What! I'm back!

Hey there!  It’s good to see you!  Have you lost weight or is it a new haircut that’s making you look so different?  Me?  Well, it’s been a while.  A LONG while...I’m a horrid friend, I know.  But there’s a good reason.

So.  Nearly six months ago, THIS happened:

That would be Dylan, or Pickle as we call him.  (Dylan–Dill–Dill Pickle-Pickle in case you’re wondering what circuitous path brought us there.  Just please don’t call him Dillie…it makes my soul weep).

Of course, he didn’t come out looking quite that charming.  I thought I would spare the childless amongst you THAT horror show.  No need to frighten everyone into ill-advised hysterectomy’s over fear of what you might spawn.  You’re never really prepared for how ugly your newborn may be.  Dylan, poor chap, had been so squished in the birth canal that upon his arrival, Marc and I just sort of looked at each other and silently worried - this HAS to improve, RIGHT??? - while everyone politely coo’d over our sons misshapen face.  One family member got it right when she accurately stated, “He looks like a little prize fighter!” though she forgot to add that he was on the losing side without the benefit of a corner coach.

There was a smushed nose, a cone head that listed eastwards and a lazy eye that wouldn’t open properly.  We slapped a hat on him and peeked over the crib each morning in the hopes that things had smoothed out over night.  It was rough going for a while but fortunately, about two weeks later, his face unpuffed and his features settled into something more angelic and less like Gollum.  We breathed a collective sigh of relief.

I mean, it’s a crapshoot, right?  Just because you are reasonable looking people doesn’t mean that your children won’t get the unfortunate genes that are swimming about in your respective pools.  So we’re just enjoying these adorable years that Dylan seems to be heading into.  What I’m sure of is that his teenage years will be less kind and awkward seeing as both Marc and I barely skated through that era with our dignities intact - there was a braided tail for Marc and some perplexing fashion choices on my part.  In fact, dignity might have taken a hiatus and caught up with us around 25.  It’s hard to say.

But in the interim, here we are.  In the deepest of love with our tiny boy.

And what can I say about parenthood that hasn’t already been said?  All of the clichés are true.  Every one of them.  That your heart explodes and suddenly is outside of your body in the form of your child.  That it is the hardest and most rewarding job you will ever have.  That you will suddenly have a completely different kind of appreciation for your own parents.  That you never knew the depths of your capacity to love until you are holding the little person that is a part of your very soul.  It’s true.  I thought I loved Kylie with all of my heart.  And I do…I mean, my blog is named for her (and she is doing swimmingly, by the way – she feigns disinterest but goes and sits outside Dylan’s door the minute he cries) and I like her more than most people.  But THIS love…I just had no idea.  I marvel at it.

One thing that I have been shocked at is my ability to power through the fatigue.  I’m a girl who likes her rest.  In fact, I require it medically being immune system challenged.  And of course with a newborn, there is none of that.  It’s like freaking Nam…you’re up at all hours, waiting with ears pricked for the next shriek from the nine pound enemy that you’ve let into your home.  I was worried that I might crack under the pressure of the constant care seeing as gone were the languid afternoon hours that I spent on the couch allowing my body to rest up for the remainder of the day.

But it’s incredible.  Caring for Dylan, in every capacity, is a delight.  My body, though broken in many respects, has responded to the task of being a mother in ways I didn’t think it would or could.  I feel that motherhood has healed parts of me that were sad and downtrodden for a long while.   I’m intensely aware that his very life, his existence depends on my being present for him at all times.  And I’m here.  I’m showing up for this little man and will continue to do so for as long as I draw breath.

For him, I would fight tigers.

On diaper bags and losing myself.

When I announced that I was pregnant, a writer friend of mine said, "Oh my...you are going to have SO much new material for your blog!"  Another friend said, "Are you going to become a mommyblogger now?"   I'm not sure if the second comment was said with disdain or not, but I surprised even myself by how little I've come to this site over the past 40 weeks.  I think the mommyblogger comment caught me off guard as there is something about that label that makes me feel stabby.  Perhaps because it forces you to join in with a group of people who regularly discuss their sleepless night, love affair with strollers and which organic diapers best suit their little ones behinds.  And really, the demographic that enjoys that sort of content is limited and also somewhat over saturated.

And while those subjects become central to one's existence when there is a miniature person in your life, I think part of me was/is scared that I'll lose a lot of myself in this process.  My friends who are mothers assure me that you actually blossom into an even broader version of who you are meant to be once you become someone's mommy, there is that small part of me that is attached to my shoe collection, my travels and my bucket list and fears that once Dylan makes his appearance, my conversations will deviate from amusing to the consistency of his poops and later display a bumper sticker exclaiming how he made the honor roll at his school.  

I suppose what I'm saying in my typical long winded fashion is that I'm trying to figure out where I go from here writing wise.  I've looked forward to becoming a mommy since I was a wee one myself, so I'm not decrying this new phase in life that is upon me.  It's more that I still want to have this as an outlet...and being that my life is soon to become full of all things Dylan, there may be more of that in here.  And I'm coming to terms with that and hope that you all will too.  Because if there is anything that supplies one with tales of the ridiculous, it's trying to segue from a sophisticated (ha! sort of), completely adult life into one that revolves around a baby that's primary skill is projectile poo'ing.

(And did you know?  Marc has never changed a diaper before?  In his 40 years?  I can't WAIT...although that being said, I also have this vision of coming home and seeing Marc outside, rinsing Dylan off from a safe distance with the hose rather than deal with anything stinky up close.)

So we'll see.  In the meantime, I have only a few more weeks to go and then the bomb of a new baby will be going off in our home.  I can't wait.

Here is a story about how life and death are so entertwined.

It's been a full weekend.  An odd weekend.  A good weekend and a devastating one all within 48 hours.  Yesterday, for instance, we celebrated the impending birth of our son with a group of friends and family.  There was joy and laughter and the all around glow that a new baby brings into the world.  It was good.

And then there is today.  Today I received the news that my friends 13 year old daughter lost her battle with cancer.  She died.  And as I pause in the writing of this, I rub my belly and feel my little son moving around in my belly, full of life.  And it's strange. 

It's always amazed me how joy and pain can be such bedfellows.  Certainly, we spend most of our days hoping to avoid the latter, yet it seeps into our lives in the sneakiest of ways, shaping relationships and bodies and circumstances.  And and I've always held to the dictum that it is our human responsibility to rise above our own personal pains in the best and most graceful ways possible.  But how do you tell someone who has just lost that which is most precious to them that they must pull themselves up by their bootstraps and carry on?  I don't think you do unless you want them to shut the door in your face and never speak to you again. 

And so I'm sad beyond belief for my friend, yet at the same time relieved that her daughter's soul is no longer trapped within the confines of her broken body.  I'm filled with sorrow, knowing that the next months and in fact years will be spent in recovery of the past two years of fighting - I know that my friend and her husband will in fact most likely never recover from having lost a child - and yet there is hope and joy in their two children who are very much alive and will go on to live, to fulfill their dreams and to dance with pain all their own.

But this pain.  It is large.  It brings up the question of why.  Why a little girl?  Why someone so innocent and not some horrid person who squandered their life?  Why did she have to suffer so much?  Why did God look down and say, "I want her back," despite knowing what wreckage it would leave behind?  I have no answers for the slew of "Why's?"  What I do know is that we live in a horribly broken world where there are many things that are not fair and we have no way of understanding.  And I suppose this is where faith comes in.

I've been recently pulled into some squabbling in these past few weeks, the effects of which have made me very tired, sad and feeling as though people have lost sight of what is important.  Another dictum I hold to be true is that we are all in charge of our own happiness...to me, a lot of that is keeping peace with those at I love.  What this event has made reinforced for me is that it is never worth not telling those that you love what is bothering you in a kind and loving manner, asking for forgiveness when necessary, trying to see their side of the story and telling them that you love them.  It disrespects those that wish they just had one more day with the person that they've lost.  So let's all do those we love a solid and communicate, shall we?

Marc and I are naming our son Dylan Thomas after the poet who left behind such a beautiful body of work when he went on to drink himself to death at the Chelsea Hotel.  One might say that our son has no where to go but up from there with that legacy behind him.  But the reason Marc and I chose the name is that we each were struck by a poem of his long before we knew one another.  For Marc it was, "Do Not Go Gently Into that Goodnight" and for me it was, "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" which I will copy here.  This poem has always struck me as being about the lust of life, of love, of adversity and hunger as well as hope and joy and that mad surreality of the world in which it all takes place.  Life will succeed no matter what is done to stop it.  This is to Jensen, who will speak beyond the grave in the souls of her parents and brother and sister who will carry her through their lives.

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.