Today

Being able to hear all of the sounds through speakers that work. This makes me want to weep. Somebody said this once, about Radiohead. And I sit here listening to the noise, thinking. About people. And why they do the things that they do. And I weep for them. And I weep for myself.

Baby Girl

Four years ago today I was giving birth. To a baby girl. 36 hours plus of labor--so they call it--and delivery. And this is what I want to remember--Kathleen, our midwife, and the nurse whose name I have forgotten who stayed into vacation time to see my strong-willed (not stubborn) child finally agree to leave the comforts of the womb. Operating room, scrubs, bright lights, at least 10 bodies standing over me and one standing next to me head pressed to cheek as I screamed and with the aid of forceps pushed my baby across the table, the doctor moving quickly, but almost not quickly enough, to catch her. And then the sound of my baby's cry. Tiny fury. Pink skin. Alert eyes. More wails. Her father's announcement that we had a boy, and a few minutes later, a girl because sometimes a penis is really umbilical cord. Holding her small, wrinkled body and thinking that she's mine, ours, and feeling responsibility in bringing a child to this world--momentary fast forward to joy, love. Knowing, too, that there will be sadness. An ache, the rawness of emotion and crying when my father-in-law cried. Asshole doctor who wanted a c-section early on and the pain of my tailbone after giving birth, the time that I took to heal. At last, baby to breast to do what babies do.

In four years my baby has grown into an inquisitive, fiery and loving little girl. And, as they say, it happened quickly. Quickly. And what I saw in the operating room is real because I have watched her experience joy and love and react as I might expect. Eyes wide, sparkly. Mouth open. Arms stretched. "I love you," she says and means it. I have also seen her sad, unsure, awkward in a new situation, screeching and hitting because she doesn't know what else to do, uncomfortable and frustrated, unable to negotiate the social waters and hanging back, clinging. I have seen her angry, "I don't like what you're telling me." Or, "I want people to do things MY way and no one else's way." And I have seen her curious--about a caterpillar eating milkweed, about where germs come from and why people get sick (after particularly annoying stomach bug), about the creation of stories and characters, saying with confidence, "If the story is from imagination then the people in the stories must be from real life, at least a little bit."

That's my girl. My itty, bitty girl. I love you baby girl. Happy Birthday.

It's a Girl

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Yessssssssssssssssss.

New keyboard. Apple even. Apple. Apple. Apple.

pppppppppppppppppppppp. I missed you.

She's so white. But not for long. And sounds different, too.

I'm in love.

You Decide

Where have all the flowers gone?
Where have all the hippies gone?
Where have all the protesters gone?

















Click on image for larger image.

Not a Choice

Disappointment. Even if it has been this way for, well, 15 years. Waiting, interminable. Wanting him to show. Or at least to return a call. Trying to act like it doesn't matter. Knowing that it does. And I thought it was different now, what with us talking through. "Allies," he said.

When you love someone you have expectations, even if you try not to. And expectations lead to hurt and hurt is not what most people want. What does anyone want but to be noticed, cared for, loved? Really loved. And wholly loved, on all of the levels that love exists, despite tragic flaw.

I will continue to love through the disappointment because I don't have a choice. It's what I know how to do. It's what I do. And there is hope, always, for us humans. Hope that circumstances will change, even when there is overwhelming evidence indicating that things mostly do and will stay the same.







Oh, and if interested click on image to view larger image. Seems like this is how they should be viewed.

The Card

Birth Day

Birth day. Day to celebrate being born. I think it a little ridiculous--this celebrating of one's birth--celebrate my mother instead [appropriately we toasted her with margaritas]. She's the one who laboured and pushed me through the birth canal and witnessed my first breaths, my father waiting outside the delivery room this being the hospital way in 1970. But in a small sense a birthday does please my inner socialist and me. Everyone has one--a birthday, that is. The great leveler no matter the tricky circumstances later--the ones involving money, love, opportunity. Money and love. All born.

As far as birthdays go, I had a good one this year. People I love rung me or wrote to me. My sister sent a gift via FedEx, an unusual action for her, and I found it waiting next to cartons of milk at my back door. My dad left a singing message. He has not sung to me before in any capacity as far as I can remember. 35 years to realize that my dad can carry a tune. Actually, he can more than carry a tune.

Gifts embarrass me, but who doesn't like them? Especially good ones--like hand-knit striped socks, which I am wearing right now as the thermometer reads 81. They fit like a glove, like gloves for feet. And I am pleased to now own a woman and her savages, along with swimming tiger and bear--in technicolor. And reading material, lots of it, read and passed along because she thought that I would enjoy it. And how could I not with titles such as Bitch and Bust and Ms. and A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky? Another book--A Shadow Born of Earth--from the givers of the socks. Because I like photography. And the possibility of reading in English or Spanish. I received hugs, and I mean real hugs, from a baby. Uncommon flowers at table--sent to surprise. A pen and ink sketch from a sketchbook and a handmade card that shows girl celebrating in a dotted skirt very much like one that I own. Also good--a husband's flower arrangement from garden and secured babysitting. Visit from baby and aunt and more flowers. Flowers from gardens. Looking forward to breakfast on Saturday morning. Sitting next to my four-year-old, our bedroom in late afternoon where the light is best and talking about the day of her birth, what it was like and why. Sweet Jane being sung by DK, a sweet thing.

As long as people celebrate days of birth. And they always will, I think, I am going to try to see it from his point of view. Why not let it be the coming together of people to celebrate a person, whatever it is that those people find worth celebrating? Maybe it's not much or maybe it's a lot. Depends on whom you ask and when you ask them. But I do know this. It feels good that people made time and effort to celebrate my mother's labours and me--in all of the ways that I have described. These things matter.

To all of you. I take notice. All of it matters. Even you who might not want it to matter, two, namely. You matter. All of you. It all matters. And the love that I have for the people I love.