milk memories

Purging expired frozen breastmilk from my freezer, I encountered another surprising pang of nostalgia. I was throwing out bags from January, which was before I gave up writing the time of milk production on the bag alongside the date. Reading "1/11/06 2 am" gave me a flashback to a dark winter night with a lamp always left on, the smell of the heating, a pink bathrobe and t-shirt spotted and damp with milk, "sleeping" on the couch between a hated breast pump and a soothing/glowing fish tank, and a bassinet in the middle of the living room, an enviably sleeping bundle gently breathing inside.