Birth Day

He is thirty-one years old today; technically not until 5:25 this evening. His shape changes from wet bundle placed on my chest to grown man in a spin of the vault of heaven. It is such a joy, an immense honor to be your mother, an endeavor which outshines any achievement earned.

I was admitted the night before to Children's Hospital to induce delivery in the morning, as pre-eclampsia had taken my blood pressure to immense heights and I had swollen into wearing Joe's cowboy boots on my sausage feet. Wise decision by the doctor, Stanford Copley. I washed my fattened feet in the new morning, as my own mother had said she did the day I was born. My mother was always washing her feet, even as an adult. A habit perhaps left over from the shoeless years of her childhood, playing in the ancient dirt of Elmira, New York.

I was placed on a gurney in a pleasant room painted yellow, I think. Curtains were patterned, pastel, waiting. At nine a.m. I was given an injection to start things moving, and immediately tightening of the abdomen began in spaced, timed, constricting movements. Hm. This is easy so far, and I wondered what all the foreshadowing in the Lamaze class meant. No one had described what it was actually like; the tennis balls were to relieve backache, your partner was to massage you, help pace breathing. Any women with "stories" were discouraged to speak, because it was different for everyone. I was strong. Smart. Could think around things. Then the water broke.

Joe had been poking at my bellybutton making "boop!" sounds, I was laughing, and whoosh! Hot fluid shot out of me, hitting the doctor standing at the base of the stirrups, I apologized and felt my muscles become tense, readying for another contraction except Mother Mildred's biscuits, this one knew its business and my eyes popped open wide at what was happening. The seas and tides took over, and I was tossed around amid waves of pain that became stronger every three minutes, two minutes, minute and a half. You become an animal, a guttural mother-animal from that instant on and stay that way the rest of your life. Nothing exists except the wonder that the baby coming is able to withstand the force of contractions, that your body is capable of producing this much pain and you continue to live.

A shot of Demerol was given but not too much or it would depress the child's system; a small curled wire was inserted into the baby's scalp to monitor stress. The oxytocin in my IV was increased to speed things up, the seat belt contraption around the extended stomach was tightened to keep track of the force. It was maddening that all the Lamaze training was useless, do you think rolling a fuzzy ball against my back would have helped? Thank god for the young nurses. They knew the best thing was to simply hold my hand to get me through a contraction, it was a mercy they did not complain when my arced fingers grasped their cool palms and held on to the human thread of connection, for I had fallen over the edge of the cliff and was scrabbling for my baby and myself.

Hours of breaths taken were deliberate, pushed into my lungs and back out in ragged chunks in the trough of the waves, the crests crashed into redness and steamroller crush. Then amid the contractions, something new occurred that sent the nurse out to find a doctor. Her eyes said uh-oh, her mouth said "I'll be right back," and she tore like sixty out of the birthing room. As a new thing, my body, my uterus, decided to push in such fashion that it felt like the time I plugged in the commercial waffle iron at the restaurant and got a spasmodic handshaking shock. Not that there was much control before, but they had told me to push and by jesus I was doing my best with less than stellar results. Then the red animal, the part of my body that took over my life for a third of the month with blood and cramps and nausea asserted itself, and lifted the lower half of my torso up and then shook like a coyote cracking a rabbit's back, trying to disgorge the child inside.

Relax, relax, don't push! Well after hours of hormone pumped into my system, the last thing I wanted to do was push, but it wasn't my idea anymore. The medical staff wheeled the gurney into an operating room with cement floors that had gutters leading to a circular drain. The baby was too far out for a Caesarean, but was stuck facing downwards, with the umbilical cord around the neck. I signed a consent for an epidural and blessed the man who administered the paralytic into my spine. It stopped everything, and instead of women holding my hand, it became men with clanking tools and that drain in the floor. I was giddy, laughing, stupid with exhaustion; the pain was gone, get my baby out, please.

I could hear the splatter of blood and fluid hit the cement. It was cold, as operating rooms are. My doctor had tongs that he gripped the baby's head with, another doctor braced his feet against the floor and hung onto the gurney that slid forward in spite of the wheels being braked. I watched both men as their arms shook with effort and the tension of pulling; it took a lot of stitches afterwards to clean up what had to be. I did not feel the child leaving my body, but I heard the doctor say, "This one's got a handle," which I didn't understand till everyone started talking louder, shouting to me through the haze that the baby was a boy.

They wiped him up and let Joe hold him, then they passed him over to lay on my chest. Welcome to the planet, I said. I couldn't keep him long, his lungs weren't clearing properly, he hadn't cried right away and they wanted to check respiration. We had a son.

It was eleven at night when the nurses brought him in and I was able to look closely at this tiny being who had emerged from my still swollen stomach. He had a head full of hair, eyes closed tight, fists covered with mitted sleeves, and made small liquid popping noises. One mark above an eye and one on his jaw told of where the forceps had pulled. A small skin tag on his tummy was snipped away after I unwrapped the swaddling to examine feet and fanny and neck and oh lord, this child, this child I will show and teach and learn from and he will be loved and give love. I was excited for the cats to meet him.

And today is his birthday, the day of my coming into existence as well. I would not be what I am or where I am today without account to my offspring, my child, my son, my sun, my love. He is a continuation of life, an inquisitive benefactor for this old world.

Sleep well, breathe deep, face the new dawn. I love you, Brian.

Now What? Haunted Mumbling...

So, I've blogged about this already yet still remain mildly narcotically fascinated with the whole mess. No, I don't believe what's on television but for heaven's sake why not, for the concept is valid and couldn't technology record electrical gobbledegook? It's an unorganized religion, if religion is more hope than sacrifice.

Up and down Elmwood Avenue in the city, ethereal estate endures. I just gotta get out more and talk to the solid humans who share space with, well, just with. Let me warn you, I just had three cups of coffee after an overnight fast for a blood test and whammo, this post may be fragmented and pumpkin guts sloppy, but well, art is art. Besides, today's car ride took me past the old restaurant I worked at, an old stable converted to bar and kitchen. Whoof, haunted as a mirror in grandma's attic. Footsteps, doors slamming, tense cold waves of anger; all there. Not a happy place to change into whites, I did it as fast as I could...whites being what a kitchen worker wears. Really, I don't know what nibbled the ghost's angst other than the owner of that restaurant favored a Frank Sinatra Rat Pack Jimmy You a Good Boy Hey Lookit Them Tatas persona, and the stable boy ghost who supposedly hung himself in the loft maybe resented the raucous noise of it all. Italians with guns, just imagine. My question is, where does the energy go when a haunted building is knocked down?

Ground level? The tenth floor? Say if a high rise was haunted, the day after the wrecking ball did the job, would the vapors stay in say the general area of where the tenth story existed? Or does reality hit the ectoplasm and it fades into what? Are there sky ghosts? Do ghosts really know what they are doing? Are they aware of being pains in the ass, is there kick bucket pleasure in continuing as a nuisance to the living? Jerk humans probably stay jerk spirits, telling us who are still scurrying on the surface why they think it is their moral duty to exact phantasmic justice.

I mean, there are stories of dead relatives coming around, watching over the children beneficently, sending small tokens of remembering, a penny, a feather, a shared connection. But most of the reports detail the squirrely side of death, the emotionally distraught spirits who haven't access to medication and now have to deal with it face on. Oh who knows. But how far back does haunting go, and what's the time limit? How is it managed? The ones evident don't seem to be the sharpest knives in the drawer. Yet museums are haunted by former curators, buildings by former presidents, bygone pets appear at doors, so perhaps sentiment enters into it as well. I need to take a tape recorder and begin work interviewing the living, if only to satisfy my own innate nosiness and search for reality.

My couch now faces the window, and yesternight I watched the cuticle edge of the moon cut through clouds and become whole; the brightest full moon of 2010 says the almanac. I pulled up the window shade so I could see the ascent and the reflecting light played green and blue over dark, jagged snow clouds. Mars was there, it was lovely. The mercury streetlights added an orangish glow to segments of the sky, and as temperatures plummeted into single digits, the atmosphere was lit with subtle colors from long ago. It made me feel all right. Things go on.

Sleep well, dream of colors blending with snow villages in the heavens; dream under blankets, under the spell of life, under the wishes for safety and recognition by those who love you best.

Yearning in Colored Photographs

A friend on Facebook jollied about the fact that the seed catalogues are in the mail, coming to be tucked under your pillow by the Garden Fairy's spring-soiled hands. I don't have a corner to plant anything, but looking through the pages of burgeoning vegetables still causes salivation and imagined, longed-for visions of carrots to well inside. Earth changed into food. You go out in the morning cold to breathe warm exhalations over tiny seedlings, just to make sure the early cutworms didn't slash the young tender stems for their own dining. It's fun to grow your own from scratch and easily done, so that for a $4.00 packet of heirloom tomato seeds, you end up with generous bushels of red globes made to be sliced up as summer supper. Sweet corn, sliced tomatoes, bread and butter, iced tea. Done. Get fancy with a peach cobbler for dessert.

But this is January now, sun went down just after five late afternoon, mid this dark, cold standstill of growing. I bought a tomato which was waxen, hard, dangerous as a launched weapon, hoping it will soften up over the next few days on the counter. Reminiscent of the real thing, it will go through the motions of being a tomato and suffice, bringing a small bit of cheer to the next meal.

It will be late July, early August before the fat, juice-laden red bobbles of sun appear at the Farmer's Market. Growers pride themselves on what they produce, and will spin tales of pedigree regarding shape, vigor, and most of all, flavor. Reds, oranges, yellows, striped blends, purple heart-shapes explode from the beds of pickup trucks and family grown and gone station wagons. Men and women groan and gulp draughts of air before hauling their just-picked bounty, all exhausted from being in the fields since three-thirty in the morning. Split wood baskets are loaded with beauties, denim overalls hitch over broad backs, Dad trots over to the vendor for coffee, Mom sets out cukes and early squash in rows of quart containers. Oh tomatoes, exuberant rampant crest of summer, I bow in humble grace.

Settle in for the evening with something in your lap, whether a catalogue or magazine; there is something renewing about reading. Nighttime is for settling in, for quiet inside the walls, for sleep. Sheets are ready, slippers off. Good night, this good night.

Head Hurts

Today is a Sunday, one of my favorite days because it's yellow and not the day I run errands. Yes, my noggin has an imaginary band tightened around at the temples, I am the one always to resist taking an aspirin which is odd considering that I perfectly understand how chemicals can be helpful. Wait a minute; brb as they say, there is some St. Joseph baby aspirin in the cupboard. One wouldn't make me an addict. Hang on.

Yesterday's shopping brought home a tiny set of four nail polishes, on sale 70% off and candy-colored. Now, my nails are clipped short and never grew well, wearing nail polish feels like each finger is in a straitjacket, and you know, I can't get the hang of even coats or of not puddling the excess between fingernail and finger. But you know me and rosy pink colors. Oh, if my nails glistened like a translucent strawberry, like snapdragons after rain, like sunset in the southern ocean skies, well baby, that is a sort of living reserved for the ethereal. So you know I tried.

Last night I applied the darkest ruby shimmer to my left hand with my reading glasses on in a room semi-lit by the still here Christmas tree. After crashing into various objects mostly cats, I went to bed, removed my contacts, and got a close look at the mess. It looked like bloody warfare with cat hair punctuation. Besides, it gave me that icky, tight sensation on my nails; I got the polish remover and whoa nelly, the stuff turned black upon the cotton ball when wiped away. What the heck? The edges of cuticles and hangnails retained the deep red while areas of my nails took on a blackish cast. This is usually how my day goes.

Today I was lured in by the cotton candy pink bottle, and thought well, why not. Now my nails look as if I have an unhealthy warmish disease with the edges still dyed a faint ruby. But only on the left hand, so maybe you won't notice. Not for me, is this nail polish stuff, and I have to get over it and accept that.

Hey, my headache is gone.

Today has seen some sun, which is nice when the mercury dips down to single digits. An Alberta Clipper has come in, bringing with it some of the clearest, most nourishing cold air you could breathe. Kai and I stuck our faces to the outside when I cracked a window open and the two degree air just mounded over the sill and down the wall to the floor. Fresh and oxygenated, both of us shivered not from cold but from the backbone wilds of the Canadian mountains, whose essence tumbled into the room before I eased the sliding window shut.

There is a lentil soup in a pot, and soon the sun will appear to be spinning downwards to the horizon. The night, with its mysteries and lamps comes soon enough. Would we sleep deeper, if there were still men in the night calling out the hours, with reassurances that all was well? Burrow deep, stay warm. Good night.