Ariel Mitchell Williams
Consecrated Ground
Wood and springs shift under our weight, creaking like an old ship in the dark. Waves lapping the sides while timbers settle. My toes lengthen and release. Legs tense then relax as we rock back and forth. You are cradled in my arms. Sometimes still, sometimes squirming, sometimes cooing or biting, crying or looking into my eyes seeking comfort, connection, acknowledgement, understanding. Hours spent in twenty minute increments. Preparing a lifetime, finding respite from another.
Or confusion.
Day after day. Same time. Same place. We creak back and forth. The wooden armrest presses into our sides. It bonks elbows and heads, acting as a platform for searching little feet naively feeling their way to push off into a dive to the floor. We sit in the same place, in the same chair my mother sat before me. There are years of milk, formula, sweat, tears, smiles, and snores stored in the cushions. They stain the wood.
Alone. Together. Thoughts shift back and forth. Mother and child. Mother or child. I am one. I am both. (I am neither). Thoughts come. Confusion. Peace. So much change in the same place. Conversation. Quiet. Railing back and forth. Questioning. I listen to what no one else hears.
I am nothing. I am everything (to you).
I feel Her close here.
Heavenly Mother,
Are you really there? Sometimes it is hard to tell. Few (in this life) recognize you. Talk about you. Acknowledge you. How do you do it? How do you exist in a vacuum? Your children constantly sucking up all the love you can, do, will give freely. How do you give (with no reservations)? Does the need ever get too much for you (like it does for me)? Do you need a time out? Fresh air? Some chocolate? I do. Too often. You are Mother to every single person that has, is, and ever will be. You are what it means and yet, where are you?
Consecrating. Every. Moment. Every inch of your being and brain space.
How do you keep everything straight? Everyone. And how do you hold everything in your heart? Alone. Together.
We share this moment. Me holding you. Her holding me. You. Us.
The chair creaks as I hum and lay you down to rest.
Ariel Mitchell, playwright, hails from an island in the Chesapeake. BYU and NYU alumnus, New Musical Inc. 2017 New Voices Project Finalist, Dramatists Guild 2017 Baltimore Footlights Reading Series Feature, and storyteller to two inquisitive sons. Other plays include A Second Birth (THML Theatre Company 2019 NYC Premiere, Harold and Mimi Steinberg 2013 National Student Playwriting Award, 2013 David Mark Cohen Award, Samuel French publication), about an Afghan girl who was raised as a boy, and The Shower Principle (2018 NY Winterfest), a two-person experiment in the isolating existence that is new parenthood. For more see https://www.arielmitchellwriter.com.
Or confusion.
Day after day. Same time. Same place. We creak back and forth. The wooden armrest presses into our sides. It bonks elbows and heads, acting as a platform for searching little feet naively feeling their way to push off into a dive to the floor. We sit in the same place, in the same chair my mother sat before me. There are years of milk, formula, sweat, tears, smiles, and snores stored in the cushions. They stain the wood.
Alone. Together. Thoughts shift back and forth. Mother and child. Mother or child. I am one. I am both. (I am neither). Thoughts come. Confusion. Peace. So much change in the same place. Conversation. Quiet. Railing back and forth. Questioning. I listen to what no one else hears.
I am nothing. I am everything (to you).
I feel Her close here.
Heavenly Mother,
Are you really there? Sometimes it is hard to tell. Few (in this life) recognize you. Talk about you. Acknowledge you. How do you do it? How do you exist in a vacuum? Your children constantly sucking up all the love you can, do, will give freely. How do you give (with no reservations)? Does the need ever get too much for you (like it does for me)? Do you need a time out? Fresh air? Some chocolate? I do. Too often. You are Mother to every single person that has, is, and ever will be. You are what it means and yet, where are you?
Consecrating. Every. Moment. Every inch of your being and brain space.
How do you keep everything straight? Everyone. And how do you hold everything in your heart? Alone. Together.
We share this moment. Me holding you. Her holding me. You. Us.
The chair creaks as I hum and lay you down to rest.
Ariel Mitchell, playwright, hails from an island in the Chesapeake. BYU and NYU alumnus, New Musical Inc. 2017 New Voices Project Finalist, Dramatists Guild 2017 Baltimore Footlights Reading Series Feature, and storyteller to two inquisitive sons. Other plays include A Second Birth (THML Theatre Company 2019 NYC Premiere, Harold and Mimi Steinberg 2013 National Student Playwriting Award, 2013 David Mark Cohen Award, Samuel French publication), about an Afghan girl who was raised as a boy, and The Shower Principle (2018 NY Winterfest), a two-person experiment in the isolating existence that is new parenthood. For more see https://www.arielmitchellwriter.com.