Rocking

I was out of town for a few days, and when I got back last night, Kate asked me to rock her. "Like when I was a baby," she said. She hadn't asked for that in ages. We sat in the old rocker that'd been in the girls' nursery, the rocker in which I'd nursed them and patted their little backs and sung to them.

We rocked last night, her long legs dangling between the spindles on the sides of the chair. She sucked her thumb and twirled her hair. I sang Nanci Griffith songs.

The rhythm, the lyrics, the smell of fresh-washed hair, the heft of her five-year-old body resting in mine: life doesn't get much better than this.