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I can't help thinking that there should be another one. The white crib rails stencil a reverse silhouette against a blue apparently called in Japanese.* Some of the books have been corralled into blue wooden boxes. The others, taller and thinner, won't stand straight on the shelves. The nursery is tiny -- the smallest room in the house. But, there in the corner, there would be just enough space for a second crib. I could fill in the spaces between the leaning books, crowd a few more stuffed animals into the blue plastic basket.

Of course, I'm lucky and, of course, I'm grateful for what I have. There are so many facing a failed cycle, or the shattering of a loss or of another loss, or the realization there may never be another baby or a baby at all. In fact, I sometimes feel so absurdly, undeservingly fortunate, that I hesitate to say anything about it at all. But, in a way that's a little harder to express, I also feel lucky and grateful for what I don't have.

It's like -- well, it's like a story, sentimental, improbable and surely apocryphal that I read somewhere a long time ago and am no doubt utterly garbling in the retelling. There's a man, a miner, blind from birth. He's especially valuable to the other miners because he can work in the parts of the mine where the smallest spark could set off an explosion.

Suddenly, one day, a miracle: I can see! he calls out.

The other miners are dubious. What are you talking about? It's pitch black down here. Even if you weren't blind, there's nothing to see.

You don't understand, says the man, I can see darkness.






*ETA: Or maybe, not that it really matters, more like somewhere between the following two shades. And why am I so entranced with finding a site that shows and catalogues the traditional Japanese colors?


Sora-iro [sky blue]
The color of the brightening sky.


Shinbashi-iro [Shinbashi color]
The color which was liked by Geisya (geisha?) at Tokyo-Shinbashi.