Alive-est

I felt most alive on Sunday morning when I was talking to my wife's belly. I made sure that I spoke right into the skin, my lips stealing some of her warmth, conscious of every syllable, mindful of how my voice was coming from deep within my belly so that it would travel deeper, would resonate within, like someone speaking into a deep well to someone deep inside, unable to know for certain if what they said was heard until I turned my ear to her belly and held my breath and listened into the deep. There was movement amidst the rushing of fluids and my wife's shallow breaths, like someone shifting and looking around from left to right beneath the surface of a lake.

I spoke again, imagining that the vibrations of my voice would blend with and into the continuous formation of cells inside. I imagined the 20 week old life inside my wife's belly vibrating slightly to the sound of my voice, shuddering like a leaf does before a soft North Wind picks it up and gives it new purpose and a sense of adventure.

I can't wait until we see you, I said. Just grow healthy and strong and beautiful, I said. And my wife giggled, and her belly shook, and how could the life inside of her not giggle, too.

You're going to be a good daddy, she said. And was that her saying this...or someone else?

Alive-est by Sam Davidson

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.