named Antje Duvekot. She sings about the “Sweet Spot.”  We all have had those moments that are so perfect, so beautiful they can’t possibly be fully appreciated until they’ve passed.  We look back at pictures of our lives past, our children, before they are grown – before they have changed. Our babies, so new that the world hasn’t touched them yet. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but cry when I see those perfect snapshots of happiness. It isn’t because this moment in time is lacking in it’s own beauty, but rather that I wish I had realized what was happening then. We spend too many days rushing to get through them, always looking ahead to what the next day might bring. But isn’t today wonderful? This day. This moment, whether it holds messy, chubby, little hands, spilled milk, giggles or tantrums? This moment, when your baby surrenders to the notion that you can take away all of their problems, that last hiccup of tears before they turn into your breast and the only thing that tells you they haven’t fallen asleep yet, is that tiny hand, twirling at a lock of their hair. Take in that moment, and hold it, for those days ahead, when they won’t think you are so brilliant. And for those days ahead, here’s something to soften the sting of the adolescent years ahead: I was somebody’s baby once, too. And I remember those “Sweet Spots,” from my own childhood. I remember my Mother’s smell, and how her hands felt in mine, twirling her wedding ring around and around her finger as I sat beside her during church services on a hot Wednesday night. I remember her voice, singing to me, and how her lap felt soft, under my head as she tucked my hair behind my ear, to lull me to sleep. I too, became a monster during my adolescent years, and I’m sure my mother looked back, at that time with melancholy, at the sweet baby I once was.  And I am convinced that there will be a pair of wings waiting for her someday, because she must be an angel to have put up with me. What a gift it is then, that I am finally able to realize the capacity of her love; to see those “Sweet Spots,” from her perspective, when she holds my own babies, just as she held me.  Everything passes, eventually. But don’t lament the moments that have passed – there are new ones ahead.  And the “Sweet Spot?”  Well, that’s right now.

Carla Muller, copyright, 2012