A Few of the Ways This Pregnancy Has Changed Me

Since I'm still pregnant, I thought I'd take this moment to catalog just a few ways I've changed over these past 9 months.

(1) My main preoccupation these days is the Bloody Show. This isn't something out of "New Moon" (the teen vampire flick currently in theaters) but rather that hopeful little trace of blood-laced mucus that would indicate the onset of Labor sometime soon. This morning there was a hint of pink!

(2) Nine months ago I was a size 10 P (petite). Today I am a solid size 10 B (bulbous). Ditto for my bra size. As a consequence, Reeve, who gave up nursing last summer, has re-discovered my "mum-mums" as objects of curiosity. (I hope he doesn't re-discover a taste for Mama lattes once Baby shows up.)

(3) I've become an Oxytocin Devotee. My particular interest is the interaction and conflict between oxytocin (the love hormone) and adrenaline (the flight or fight hormone) during birth. I hadn't understood how the closely the cascade of birthing hormones follows the same sequence as the sexual response in women (isn't nature clever?), or how logical it is that an excess of fear hormones would counteract that process. How cool is it that the New York Times just reported on my favorite hormone?
www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/24angier.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=oxytocin&st=cse

(4) My carbon footprint has more than doubled. Just as the Obama administration lured consumers to buy gas-saving vehicles, Jordy and I traded our Toyota Prius (45 mpg) in for a Volvo XC70 (18 mpg). By the government's formula for tax off-sets, we should have paid a $16,000 penalty for the exchange.

(5) I have received a promotion. My title has been C.O.O. (Chief Operating Officer) & co-C.E.O. (Jordy was my co-Executive, along with his other designation as C.F.O.). This morning Jordy and Duncan discussed my contributions to the creation of this family, and while they gave Jordy credit for Conceptual Contributions, they agreed that I deserved the rank of C.M.O.(Chief Manufacturing Officer), along with my aforementioned titles. Compensation will be in stock options.

(6) I have become a practitioner of Kundalini Yoga, without a clue what cosmic forces I am engaging. What it looks like, among other things, is a bunch of pregnant women squatting together in a circle moving our Kegel muscles in harmony to a woman's airy voice singing "Sa-ta-nam!" which means something about honoring my truth and my inner wisdom, etc. At the end, when we hold our bellies and join the woman in singing, "May the long time sun shine upon you, all light surround you, all love surround you... And the pure light within you, guide your way on!" to our babies, I find tears streaming down my face. I don't ask a lot of questions.

(7) I have become a recluse. This is a relative term, given the general Green family tendency to extroversion, but for two weeks now it's fair to say I've not made a single play date. I find pick-ups and drop-offs at school, usually a nice brief encounter with other adults, to be socially taxing. My inner female animal tells me to walk the dog for hours on end in the park, then return home and curl up under a blanket. However, sine Baby didn't come as early as we thought he might, based on past experience, I'm finding that my self-imposed isolation is starting to make me weird. What to do now? Should I crawl out of my shell for a breather, even as each day brings D-day closer? Thank God for my dear friend Jeanne in Palo Alto, due 12 days after me, who has a knack for calling at the exact moment when I think I've gone over the edge. And to Ali and Maria, who keep closer tabs on me.

(8) I have joined the iTunes revolution. After resisting the whole thing, even mocking it, the idea of a "birthing" playlist hooked me and I'm a junky. I've cleared two bookshelves in the living room by filing our CDs in a binder. I digitized the ones I want to listen to. I, Samantha Jane, am "synching" my iPhone to my iTunes. I've started up "Smart Playlists." I've bought a battery-powered speaker set that can travel with me to whatever room I feel like laboring in. And at this moment, I am listening to "It's Raining Men," which I dowloaded easily at the iTunes store along with "May the Long Time Sun Shine Upon You." My New Age playlist may do the trick, but I suspect the Weather Girls might give me the extra power I need to birth my third little man.

(9) The Good Girl has apparently given way to the Radical. I'm not sure when I drifted over the line, or who even drew the line. I was raised to believe women can birth babies, that it's a natural process that sometimes needs medical intervention. I gave birth to my first two in a hospital. I'm going to see if I can give birth to this guy at home. If we need to, we'll use the back-up of the hospitals nearby. Safe birth is the goal, and in my view, safety starts with my own preparation -- tackling my fears, or at least engaging them, so I don't set of the physiology of fear that comes with pain, as well as taking good care of myself physically and mentally these 9 months. It means lining up the right support, first and foremost my husband and our certified nurse midwife, then medical resources as needed, and wise women who've got my back. I've come to believe that the term "Home" Birth is most wisely taken as a metaphor. I care less where I give birth geographically than that I feel fully engaged in the doing of this. For me, anesthesia and continuous fetal monitors feel a bit like wiring up Tom Brady and sending him onto the field. If I get a serious body slam, I will be grateful for the support on the sidelines and will have no problem asking for their help. But I believe I'm the one who fundamentally has to do this thing, together with my little passenger.

(10) I have awakened to the cervical imagery that permeates the universe. I wear a necklace with a circular Polynesian nut pendant that is about 2 centimeters dilated. On December 1st the full moon rose over Prospect Park, a ripe, glowing, fully dilated cervix!

(11) I am learning how to live in the rubber time of the present moment. Day stretches after day, and here we are. Time to go check on the Bloody Show.

On the Run from the Piggie

I take it back. I am, or was, afraid of the swine flu, judging from my reflex to kick my husband not only out of the bedroom, but out of the house for a week. Lest I come off as the brute that I was, I need to back up and explain the circumstances.

Just before Halloween, my beloved husband flew to a resort in Palm Springs for the wedding of dear friends. Given that I was 35 weeks pregnant, it was Halloween weekend (the Brooklyn equivalent of Mardi Gras in New Orleans), and Duncan's 5th birthday, Jordy and I decided that I would stay home while he would represent us at the wedding. My mother intended to come to Brooklyn to help me with the kids and the multiple waves of festivities.

The Piggie first raised his head when my mother decided to cancel her Dartmouth coach bus reservation from New Hampshire to Manhattan. The Dartmouth College campus has been awash with swine flu; so, she reasoned, it probably wasn't a good idea to ride for five hours in closed quarters with a bunch of college students. She was awaiting knee surgery and feared the flu would set her surgery date back. By this logic, I asked, perhaps she should consider whether it was a good idea to visit on a weekend that involved two little kid birthday parties, not to mention the 400-500 vampires, Darth Vaders, mummies, and zombie brides we expected on our doorstep on Hallow's Eve? She slept on it, then awoke the next morning in appropriate epidemiological terror. Trip over. Score one for the Piggie.

The three days of Jordy's absence passed in a blur of sugar, spider webs, mummy wrappings, pumpkin innards, shrieking children, Chinese take-out, and musical chairs to the "Monster Mash." Jordy arrived Sunday morning after a red-eye flight, just in time to walk the dog before the arrival of the last and biggest wave: Duncan's twelve closest school friends, their siblings, their parents, and I believe even some grandparents. By two o'clock when the cake crumbs had settled, Jordy and Reeve collapsed on the couch downstairs. I drifted in and out of consciousness upstairs to the strains of "Viva, Mexico! Hey hey hey! Viva, turn up the radio!" while Duncan watched his new DVD, Scooby Doo and the Monster from Mexico. At bedtime, Jordy and I congratulated ourselves on pulling off the big weekend -- and germ-free, no less.

Monday morning, still exhausted from Saturday's lost night of sleep, Jordy went into the office to find a junior colleague "not feeling well" after a big Halloween weekend of drinking. By noon the junior colleague had gone home to sleep it off. By Tuesday the junior colleague had not returned to work.

Cross-cut: At school pick-up Tuesday, two other pregnant mothers and I commiserated about the daily New York Times coverage of pregnant women and swine flu. One nicely terrifying story told of a woman in Florida whose baby was removed by emergency c-section at 28 weeks while the mother was in the ICU; the baby had died, and the mother was hanging on by a thread. I had a vaccine shot scheduled for Friday, but our pediatrician had already run out of shots for the kids. One of the other pregnant moms had tracked down a clinic that had 500 doses. It was clear across Brooklyn, but would I like the contact information?

After school the next day I drove the kids an hour through coagulated rush-hour traffic to a clinic in Williamsburg. Orthodox Jewish mothers with far more -- and better behaved -- children watched my two boys tear around the waiting room as I filled out endless paper work. In the exam room, we only destroyed one blood pressure hose before the doctor appeared and gave the boys their shots. A tiny bead of clear liquid remained on Reeve's arm after the needle was withdrawn. Did he get the full dose? I wondered but decided not to ask. Did I need one? The doctor asked. No, I had an appointment at NYU on Friday with my own doctor. "See you in 30 days for the second dose, then!" the doctor said. Second dose? We have to go through this again?

On the drive home, weakened by traffic and children fighting in the back seat over whether to listen to Scooby Doo or MammaMia!, I let my petty angels whisper resentful thoughts. Three days at a resort in Palm Springs vs. three days of pregnant solo parenting in Brooklyn...?

Boiling the water for pasta, I prepared carefully how to express my condition to Jordy. He is not always sanguine when I reach Wits' End (a generous over-reaction on his part, like an allergy that makes him flare up in anger when I am discontented before being able to hear that it's not his fault). I was genuinely exhausted, but I knew the risk of letting resentment drive the conversation. I dispersed my petty angels and resolved to make a clean ask for help.

6:15. Jordy walked in the door. "Hi, Sweetie. I think I've hit the wall-" I began, but stopped. He looked wind-blown and flushed, as if he had run -- or been chased -- home. "I feel like crap," he said quietly.

My resolve vanished. A mob of petty angels rushed in. Was this a Man Cold? How dare he? In my moment of need, he turns up with a stuffy nose?

But I contained myself, and the chattering voices within, and encouraged him to take his temperature. 99 degrees. We carried on with dinner. He handled the bath and bedtime stories, while I did the dishes and walked the dog. He took out the trash. But by bedtime, he reported feeling worse. Since I hadn't had my shot, I asked if he would be willing to sleep in the TV room.

Thursday morning. I took the early shift with Reeve at six. When Jordy appeared in the kitchen doorway at seven o'clock, I had to admit, he looked bad. He was reading his iPhone and shaking his head. "Dylan tested positive for H1N1." Dylan, you might guess, is the aforementioned junior colleague.

"How do you feel?" I ask, knowing the answer.

"Like a train hit me," he said from the doorway. He took a step forward. I took a step back. He stopped.

The previous 15 hours played back in dizzying rewind: Shots. Effluence on Reeve's arm - did he get enough? "See you in 30 days for the second dose!" "No, thanks, I have an appointment at NYU with my own doctor on Friday." Duncan sharing Halloween candy with Jordy after dinner. Jordy giving baths and bedtime stories.

Vicious little piggies with wings were flying throughout our house! I knew my own body was defenseless. Would the boys' little bodies be able to hold?

"I don't know what to do," Jordy said, adrift.

A reptilian part of my brain took over. "I need you to go to your office apartment."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"But it take a week."

"I can't be the one to take care of you now."

"I understand. I'll just get some things together."

"Okay." He plodded up the stairs. "Oh, and Sweetie? While you are up there, can you open the windows of the TV room and put on the fan?"

Moments later, the boys and I waved through the window as he left. He waved back sadly. That would be the last we'd see of him for four days.

Score Two for the Piggie.

Thursday I filled a Tamiflu prescription my midwife had given me, "just in case," and began taking the prophylactic dosage. My doctor bumped me to the front of the line, so as soon as I dropped the kids at school I got on the subway to Manhattan where strangers seemed to cast swine-like shadows... Or was it I who was casting the shadow with a snout?

When I got to the doctor, I informed him proudly that I had already taken a Tamiflu pill that morning. He shook his head. "Then I'm not sure the shot will do you any good. Tamiflu changes the way your immune system reacts to the shot."

Panic. "But only the live denatured nasal spray, I believe?" I had read the pharmaceutical information cover to cover on the train. Had I misunderstood? I wanted to cry. He went to his computer. Eight long silent minutes while he double checked the medical literature. Not even NYU doctors, I realized, know everything about this flu.

At last he stood up. "Pull up your sleeve."

Every day I nearly worked up a fever watching the boys and myself for fever. It can take up to seven days for the immune system to build up the antibody reaction. We canceled all play dates. We said hello to neighbors from a distance. Although I took the kids to the Bronx Zoo on Saturday to avoid an even worse case of cabin fever, we spoke to no one and kept our distance, feeling safer among the Okapi animals than among other humans.

I discovered that one of the hardest side effects of plague is the isolation.

On Sunday we met Jordy in Prospect Park. I wanted to hug him. The boys wanted to climb on him. But we had decided on a no-touch visit. He had been free of fever for 12 hours but still felt like his muscles had been pulverized. Could he come home? He went back to the office for a nap, after which we would decide. By evening his fever had returned. Had we rushed it?

Jordy finally came home on Tuesday, six days after his first flush of fever and 36 hours after it had abated. I finished the 10-day course of Tamiflu four days later. So far, not a smidge of temperature.

I picture a Fellowship of the Antibodies, B-cells and T-cells, coursing through our four -- no, five -- little bodies, slaying evil micro-piggies left and right.

Score one, Green Beans.

My Run as a Mermaid

When I became a parent, I expected stinky diapers, tantrums, even - thanks to my sisters - a painful learning curve on breastfeeding. I didn't expect parenthood to give me my break as a Broadway star.

Most new parents share the experience of pushing air through rusty vocal chords, resurrecting the classics to ease a crying infant to sleep - "Twinkle Twinkle," "ABC," "Ba-Ba-Black-Sheep," eventually moving on to other tunes such as "Rock-a-Bye-Baby" or "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round." When those don't work, we rack our brains, dragging up Middle School choir tunes ("On Top of Old Smokey," anyone?) or "Jingle Bells" (the kid doesn't care that it's August - or that he's Jewish). Our oldest child, Duncan, was satisfied with whatever tunes we came up with, however in or out of tune they were, as long as we kept singing. We pulled out some Elvis ("Take my heart, take my whole life too") and Elton John ("How wonderful life is now you're in the world"), which seemed to capture our new reality as parents.

His younger brother, however, had more specific requirements.

It began one rainy weekend like any other when we rented a DVD from the movie store. Duncan had heard about a movie called "The Little Mermaid" from one of his friends at school. Duncan, who was 3 at the time, watched with rapt attention. We expected Reeve, who was 1, to watch for his usual span of five minutes, then wander off to unload the pots and pans from the cupboard or bang on his mini-piano. Not so. Reeve was transfixed.

Needless to say, we had to watch the movie as many times as possible before the midnight deadline at the movie store. Then, to put off the endless demands to rent it again, I had the great idea to buy the soundtrack. That way, I justified to myself, at least their little Disney-colonized imaginations would be exercised in conjuring the magical underwater world through the evocation of music. Of the ten hours driving from New York back and forth on our many trips to New Hampshire, at least five were spent looping mermaid Ariel's aria of longing, "Part of Your World". Desperate efforts by the parents to move on to another song -- or another CD? -- were met with roof-raising protests.

The season of The Little Mermaid corresponded with a major effort to get Reeve to sleep at night in his crib. He fought falling sleep like a tarpin fights the fishing line. His non-negotiable requirement before surrender: That I sing "Part of Your World," in its entirety.

At first I performed the task out of duty and desperation.

"Look at this stuff,
Isn't it neat?
Wouldn't you think my collection's complete?
Wouldn't you think I'm the girl,
girl who has everything?

Look at this trove,
Treasures untold,
How many wonders can one cavern hold?
Looking around here you think, sure,
She's got everything?

I've got gadgets and gizmos a plenty,
I've got who-sits and whats-its galore,
You want thing-a-ma-bobs,
I got twenty,
But who cares? No big deal?
I want more......"

But soon I found something curious going on. As I watched Reeve's little eyes, wide open and fixed on the ceiling, I felt his longing for more. Could he already have figured out that the world is filled with useless gizmos and gadgets that distract us from what we really long for? What do I long for that I've lost track of?

"I want to be where the people are,
I want to see, want to see 'em dancing,
Strolling along on those, what's that word again?
Oh, feet...
Flipping your fins you don't get too far,
Legs are required for jumping, dancing,
Walking along on those, what's that word again?
Streets!"

Did I hear my little audience member sigh? My little wobbly walker just figuring out how to walk, jump, dance? My pre-verbal toddler longing for the power of words? The sincerity of his longing to be a part of this big human world, against his instinctual awareness of his limits, cracked my heart open.

"Up where they walk, up where they run,
Up where they stay all day in the sun,
Wandering free, wish I could be,
Part of that World!"

Childhood memories flooded me. Longing to be included in my older sister's Barbie games with her friends; longing to be one of the "big kids" allowed to go out to dinner at the Sail Loft with the cousins; longing to escape the chubby body that attracted Paul Appleton's taunts of "Miss Piggy" at the bus stop; longing to defy gravity by completing an axel jump on figure skates...

I was no longer a mother crouched on the carpet of her son's nursery. I was a mermaid, perched on a rock, singing from the depths of my soul.

"What would I give if I could live outta these waters?
What would it take to spend a day warm on the sand?
Betcha on land they understand that they don't reprimand their daughters!
Bright young women, sick of swimming,
Ready to Stand!"

Were those tears in my eyes as my mermaid self recalled all the dreams of my bright young woman self? To participate in the world? To lead a life that matters? To make art and tell stories that move people the way I was being moved by this song? My voice quivered now with emotion as the full import of the song penetrated and I wondered, did I ever Stand?

"I'm ready to know what the people know,
Asking my questions and get some answers,
What's a fire and why does it, what's the word, Burn?"

I was burning now. How many questions had I abandoned? Lost in the category of, "I don't have time" or "I'm too tired"? My voice soared with heart-felt emotion. A single spotlight held me in the darkness. My audience was spellbound by the power of the music, by the truth of my performance. Each note mattered. It must be exactly right. I was the voice of the universal desire that lives in each of our hearts, and which we must not let die!

"When's it my turn, wouldn't I love,
Love to explore the shore up above?"

Wait for it now. I took my time. I gave each word its deserved moment.

"Out of the sea, wish I could be,
Part of that world..."

The spotlight dimmed. I had so transported my audience they couldn't even muster applause.

I opened my eyes. My little audience looked at me through the bars of his crib, quiet, intent, and uttered a single word, "Again."

And so began my Broadway career. Digging into the depths of my soul, three performances a night, for months. Until one night, he didn't want it any more. And I realized, with a little sadness, that the show had closed.

The Big, Big Stick

Reeve found a big, big stick. It was twice as long as his whole body. It had two long prongs like giant witch's fingers. When Reeve swung it, he could stop traffic. Cool.

His older brother took notice. "Hey, give me that." Duncan made a grab for it.

"No, Gungcan, it MY 'tick!" Reeve whipped it away, nearly taking out a passing biker.

Duncan lunged again, but his brother hung tough, especially for a two-year old. Duncan let go and strolled away. "Who cares. It's not such a great stick anyway."

"It is a great 'tick!" Reeve protested.

"No, it's not."

"It IS!"

Duncan pretended not to care as he hunted among the fallen leaves. As last he found a little stick, more of a twig really. "Now, THIS is a great stick. Don't you want this one, Reeve? I'll trade you."

"No."

"Reeve! Give it to me!" Reeve shook his head. Duncan checked to see if his mom was looking. Nope. He snatched Reeve's stick.

"GUNGCAN! IT MINE!" Reeve howled. Now their mom was looking.

"Duncan, give it back," she said. He held firm as Reeve yanked the other end. "Duncan? Now." He let go.

"Aw! No fair!" Duncan plopped cross-legged in the middle of the path. Strollers and joggers swerved to avoid him. After a minute or so of good pouting, Duncan got up and ran across the grass to the edge of the woods.

Meanwhile, Reeve waved his stick in victory. Strollers and joggers swerved to avoid him.

"Reeve, you have to keep the stick down or I'll take it away," his mom warned, to no effect. "Reeve, do I need to take it?"

"No! My 'tick!" he shouted as he ran away, menacing dogs and their walkers.

His mother caught him and took the stick. "We can't hurt other people with our sticks." She snapped off the long prongs, leaving the stick no longer than Reeve's own little arm, then handed it back. Reeve looked at his maimed stick as if to say, what's the point?

"What happened to Reeve's stick?" Duncan was breathing hard. He had returned from the woods with the biggest stick ever. It was five times as long as his whole body. If you put it upright, it could almost be its own tree.

"Wow, Gungcan!" Reeve's eyes bulged. "Can I have it?"

"No. It's my stick," Duncan said.

"Please!" Reeve cried.

"That's yours!" Duncan took pleasure in pointing to the small remains of Reeve's stick.

"No, it not!" Reeve cast the useless thing aside.

Duncan wrapped both arms around his limb and dragged it with all his might. Reeve lifted the opposite end.

"Let go!" Duncan ordered his brother. "This is my stick!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

The problem with such a big stick, Duncan realized, was that he was only one person and he couldn't defend the whole thing. Much less move it. He sensed an opportunity.

"Okay, Reeve. You can help me. Go this way."

"Okay!"

Together they managed to drag it across the path. They stopped to catch their breath. Now bikers, strollers, and dog walkers had no way to pass.

"Boys, you have to move the stick back onto the grass," their mom demanded.

Duncan pulled one way. Reeve pulled the other.

"Reeve! You're going the wrong way!"

"No, I not! You go wrong way!"

"We have to bring it over here!"

"No, we don't!"

Duncan stomped his feet. Reeve dug in his heels.

"Quickly, boys!" their mom insisted. Traffic was building up.

Wearily Duncan looked at the heavy branch. All the fun was gone. He looked around for an escape.

Dandelions!

"Hey, Reeve, let's bring the stick over to those flowers!"

Intrigued, Reeve looked up. "Flowers?!"

Together they hauled the branch to a grassy knoll where some dandelions had gone to seed. Duncan abandoned the branch and plucked a fuzzy white orb.

"I wish for... chocolate cake for my birthday!" Duncan said and blew. The seeds drifted up into the evening sky.

Reeve picked a dandelion for himself. "I wish for... chocolate cake!" Reeve yelled and blew, missing. He pulled the seeds off and threw them in the air.

Duncan ran to the next dandelion. "I wish for... a pizza parlor and a toy store right across the street from my house that I can go to any time I want!"

Reeve picked another. "I wish for... chocolate cake!"

A pseudo-metaphysics of birth

I believe it was Jungian psychologist James Hillman in Healing Fiction who gave me a helpful way to think about dreams: Treat their images, characters, and stories -- however nonsensical -- "As If" they were true. They can give voice to the realities of the soul silenced by the ego chatter box of the waking brain.

I probably like the As If approach because it gives me a way in and a way out at the same time. In other words, I'm not accountable for the implied metaphysics.

As I get ready to give birth to this child, a lot of As Ifs are popping up in both my sleeping and day dreams, which grow daily with my swelling belly. The dreams center around a single question: Where do these children come from?

In August, 2003 I became pregnant for the first time. We had been trying. I'd learned how to chart my temperature and look for changes in discharge, etc. and yet it had taken more than six months. I was between two film shoots when I discovered the source of my utter exhaustion. At five weeks an ultrasound detected the first flutter of a heart beat. We were thrilled. Jordy and I took a weekend trip to Sequoia National Park, where we forwent air-conditioning in our cabin in favor of open windows to smell and be one with nature. That night I learned the advantages of being two with nature when a bear came to the window behind our bed, sniffing for treats. "THIS IS WHEN WE'RE SUPPOSED TO TALK LOUDLY!" I yelled at sleeping Jordy, who thought I had decided to take up some issue in our relationship at two in the morning. "Huh?" he mumbled as I switched on lights. "There's a bear on the porch! The National Park flyer said we should talk loudly!" Jordy looked out the window in time to catch a glimpse of the beast's round rear as he (or she) schlumped off the porch into the blackness. In the morning, Jordy and I toyed with the idea that the bear was a spirit guide to our baby, who from then on we called "Baby Bear."

Soon after I flew back east for a film festival and quick visit to family in New England. It was too early to tell anyone I was pregnant, so when I began to bleed, I had no one to tell of my grief. I retreated to my mother's garden to cry privately, and I remember the petals of her black-eyed susans reaching to me like a child's fingers. I was almost 34 and already getting the "Advanced Maternal Age" treatment from doctors. I menstruated late as a teenager and never had regular cycles. It was easy to slide into the despair that I wasn't destined to be a mom.

But miraculously, the bleed-throughs stopped. When I went to my doctor back in Los Angeles, she said everything looked fine. By Halloween, we were confident enough to tell friends and family of Baby Bear's expected arrival in April. The next day I went to a routine check-up. Dr. Lau kept a poker face as she reported something odd on the ultrasound. Baby Bear had developed a cyst in his abdomen. We would give it until Monday to see if it resolved itself.

Over the weekend, Jordy was anxious but I was strangely cool. I said I trusted Baby Bear. I don't even know what I meant by that. Monday I went back alone, confident it would have resolved as the earlier bleeding had. But the cyst was bigger. In a matter of minutes, second and third opinions were collected from the heads of UCLA Obstetrics and Neonatalogy. This baby was not viable, I was informed. He had a rare developmental problem; he couldn't pass fluids, making his bladder a cyst as big as the rest of his body. His other internal organs were already compromised and soon his heart would stop beating. For my health and safety, I needed to terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible.

On November 6, Jordy and I elected to induce premature labor, rather than follow the more aggressive procedure the doctors recommended. It was slow and painful, but we got to hold Baby Bear in our hands and say goodbye. We had his body cremated and placed in a tiny box that has traveled with us ever since.

Every Friday night for months afterwards, we lit a candle As If to guide him back to us. I don't know what to believe about where we come from or go, but I had a strong instinct to light the candle and tell him, again and again, how much we wanted him, how we hoped to give him a healthy body next time.

In February, I got pregnant again. This little guy's pregnancy was robust from the start. Never a bleed-through, never an alarming ultrasound. April 30, Baby Bear's due date, passed with the comfort of hope and the bittersweet realization that these two beings could never have co-existed. Duncan Ira Green was born November 1, 2004, almost exactly one year from the day we said goodbye to Baby Bear. It felt almost As If he followed the light of the candle and heard our voices. But what do I know about how any of this stuff works?

July 14, 2006. Jordy, Baby Duncan and I were driving up the coast of California to Santa Cruz for a visit with sister Annie and college friends at Stanford. Somewhere in the blinding sunshine of Monterey County we pulled into a gas station to fill up and change a diaper when my cellphone rang. It was my mother. My beloved grandfather Bob Reeve, known as "Gar" to the grandkids, would probably not survive the weekend. Two weeks earlier he had celebrated the 4th of July by bone fishing on Long Island Sound, but the next night, thanks to a blown-out night light, he had hit his head on his bathroom door jam. He was on blood-thinners; the internal bleeding was impossible to stem. Day by day he'd grown more remote and the pain had worsened. He was unconscious. My grandmother had finally made the excruciating decision to stop hydrating him.

I almost got on a plane back to Connecticut, but I knew Gar would have swatted his hand at me and said, "Be with your friends, have a ball." He never had time for death. His own mother died in the Spanish flu epidemic when he was two, and as far as I could tell, his mother had given him a double dose of vitality that super-powered his 89 years on earth. I addressed my gratitude and goodbyes to the Pacific Ocean instead, where sea and air merged in waves of mist suffused with late afternoon sunlight. That night I said to Jordy, Let's make a baby.

I like to imagine the meeting of that child, who shot into the world exactly nine months later, with his great-grandfather at the crossroads of infinity. I like to imagine that Gar gave Baby Reeve a specific gift -- the twinkle in his eye, and all the powers that come with it.

When Reeve was conceived, we had a vague plan to move back to New York. When we were evicted from our rental in Los Angeles, we asked ourselves if this wasn't the universe telling us it was time to go "home." We'd heard Brooklyn was a good place to raise kids while close enough to family in New England, finance work for Jordy, and independent film for me. We followed the baby stroller stampede to Park Slope where we found a nice house on a tree-lined street and made an offer. When I emailed my mom the address, she mapped it and wrote back: "That's right down the street from the cemetery where the Reeve family is buried!"

Baby Reeve was born in a room with a view of the Statue of Liberty and spent the first two hours of his life eating. He came out in 5 hours start to finish, and I haven't stopped chasing him since. At age two, he has strong opinions on music, loves hockey sticks and soccer balls, derives great glee from making "hooting" echoes in tunnels, and sleeps with legs and arms out bolt straight. Anyone who knew my grandfather might say it's almost As If... But I don't know how any of this stuff works.

My husband, who moonlights as an amateur epidemiologist, has been following the recent outbreak of swine flu closely. The timing is not great for me to be pregnant, given the higher risk profile, and it's hard to brush off given the family history. So, if one were to give any credence to the above "As If," could it follow that... it's As If I am Gar's mother, Camilla? Following my baby boy through incarnations? There are enough parallels to pause. But then I laugh at the ludicrousness of such thinking. (I pride myself on being more scientific than not.) But, against my will, a little narrative spins off, imagining what if. So here's something strange I just thought of this week when it snowed in New England on my 40th birthday.

In 1918 Camilla Reeve took her two-year old sledding, where it's believed she contracted the flu that took her life. I was born on October 13, 1969 when a fluke early snow storm hit Boulder, Colorado. My mom took my older sister sledding that day, the gravitational force of which she muses precipitated my birth. Coincidence, I'm sure. But what if?

I am not afraid of the swine flu. I am not Camilla, and Reeve is not Gar, and I have no idea if Duncan is Baby Bear, or who this little guy is who pogo-jumps on my ribs all night long. I really don't know where we come from or go to, and mostly I'd rather let the mystery be. But if I allow myself to think As If we were all these people before and again, what do I see?

A powerful web of determined and personal love. Second chances to learn how to live and love better. A will to keep trying, even when our bodies fail us. An immortality that requires no cushy clouds or harps, but exists in a persistent pattern of life.

It is As If I am a character in an on-going story, As If my life matters, As If I'm part of something much bigger than myself of which I occasionally catch glimpses.

The Thought Train Derails

I imagine this is a preview of senility. I find myself in a nether zone between the "order" I had made for myself and a mental chaos that is overtaking me, where I am both aware that I'm not making sense but I can't seem to get it back on track. I used to start my day with a plan, goals on a to-do list that I attacked methodically. (1) Get kids to school. (2) Write in journal. (3) Call contractors. (4) Research documentary film festivals and funding sources. (5) Fold laundry. Etc. Not a very exciting list, but reassuring. But these days, I can't get anything straight.

The bedroom MUST be painted, and it must be Hawthorne Yellow, and I can't think about anything else until it's done. But then again, the brick in the kitchen is crumbling, and we can't hang the kitchen lights or plaster the holes in the wall until we get that done, but the mason can't get here until maybe next week, and the brand new back door is leaking, and oh my god, I never paid September's pre-school bill, not to mention October's, which is due today, and I haven't read my writer's group pieces, and how did my video camera get specks of Hawthorne Yellow on it? And I haven't called CBS construction about the cover for the bathroom radiator, where of course Reeve burned his hand this morning -- only the second day the boiler has even kicked on, and why didn't I just take care of this in July when I first started worrying about it? And I need to order the rug for the bedroom. Should I be pursuing the H1N1 vaccine more aggressively? The pediatrician tells me it's going to be chaos when it's released, even though I'm supposed to be the top-priority group, but this is New York where you have to fight to get anything -- which reminds me to ask Memar whether it's possible Gar's mom was pregnant when she died of the flu in 1918 -- this possibility raised by Jordy, given the greater mortality rate of pregnant women, adding a whole new level of tragedy to that situation -- but really, do I need to be thinking about this right now?

The thing is, I've got those wiggles in my fingers again, the electric pulses I only get when I stand before something that truly terrifies or excites me or both, and I suppose that Thing would be Giving Birth. As I said to Jordy, chat chat chat, at 10 pm last night while the poor man's eyes were at quarter mast, I am reminded, There Is Only One Way Out of This Situation. I've gone along with the pleasant hormonal high of pregnancy for some months now, just big enough to be visibly With Child, not too big to be uncomfortable or have to contemplate the Big Event. But this week I declare myself 7 months pregnant, because suddenly the urgency to paint my bedroom a cozy yellow that I imagine will welcome my baby as if in California sunshine, despite the New York winter solstice that will actually greet him, has overtaken all other rational thoughts. (In truth, he'd probably prefer a dark chocolate room, like the one he has inhabited these months, but tough luck, kid, it's Hawthorne Yellow or bust.)

So I guess my disordered mental condition might be called Nesting Syndrome. It does not, however, feel serene like the little robin who sings while gathering her sticks and twigs in Mary Poppins. It feels more like frantically trying to build a sand castle while wave after wave washes over my efforts. (Today I opened the Hawthorne Yellow to discover it had been improperly mixed -- not only did the can almost explode from over-filling, but the yellow was so light, it was practically Weston Flax, heaven forfend!)

Waves brings me to this summer, while on Fire Island, I had just gotten Reeve to sleep under our sun umbrella, the gentle waves lulling boy and pregnant momma into a happy afternoon slumber, when not two minutes later a rogue wave, exactly 8 feet wide and vicious, overtook the embankment and doused us in cold waking reality. Not a single other person at our same latitude on the beach got hit. Waves have an agenda of their own.

Which brings me to, of course, labor. I remember now how quickly the waves came with Reeve, and even at this safe distance the memory constricts my breath. The first two contractions were 5 minutes apart, and they only got closer from there. His labor was so much faster than Duncan's that I felt like a marathon runner who found herself thrown into the 100m sprint. I now know how different each labor can be, so I approach the third time with humility and, to be honest, a little more fear.

I know fear is the enemy. It will make me tense and obstruct Baby's passage rather than ease it. It will shred the last remnant of order from my thoughts. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and so on. Yes! I chant the mantra. But I just noticed that this latter bit of oft-quoted wisdom leaves off at a diagnosis without a prescription for getting OVER it. Clearly a statement made by a man who never gave birth. (Ok, so the man had polio, but still?)

So I will turn to Jodi (as in Foster) who tells me, "Go toward your fear." Deep breath. Okay, I've done this before. Some woman did it for every person walking the earth; so too can I. Maybe it will even be a "beautiful experience." And now it's time to go pick Reeve up from school already, a track for this train to grab hold of. And then we will make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, and then we'll have a nap, and then it will be time to pick up Duncan...

Body Parts

I am 28 weeks and 4 days pregnant, and I have gotten used to stray body parts kicking me under the ribs or goosing me below my belly button. The best are Baby's hiccups, which feel like mice making a trampoline of my pelvic floor.

But this morning as I squatted to stretch my (increasing) snug pants, I felt a small bulge in my pocket. I reached in and found an errant esophagus. I left the rubbery lint-covered thing on the dresser for Duncan. Later as I rinsed the breakfast dishes I found a diaphragm in the sink (the kind that gives Baby hiccups, not the kind that will prevent his having more siblings). I rinsed it too, and left it on the counter. Yesterday I pulled a liver out of the dryer. It's hard to keep the parts together.

In fact, the whole body was missing for months. Its four-year old owner unfairly took the blame, when in fact it was another casualty of his mother's clean-up mania. Last week when she suffered another bout, leading to the total disgorgement of all children's books from the living room shelf, what did she find neatly tucked in a ziplock bag? The entire human body, brain and all. Mother and son shared a roar of excitement.

I don't remember when Duncan's obsession with the human body began, but it seems we visited the box at Barnes and Noble on a weekly basis last winter, reaching in through a small hole in the plastic case to feel the delightfully squishy intestines. Duncan must not have been the only child to discover this loophole in the product's marketing scheme: Eventually enough fingers had reached in to dislodge the intestines all together, possibly even rupture the spleen, and the stomach and liver were knocking around under the skeletal feet. Sometime in March Barnes and Noble wisely moved the boxes to a shelf requiring an adult, and in my case and adult + step-ladder, to reach.

Duncan saved his money for months, calculating and re-calculating his progress toward thirty dollars. The ultimate test of character came in May when his best friend Gabriel asked for the same human body for his birthday. Could we endure giving the human body away before we ourselves had one? In his usual way, Duncan got his head around it. Not only was it a good thing to make his friend happy on his special day, but the gift would give Duncan a sneak preview feel of the other parts that couldn't be reached through the little plastic hole.

But still he yearned. When the month of June brought Biblical floods to New York and took Jordy away on a protracted business trip, I decided an outing was in desperate need. Years ago when I was a graduate student in L.A., I had tried to see the "Bodies" exhibit, but it was such a hot ticket that the only admission I could ever reserve was for 2 a.m. Interested as I was to see actual human bodies chemically preserved in active poses (tennis anyone?), I didn't need to spend the night with them. But years later here was the Human Body right at the South Street Seaport, with a 4:30pm reservation available today! Better yet, we could ride the Ikea water taxi from Brooklyn, albeit through the choppy waters of the endless rain storm, satisfying Reeve's love of boats and Duncan's obsession with the body in one ingeniously designed field trip. Good thinking, Momma!

By the time we reached Manhattan's shores (all of ten minutes), I wanted to vomit with sea sickness. We were met by sheets of rain, cold vindictive rain like you'd expect in March not June. Our umbrella flipped instantly inside out. Reeve's violent aversion to wet feet necessitated an emergency stop in the restroom to blow-dry both his Crocs and his feet before we could proceed.

At last we made it to the dramatically darkened exhibit hall, a muscular dead man greeting us with eyeballs and teeth bared in an aggressive smile or else a warning. The living man who took our tickets informed me that strollers were not permitted. "Really?" I pleaded. "Sorry, ma'am. They can bump into the bodies." My heart sank (all the way past my gall bladder). I lifted Reeve (aka "the Rocket"), who could not have been happier to be liberated, and checked the stroller. In we went.

Duncan was immediately comfortable with human remains kicking soccer balls, conducting orchestras, drinking tea, arm wrestling. He wanted to touch -- who wouldn't? There wasn't even a plastic box blocking little fingers from these guys. But he got his head around the rules and held back. He looked but didn't linger, wandering off to the next room to see the circulatory system suspended in red and blue, then the nervous system. Duncan's main interest was, "Who were they?" And, "Why do they all have penises?" In Reeve's two-year old eyes, these dead people must have looked more like playmates. He charged each new body with full speed glee, while I ran interception before a playful punch destroyed a multi-million dollar specimen. (Are strollers really the greater menace?) Reeve screamed and arched his back when I lifted him, drawing disapproving looks from other visitors. It was then that I realized how utterly silent the place was, apart from me and my two rowdy tots. Did this exhibit demand the reverence of a wake? I'd treated it more like a med school lab. I realized I should have been having deep thoughts about ashes to ashes and the wonder of it all, but at that moment I was just trying to get through without a corpse casualty on my hands.

The last room focused on fetal development, which we braved despite the "WARNING: RELIGIOUS OR PERSONAL BELIEFS MAY BE OFFENDED BY THE FOLLOWING EXHIBIT." At last we found a body without a penis. The woman had been pregnant when she died, giving rise to many disturbing questions. Other fetuses on display had died from genetic or developmental anomalies. I was suddenly arrested by thoughts of the baby we lost before Duncan. His renal system hadn't develop properly. At sixteen weeks an ultrasound revealed that he wasn't passing the amniotic fluid he was ingesting; as a consequence, he had developed a cyst that obstructed the rest of his organs from developing. Here I was at sixteen weeks again.

There is a morning prayer in Hebrew that thanks G-d for our organs, with a part about the proper functioning of the sphincters in particular. I wished I had learned it by heart.

The next day, Duncan and I counted his money again. He was still a few bucks short of the thirty dollar price tag, but we agreed that he deserved a one-off bonus for outstanding behavior on the Bodies field trip. At Barnes and Noble, I scaled the step-ladder and pulled down a pristine Human Body box. He clutched it as if holding a dear friend.

For a week or so, we kept a tight inventory on the organs but eventually gave up. The parts drifted around until we thought they'd wandered off to the magical land where so many Thomas trains and Lego pieces end up. Hence our extreme delight at discovering the organs, together again, in a ziplock bag. (Intelligent design? If so, this creator has no recollection her work.) The body parts are enjoying a reprise as Favorite Toy, enshrined in elaborate MagnaTile temples and traveling to school in little boys' pockets. The musculature of the arm engaged in mortal combat with the femur yesterday morning over Mini-Wheats. A fragment of the small intestine is currently enjoying a ride in the backseat of a Matchbox car.

And a heel or knee just got me good in my right flank.

Inauguration Day 2009

January 20, 2009

My day started at 3:10am when I awoke in a panic about missing my train. I had a very patient cab driver who assured me I wouldn't miss it, despite his being 3 minutes late.

There was only one thing happening at Penn Station at 4:45am: Obama. I took the luxury "Acela" business class train & arrived in DC on schedule at 8:10a, emerging to packed and festive streets with the task of finding brother Richard at "a bus stop across the street from a row of port-a-potties." Miraculously, there he was. We embraced with the exuberance of family members separated by war, reuniting against all odds in a far-away land. From then on, I decided, it didn't matter what happened.

Next task: Find the intersection where "Purple Ticket Holders" would be screened for security. Were we there? Yellows and Purples seemed to have compacted on each other in a mostly cheerful but very cold mass. The gates should open at 9am. Around 8:45a, an older woman passed out. "We need a doctor!" passed from one mouth to the next through the crowd. Somehow, she was revived and cared for. As 9:00 passed with no evidence of movement, some jolly soul struck up "For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain! America!..." These were mostly, after all, field organizers from U.S. history's best foot campaign. As 9:15a passed, the good cheer began to drain quickly. With the benefit of altitude, perched as Richard, his campaign friends Daniel & Emma, and I were on the railing of the National Association of Letter Carriers building at the intersection of Louisiana & First, we realized the "line" such as it was, led to a dead end. In fact, it would have to make a hair-pin left turn on itself to make it to the gate, with no barricades or officials to corral the herds. It was also evident that the thousands who were stuck in the trenches didn't yet realize this bit of poor planning. Would they all make it in? We hoped. But it was now pressing 9:30 and the slow trickle we could see through the gates did not bode well for us. So we busted an ethically questionable move.

We dove into the human crush, linking arms, moving forward in the current because there was no other choice, but sliding sideways all the while, until we broke out into the calm at the center of the hair-pin. Then we simply joined the crush at the top of the far prong of the pin, in other words, we more or less jumped the line. I justified this in any number of ways, but if you think less of me, I wouldn't blame you. The scene at the entrance to security was match-light. One beleaguered fellow called plaintively, "Officer! I've been here since 4:45am! Officer, I volunteered on the campaign for 3 months!" The masses pressed against the stretched metal grating began to chant, "Let us in! Let us in!" to which I quietly proposed Richard & his F.O. friends lead a counter-chant, "Keep Him Safe!" As would be true the rest of the day, you were wise to make friends of neighbors while pressing every inch of your body against these strangers, and in our group, we reminded ourselves that if none of us made it in, the important thing was that the inauguration go forward in an orderly & safe manner. But still, the possibility of coming so far, ticket in hand, to spend the morning freezing in a human log jam with no access to TV or radio did feel unbearable....

Richard and I were separated at the actual gate, as Capitol Police strong-armed the crowd to keep order. But we soon found each other in the relatively serene holding pen of security, which proceeded in a very orderly way. And then all of a sudden, we were walking freely to the North Standing Zone.

A direct view was obstructed by two trees (which, despite our professed environmentalism, we and our neighbors would have run up & cut down ourselves if allowed) and the left flank of stadium seating erected for the ceremony. So alas, we were reduced to "seeing" the Jumbotron jammed between the two offending trees. But who could care at that point? We were in.

The marine band was playing as we settled into our spot, befriending two gentleman from Virginia who stood behind us, comparing Nikons, and laughing at ourselves for taking photos of the Jumbotron, but oh well! The photographer had a 200mm lens, I had only a 105mm. I asked if he would mind emailing me any good ones he got. He said sure, and I gave him my email address. "My last name is Booker," he said, "when you get the email." Booker? Yes, as in Booker T. Washington. Do you have family in New Jersey? I asked. Probably -- my great-grandfather's generation there were 9 brothers and sisters who scattered. A college friend whose last name is Booker lives in New Jersey; you may have heard of him, he's the mayor of Newark now. Oh yeah, did he play football?

As prominent figures arrived -- Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, the Clintons, Dick Cheney, W., the Bidens -- the crowd roared and clapped or booed. Some sang to "Nah, nah! Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye!" to W. Others of us quietly begged our neighbors not to boo the Bush family, asking under our breaths, "What would Obama do?" When Michelle and the girls arrived, the crowd was on pins & needles, and when Barack arrived, well, he was in the house. A sonic wave of OBAMA! OBAMA! rippled through the crowd.

Aretha Franklin gave goosebumps. For YoYo Ma and Itzhak Perlman's performance, I closed my eyes and turned them to the sun and felt warm to my core. For the actual oath, we all strained to hear. And then an alarming BOOM immediately behind us. My heart skipped. Our crowd turned around. Another BOOM. At last the Jumbotron explained what we could not see but were standing only a few hundred yards from: Canon fire in celebration of the peaceful transfer of power.

As President Obama gave his inaugural address, we were mostly hushed, working to hear every word despite the loudspeakers. From the speakers stretching a mile behind us, the deep seriousness of his voice reverberated....
"The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good..."
"...As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.... Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake..."
"To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist..."
"...let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations..."

I had expected tears like the racking sobs of election night, but instead I felt something quieter and heavier. Reverence? Responsibility? I won't be able to blame "it" on Bush any more. Our guy won. We are on the hook now.

Unpackaged by TV, processed sound, and the warmth of my living room, the day became more about us, the people, than about him, the leader. As it should be. Like our 19th and 18th century predecessors, I am filling in the gaps in what I could actually hear, or thought I heard, with what I read in the newspaper. Later I recognized in Rev. Lowery's benediction, thanks to Jordy's email, the final verse from "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the Black National Anthem, which my students and I studied 15 years ago with the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. As I read the lyrics again at home on my computer, I sang them aloud. Duncan liked it and asked me to sing more.

As the crowd drained from our coveted North Standing Zone, I spotted a familiar face in the crowd. "Cory!" I shouted. Cory Booker turned my way. As mayor of Newark, he must be accustomed to virtual strangers calling his name. Cory was a college friend from the dorm next door. Senior year we commiserated through the Rhodes Scholarship process (he got it, I did not, deservedly so for us both, and which let me go to Mississippi instead). A Stanford football player, Cory once lifted me and my friend Elizabeth, one in each arm, victoriously in the Cal end zone at Big Game. I follow him in the NY Times now as he's trying to turn Newark around. When I used to take my boys to the Ikea overlooking the Newark airport, I would often think, "Cory is preventing homicides and attracting new housing to this city. I am eating chocolate cake and watching airplanes." A dozen people separated us in the crowd, but Cory heard me, smiled and waved vaguely. It's been 17 years. I'll write him an email. But there we were again together, victorious in the end zone.

The greatest moment of catharsis, unexpectedly, would be the departure of George and Laura. I didn't anticipate that we would not only get to see him board the helicopter on the Jumbotron (while the actual event transpired on the back side of the Capitol), but that we would then get to see -- even feel -- the wind from the helicopter's blades as it passed directly overhead. The relief was ecstatic.

Richard, Daniel and I went in search of Beer (my fantasy), Wings (Richard's), and Warmth (Daniel's). Walking the city, I thought about the circularity of time and the many threads of life weaving together... 1990, my first journey to Washington, led by Jordy who helped Democrat Dick Swett win a NH congressional seat. 1991, Jordy and friend Elizabeth Bekooy's first work out of college in congressional offices while I headed south. Election night in Crystal Springs with Teacher Corps friend and roommate Mary Virginia, when Clinton won. Felt like anything was possible. We were going to make our country into the Peace Corps, Sesame Street, inclusive, tolerant, just place I was raised to believe in.

Then the long dark shadow. I remembered the rain and darkness, the protesters, Sean among them, whom the TV cameras would not cover on January 20, 2000. I remembered holding Duncan, 22 hours old, in my arms on election day 2004 watching CNN, the nation turning blood red as it renewed Bush's presidency. Where did those years go? When did we lose our way? I can't blame it all on the Bush administration, as much as I'd like. Looking up to my brother, who was 7 when Clinton took office and is now 23, I felt enormous gratitude and humility.

The miracle of Obama, to me, isn't the return to a better time, but the movement forward guided by a vision of a union more perfect than my weakened imagination could muster. Obama will be the first president my children will remember. Here I am, feeling like a little foot soldier in a peaceful revolution, while my kids will grow up thinking this was all no big deal -- just the way it should be.

As the unexpected canon fire after the oath revealed to me, I am jumpy. I brace for loss. As Robin Green said so aptly, "He stirs up feelings I haven't felt since Bobby Kennedy. It's a dangerous thing to love." But I'll hold onto Elizabeth Alexander's words for now (did anyone hear her? This was a gap I had to fill later) - "What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance."

At dusk, Richard and I made our way to DuPont Circle where we found my dear friend Jonathan, who'd flown in from LA for the week. We jumped up and down like giddy idiots at finding each other in the middle of it all. And then, after a bit of a search, found an open table at the "Russian Lounge," of all places, on Connecticut Avenue, where a lovely young Russian woman served us "Pink Panthers" (what else?!) to toast the day.

My train home was delayed. At Union Station, National Guardsmen squatted together eating pizza and laughing. Capitol Police with impressive, nay, scary machine guns, went off duty & waved to their fellow men in uniform as they headed home. Men in tuxes and women in gowns, some with bare toes in sandals, the more prepared in fur boots under their sequins, wandered through the station en route to balls. Travelers exhaled and collapsed on whatever chair or patch of floor they could find. I didn't have the energy to read or even speak.

I arrived back in New York almost 24 hours later, stirring from slumber on the warm train to the biting Manhattan cold to hail a cab. My driver was bummed to get a Brooklyn fare -- almost guaranteed not to get a return. But then, as he drove around the streams of people suddenly emerging from Penn Station, it dawned on him: "Did you just get in from DC?!" Yes. "HOW WAS HE?!" The whole ride home he lamented not being there. His cousin had driven down from Canada. But he had to work, and he didn't trust his wife alone with the kids for too long -- she's so angry. Times are so hard. He didn't speak English when he arrived, but he had studied and passed his ESL requirements. Originally a French speaker, Black, West African I think, he is a trained Respiratory Therapist, but there are problems with his papers and he can't get a job. He's gotten used to riders treating him like he's "stupid," "just a cab driver." He has a 7 and 12-year old at home whom he worries about all the time. Over and over again, the lament for not being THERE, in the crowd in DC. I tried to reassure him that he heard it better by watching on TV. He wouldn't have any of it. "You have to BE there! Be a PART of it." You are part of it, I said, trying to resurrect Obama's words honoring those who are building this country and feeling like a poor plagiarist.

"It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."

So now, I suppose, it's time to get to work. Oops -- and time to go get the boys at school. Again, thanks for your messages and thoughts. I love you all. And darn it, at the risk of sounding like the mushpot I am, I really love this country.

Mandy

Happy Birthday Trees

The date on this will appear as September 21, 2009, it's actually from February 10.


Tu B'Shevat 2009/5769


All smiles, Duncan emerged from the back door of Chai Tots Nursery School at 12:45. "Mommy, Mommy! Today we had a birthday party for the trees! We made brownies and sang to the trees! And we planted seeds and tomorrow trees are going to grow!!" He raced to give me a hug. I pointed to Reeve sleeping in the stroller. Duncan hunched his shoulders, as if to hush his words retroactively.

One of his teachers, Morah Rochel, handed me a single lump of gooey chocolate on a paper plate. "To take home with you."

"Mommy, I'll share it with you if you like!"

"Thank you, Bud." I was hungry. I had jogged Reeve to sleep and hadn't had lunch. No matter how many four-year old hands had touched that batter, I was genuinely interested. Duncan adjusted bags and blankets on the lower deck of the stroller to position the brownie safely. Nonetheless, seconds later it was in his hands.

As we pushed our sleeping passenger up the ramp to the sidewalk, we made a plan to go to the library. It was warm in New York today, relatively. We felt wild and reckless in our hatless state. Duncan mushed the brownie between his fingers. "Maybe I'm going to just eat all of it," he said, gazing at the last morsel. "Mommy, can we make more brownies at home and have a party for the trees tonight?"

"For the sake of the trees... okay."

As we crossed Prospect Park West to the gracious promenade heading toward Grand Army plaza, Duncan turned to me. "Mommy, do you know how to tell how old a tree is? You cut it across, then you can see lots of circles. And then you count the circles, one for one years old, two for two years old, three for three years old...," holding up his fingers to demonstrate, "...nine for nine years old!"

"It would take a lot of circles for a tree to be as old as me," I said.

"Mommy, how old are you?"

"Thirty-nine."

"That's a lot of circles! I don't know if any trees have that many circles!"

Two hours later, with a conscious Reeve, a stack of new books (which included THE PIGEON FINDS A HOT DOG), and 2 hot dogs in our three tummies (necessitated by the powerful aforementioned literature), we ambled through Prospect Park with the radiant late afternoon sun in our faces. As we approached the "forest," the last stand of native Brooklyn woodlands preserved by the park, Reeve wanted out of the stroller. "Mommy, this is our witches forest," Duncan announced. "Let's be a family of witches. You be the mommy witch, I'll be the big boy witch, Reeve can be the baby witch, Daddy can be the Daddy witch, Wiley can be the dog witch, and we already have two cats!"

As we greeted "our" forest, we wished the trees a good winter vacation and expressed our hopes that they're resting well to make buds and leaves for us, preferably soon. We sang Happy Birthday to them. They listened attentively.

Along the path a parade of dogs -- a chunky bulldog, a nervous reddish toy poodle/something mix, a gray shaggy thing -- passed us, dragging their owners. Reeve took inspiration and yanked Duncan's lunch bag, which is shaped like a dog's head with two "ear" handles, and "walked" his dog in typical Reeve fashion, that is to say, gripping one ear in each hand. A quick-witted dog owner "barked" at Reeve's dog. Reeve smiled, vindicated by the one person who finally understood. Later, the game took a turn to the vertical -- "doggie" became a projectile missile to be tossed overhead with glee, again and again, until the final unfortunate trajectory that landed on Reeve's forehead. Game over.

At the fork in the path where a right turn would take us past an amusing waterfall and more quickly home, Reeve protested and demanded we go left. Apparently it was non-negotiable. Duncan tried to argue the case for going right, until it occurred to him that left would allow them to run full-speed down a very steep hill. "Reeve! Let's run down the hill!" he hollered as he sprang from the lower deck of the stroller.

"Not too fast, guys!" yelled worried Mom after their little disappearing bodies. I ran with stroller in pursuit. We all made it safely to the bottom of the hill. I exhaled. The boys scrambled on top of the rocks flanking the path. Two kings of their respective hills.

We crossed the Nethermead, a vast, usually grassy but currently thick with mud expanse leading to the lake. Our goal, to visit the birds en route to the playground en route to the supermarket en route to home before the sun set and the chill deepened. However, the mention of "birds" reminded Reeve of his beloved Pigeon, and suddenly, just this instant, we HAD to sit and read it again. And so we plunked on the sidewalk just above the lake, the sun's rays so low and gentle as to barely touch our faces, Reeve on his bum reading aloud with grunts and "mah!" (mine) and finger pointing the story of a pigeon who finds a hot dog and declares it his, but finds both his conscience and claim challenged by a diminutive duckling who expresses curiosity in the experience of a hot dog, never having tasted one before... Meanwhile, on the upper deck Duncan disappeared into a Batman chapter book, perhaps recognizing a letter or two, but mostly stretching for the imaginative world of a "big boy," as he imagines big boys imagine... Passing joggers cast glances at us. (What are they doing?) I stood in this moment of total and utter calm and stasis (an event with the frequency of a total eclipse) and watched a flock of Canada geese peck at the mud, arched necks bobbing, then honk as something surprised them into flight.

At last, the group reached the consensus that homeward motion was a good idea. Our fingers were finally feeling the cold. We rounded the lake, amused by seagulls and geese waddling atop the remains of the ice. Our path took us past the playground. Duncan wanted to go home. Once again, Reeve had a different view. We discussed the word "compromise," but Reeve shot off to the jungle gym before a conclusion was reached. Half a millisecond later, Duncan was running behind him with glee.

Reeve quickly found his way to that magical dipping bridge that "gives" just enough to offer a veritiginous thrill to trespassers. Duncan grabbed his Batman book and pursued the biggest big boy he could find, a strawberry blond boy with glasses, maybe 8 years old. "Hey! Look what I have!" Duncan called after him, chasing him around the high platforms. The boy glanced at the book without a shred of interest before scrambling down the chain ladder. Duncan looked back at me. "He wasn't really interested."

"That's okay, Bud. Maybe he's just thinking about playing right now."

"Maybe." Duncan shrugged and handed it to me. "Will you hold it for me?" I took the book. Then Duncan hung off the high edge with a sneaky smile. I instinctively put my arms up to catch my little boy. He leapt into my arms, stealing a momentary hug in flight. Grounded, he dashed after Reeve, who was figuring out his way up the chain-link ladder. "Hey, Reeve! Let me show you how to do that!" ... big boy again to little brother.

The sun had already fallen behind the houses of 16th Street as we made our way back up the Windsor Terrace hill. Conversation had turned to vitamins. An oversight a few mornings ago had led to Reeve getting eight or nine Scooby Doo gummy vitamins (which is to say the remainder of the bottle) in his mouth simultaneously, requiring forcible extraction and disposal of the wet remains. The Jewish sabbath conspired with the Christian sabbath to delay a visit to the local drug store, hence a two-day deprivation of gummy vitamins that could not possibly be endured another day. Would the store be closed by the time we got there? No. Were we sure we were going the right way? Yes. Just one more block, then we'll make a left and it will be on the next corner. The store with the seal out front, balancing a ball on his nose, that you can ride on for two quarters to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb," remember?

Suddenly, from the lower deck, Duncan burst into tears. "What is it, Sweetie?" I ask, dropping to his side. "Did something hurt you?"

"Mommy, I miss being little," he managed to get out. Tears, unconsolable. "I miss when I was a baby. It isn't easy being a big boy!"

"I know," I said, casting for words. "But you also get to do more things too, right?"

"But I don't want to do those things!" Raw, open-mouthed sobs from his core. I kissed his teary cheek and put mine against it.

"You know what? I bet you didn't know something," I said. "Did you know that the Duncan who was One is still inside of you?" He quieted for a moment. "And the Duncan who was Two, still there." He looked at me, sure I was making up one of those dumb mommy things to try to make him feel better. "It's true. And the Duncan who was Three, all the way out to the Duncan who is Four."

"Mommy! What do you mean?" he demanded, exasperated.

"We're just like the trees. Our One self is in the inside, our Two self if a little circle around that, our Three self a circle around that... all the way out to what you can see now. All of them are still here, always."

He thought a moment. Then smiled wryly. "Mommy, that's something silly you said."

"It may be silly, but it's true. Honest." I held his hand a moment. Until I could feel he was ready to let go.

"Mommy, do you think they have those crunchy kind of vitamins, or just the gummy kind?"

"I think they probably have both," I answered as I leaned into the double stroller to recommence forward movement. "Which kind do you want?"

"The crunchy kind get stuck in my teeth."

"Then gummy it is."

"Yeah, I think gummy. I know the store you mean! You go left, and then you go right, across the street..."

a precarious climb

A brief introduction, or why the Rickety Ladder. Long ago, I made several trips cross-country in my 1986 Honda Civic ("Georgia Rae") with the guy who would turn out to be my husband. It turns out that traversing Louisiana, Texas, and the Southwest in September without A/C is a highly effective route to higher consciousness. Unlike our law- and med school-bound college classmates, we were entering the Great Beyond with no real plan. We declared to the open road that we would climb a rickety ladder to heaven, rather than the sure ones, and enjoyed a fleeting smugness. A year later we weren't talking to each other.

Eighteen years later, we live in Brooklyn with two little boys and a third expected in December. Blame it on the fall, or the shofar, or the knowledge that this will be my last pregnancy, but I feel the rungs passing under my feet each day and don't want them to disappear all together into the mist of time. And so I will try to capture a few here.