Are you Jewish?

The Jewish Festival of Sukkot has just ended, leaving me wistful for a few reasons. One, it means winter is lurking just around the bend. Two, we have to take down our sukkah, which I love like I loved my cousins' backyard "Fort Apache." But most of all, because it means we leave that special time when any Jew is Jewish "enough" to shake a lulav.

Brooklyn puts the divisions among Jews on display in full color. Drive on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway past Williamsburg and you will see Ultra-orthodox men in tall, furry hats and black overcoats crossing a pedestrian bridge overhead, apart from their wives and numerous children. Pack a picnic in Prospect Park and you will see tattooed, tongue-pierced Ultimate Frisbee-playing Jews eating ham sandwiches on Shabbos. There are many shades in between, but for the most part, the religious and non-religious Jews of Brooklyn mostly look at each other as if through panes of glass, such as when the private charter bus shuttles orthodox Jews from Williamsburg to Borough Park at blinding speed. I watch them pass me on Prospect Park West, feeling myself an earthbound muggle among wizards on blazing broomsticks. And feeling a bit judged, as if contact with me might sully their purity.

But during the 8 days of Sukkot, something unique happens. Rather than maintain their customary separation, young men in black fedoras and overcoats can be seen approaching strangers everywhere -- on the train, in the park, outside Starbucks -- offering a long grassy bouquet and something like a lemon. They speak to women, even women in tank tops like myself. Always their first question:

"Excuse me, are you Jewish?"

As if it were a Yes-or-No question.

The first time this happened, Jordy and I were on the subway. Two Hasidic men asked Jordy first. We assumed a kind of racial profiling, not to mention sexism and evangelism, so Jordy politely said, "I'm not interested." A few days later, though, two young Hasids approached me outside the public library as I pushed sleeping little Duncan in a stroller. They were very young, pimply, and eager. I was touched. Out of context, people don't assume I'm Jewish. I was glad to be asked. And I was curious to explore this ritual, one that begins with a lovely prayer of thanks for bringing us to this moment - an unlikely one in my life for sure. So I said, "Yes."

But what I wanted to say was, "How much time do you have?"

And then I wanted to tell them the story of how I became Jewish, a tale years in the making and by no means finished. I was sure they didn't have years to spend with me -- in fact, I knew the spell that bound us would be broken in just 8 days -- but I would have liked to compare the paths that brought us to this moment when we claimed, together, to be Jewish. I would offer them just these trailer moments:

* me, age 12, sitting in Hebrew classes in Hanover, New Hampshire with my best friend Anna Roland, the daughter of Brooklyn Jews with socialist tendencies who inspired me with their vision of Judaism as a religion that had moved "beyond belief in God"
* my mom and Dad, two goy refugees from the New York country club suburbs, on vacation in Israel in 1965 - why?
* my mom, age 7, passionately in love with a little boy named Johnny Kaplan but advised by her mother that "people need to stick to their own kind, for the sake of the kids"
* mom again, age something like 30, post-divorce, being told by her shrink that she has a "Jewish soul" (By that logic, if my mother is a Jew trapped in a shiksa body, can I claim to be, spiritually speaking, born Jewish? ;-)
* me, age 7, gluing macaronis on Christmas tree ornaments
* me, age 11, in my small New England town reading THE CHOSEN with fascination at such a foreign world
* me, age 14, baking Challah for a school project about "other cultures"
* me, age 16, writing my first piece of fiction about a daughter of Christian Science parents who wants to go to Medical School
* me, age 18, in various Humanities seminars at Stanford agreeing vigorously with Freud that "God is a projection of the father figure," with Marx that "Religion is an opium of the masses," and with Nietzsche that "God is Dead" while watching with sympathy as my poor classmates of faith crumbled under the challenge to their universe.
* me again, age 19, alone on a dark cold night in rural Japan. Writing letters to friends and family back home that reflected the unraveling of everything I thought I knew. Lots of darkness. A letter back from friend Elizabeth to the effect that I was "going places" she couldn't go with me. And from my Dad suggesting that there are contradictory paradigms of reality that one might go crazy trying to reconcile, with recommended reading: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
* me again, age 20, at a Zen temple, eyes half closed, contemplating the possibility that "I" do not actually exist.
* me, still 20, on the Tibetan plateau, spinning the Dharma wheel at a Tibetan temple, contemplating the possibility of reincarnation, or at least the limits of my material view of reality and gingerly giving credence to people who seemed at the very least to have a deeper understanding of their own minds, if not Reality.
* me, still 20, back in Japan before boarding a plane for LA, my sense of myself pulverized and fearful of how I would put the pieces back together.
* me, age 21, having abandoned my pre-med major in favor of the Humanities where I found stories and art that touched on the other realms of reality - or at least human experience - that spoke to me.
* me, age 22, in Mississippi following a love affair with the fiction of William Faulkner. In a Bible study group, eager to plumb the roots of my own tradition better, arguing in very un-Southern-ladylike way with my faithful classmates.
* me, age 23, choosing to have an adult baptism while conferring with Jesus on the side that, while I believed he was a son of God, I actually believe all people are a mix of divine and mortal and that I hoped he was cool with that. One might conclude that I am a joiner, and so I probably am -- I have always found I am pushed further when I jump in than when I watch from the sidelines.
* me, age 24, commissioning a Menorah by an artist in the Mississippi Delta for my boyfriend, one of two Jews from Enid, Oklahoma (the other was his brother). I had our initials cut into the metal. I have always wondered whether he got my initials cut off after we broke up and he married someone else, or just threw the thing away?
* me, age 26, now in San Francisco, clapping and crying at Glide Church. Flash forward two years and I am now up with the gospel choir - among gays/lesbians/bi & transgendered/and a few straight people, blacks/whites/asians/etc., dot.commers and homeless, Christian/Jew/Muslim/Yogis/agnostic, etc.
* me, all ages, in downward facing dog, seeking inner peace/strength/flexibility, etc. through the Yogi philosophy du jour.
* me, age 30, now in film school in Los Angeles. Filming everything from faked car crashes to faked love-making everywhere from borrowed mansions in Chicago to crack alleys in downtown LA, trying to capture essential truths through constructed realities.
* me, age 31, back in touch with childhood friend Jordy Green, now in London. It started with a very vivid dream in which I was wandering the snowy roads of New Hampshire at dusk. I couldn't go home until I found Jordy, and I couldn't remember his long international phone number. Ours is a much much longer story, but let's cut to the chase: August, 7, 2001 I boarded a plane to London to go find out whether our on-again off-again friendship of years had grown into more. I believed I would know when I saw him at Heathrow Airport, and I did.
* me and Jordy, 31, in London, at orthodox Shabbat services at "Cool Shul" with Rabbi Pini. Then later, at Pini's home with delightful wife Sabine and their kids, candles everywhere, lots of cranberry & vodkas, Shabbat dinner. Split frame: Pini at the table telling me Judaism discourages conversion// Pini later, in the kitchen, telling Jordy to marry me and not to worry about the Jewish part because "she can just convert"
* me, lightheaded from my first Yom Kippur fast, looking at the sun setting over the Santa Monica hills on the phone with Jordy, still in London but getting ready to move to LA.
* us, engaged, drinking wine and eating challah until we made ourselves sick, every Friday night without fail.
* me, producing film THE SHABBOS GOY, entering, through fiction, into the bedroom of an Orthodox Jewish couple pained by their infertility and learning on a movie set how to "kosher" a chicken.
* me and Jordy, searching for a rabbi who will marry a Jew and non-Jew, and being rejected by all - even reform rabbis.
* us, age 32, married in a field in New Hampshire by a renegade former orthodox cantor. Our families roasting in the August sun as the ceremony goes on & on. A rabbi would later tell me we are still not legally married, but we disagree.
* me, age 35, pregnant, at Dohány Synagoge, deeply moved by the place and the history.
* a month later, in classes at the University of Judaism in LA, my life and my home becoming more centered in Judaism. Preparations to convert come with my belief that identity evolves. And - as un-American as it sounds - we do not construct it alone. There is a negotiation, and this is OK.
* a few more months, October 2004. I am big as a house with baby. The Red Sox have just won the ALCS. I go before the Bet Din to answer questions such as, "What is your favorite Jewish holiday?" and "Do you promise to raise your children as Jews?" These questions are easy.
(OK, way too many moments to fit in a trailer.)

But before the mikvah bath that will immerse me (and unborn Duncan) and certify us as MOTs (members of the tribe), the harder questions -- "When did you realize you had a Jewish soul?" and "Do you swear to abandon all commitments to other religions?"

To which I smile and offer answers with lots of footnotes, which I justify as some evidence of Jewishness itself.

To be Jewish, as I understand it, is to wrestle with God - the literal translation of the name "Israel." I wrestle with God, but I experience divinity daily. The story of Judaism is one of seeking continuity within change. This too I do. I will never have my friend Anna's beautiful dark corkscrew curls, my friend Mike DeWitt's sense of humor, or my in-laws' taste for Tongue. I will speak Hebrew with a bad accent, get lost in the Siddur on High Holidays, and continue to love mayonnaise and pastel colors. I will not give up my yoga practice or visiting the churches of my loved ones and finding inspiration and beauty there (though I have no hesitation giving up Christmas). I will continue to find art and love the bravest of enterprises, as they lead us into the infinitely specific experiences of being human. Is my soul Jewish? Are not our souls, if anything, beyond categorization?

But Judaism is and will remain my home base. The tradition gives beautiful form to the weeks and seasons of my life and my family's life. It reminds me to sanctify Time when it would otherwise spin by in a tangle of emails, laundry, and playdates. There is no end to what I want to learn about Judaism - from modern Hebrew to the history of Israel to Kabbalah. Living Jewishly pushes me, makes me ask more questions, and introduces more tensions, than not. A stringed instrument depends on tension to make music. I cherish Judaism with the freedom of one who has chosen it, and I practice it with the grateful enthusiasm - and imperfection - of a new immigrant.

We return to the library where my bewildered young Hasid friends listen, Lulav slack in their hands. Next time I will ask, "So, how about you? Are you Jewish?"


********
Watch the kids shake it at the Sukkah party:

Shake Your Lulav from Samantha Davidson Green on Vimeo.

The Mermaid Returns

Almost a year had passed since the final slap of Ariel's emerald tail. The mermaid had taken a dive to the depths of Reeve's infant pre-memory. Our car, bedtimes, and heads were Little-Mermaid free. We had gotten as close to forgetting her as Disney lets anyone forget.

Reeve had undergone many changes. He busted out of his crib to a big boy bed in a room shared with Duncan. "Scooby Doo" and "Tom and Jerry" now reigned as monster antics ran roughshod over delicate watery longings in my 2-year old's heart. This made sense: Reeve had just solidified his physical powers and wanted one thing -- to run. Scooby and the Gang's encounters with monsters resembled, almost exactly, our house just before dinner when Daddy was required, arms raised, to give chase to little boys with throaty grunts promising doom. As a "Free To Be You and Me" Mom with Jungian tendencies, I sighed quietly as my son's tender anima seemed to follow the mermaid under the sea.

It was around Memorial Day this year when we drove to New Hampshire to open the house for the summer. Maybe the spring green leaves out Reeve's window brought him back to the season when she departed. Maybe he spotted the royal blue CD in the case. Maybe it was the rock where water and shore meet at his grandparents' cabin on the edge of Goose Pond, which Reeve declared out of the blue to be "just lika Awiel's wock!" But there is no doubt: As mysteriously as she disappeared, Ariel is back.

With one important clarification: I (mother, putter-of-children-to-sleep, karaoke-max qualified singer, etc.) am NOT the mermaid. I certainly may not sing her song. I may not even sing along to the CD in the car. (See Rickety Ladder "My Run As a Mermaid," Oct. 2009.)

Reeve alone sings now. And it is abundantly clear that I never was the star, my spotlight the delusional fantasy of a sleep-deprived parent. I was has-been teacher to the prodigy. I was Bette Davis' Margo to Reeve's Eve. And I couldn't be more delighted to cede the part.

OK, I do not delight that the CD is back on endless loop in the car, but I tolerate it because Reeve's performance is ground-breaking. In the early weeks of the return, Reeve's powers of speech had not yet caught up to the tempo and vocabulary; hence, the early performances consisted of loud, undifferentiated open-mouthed signing, punctuated by outbursts of confidence:

"Uhnnn -uhhhnnn -- uhnnn ---
And why does it Uhnn uhhn uhhn BURN?!
Uhhn uhhn uhhn TURN?
Uhhnn Uhnn Uhhn LOVE?"

Bit by bit the words have filled in, sometimes with astonishing articulation. What do you say to your toddler staring you down in the rear-view mirror as he intones:

"I'm weady to know what da people know, aksing my questions 'n get some ansahs!"

Sometimes, when he's sleepy, Reeve will go into a silent trance as he listens. Thus is it all the more startling when he suddenly wails: WISH I COULD BE PART OF YOUR WORLD!

Reeve has moved beyond Ariel's aria of longing too, a welcome development. He now sings along with Sebastian about how it's "hotter under the water!" and the sadistic French chef as he consoles the "leetle feeshes" that "it won't hurt 'cause your dead!" Best of all are the instrumental passages during which he relives the entire operatic narrative, singing with the strings section, "SIMM SIMM SIM-SIM-SIM SIMM SIMM SIM-SIM-SIM!" He'll interrupt to ask: "Mommy, is this when the BIG storm hits Eric's ship?" (I have no idea.) And he'll require re-play of certain tracks when a narrative element grips his attention, such as, "Play the one when Ursula comes to the ship!" Jordy and I look at each other, "Uh, honey, is that track 17 or 18?" "I don't know, try 17." We try it. From the back seat,"NOT THAT ONE!!!" And the clock is ticking -- track 18? NO! We try 19. NO! We must find it before Reeve breaks down in hysterics. It must feel to him that the story goes on without him, the way it felt before On-Demand TV when you had to choose between peeing and missing part of your favorite show.

To ease the transition back to Brooklyn after a free-form summer in New Hampshire, I bought each of the boys the toy of their heart's desire. Duncan got two packs of "Yugio" cards. Reeve chose, of course, an Ariel Barbie Doll.

She's exquisite. Like her Barbie sisters, she has an impossibly hot figure. Her hair is an eruption of red lusciousness (it is actually red, not "red" as in orange) that is particularly gorgeous to watch swirl in the bath water. Her "mum-mums," as my boys call breasts, are covered by a little purple bikini top that is wont to fall off. Her eyes are blue "just like Baby Tuckah's!" and she is possessed of a smile that never dims. She eats breakfast at the table with Reeve. She sleeps with Reeve. The mermaid who once longed simply to walk on a (what's that word again?) street now goes everywhere.

Ariel's most arresting feature, however, is her removable mermaid tail. OK, the sexual overtones and undertones of The Little Mermaid tale (and tail) are ridiculous and fascinating, above all because Disney chose to amp it to the max and got away with it under its brand of wholesome family fun. (We visited Ariel in her grotto at Disney World with Duncan at age 3. It was a bit creepy as she tickled him, calling him her "little Flounder" while her purple-conch covered breasts thrust themselves at him. Duncan was terrified. Jordy concluded that the "Ariel Exhibit" was Disney's enticement to Dads to suffer the rest of the theme park.) Really, where to begin? And I don't want to become an arm-chair neo-Freudian deconstructing my child's beloved plaything. Truthfully I don't know what Reeve's 3 & 1/2-year old mind makes of female bodies or his own.

What I see is that he wants to change her -- then change her back. Again and again, to the point where the shine of her little fabric tail is losing its luster. He can deftly remove the tail, but putting it back on still requires help.

Maybe this metamorphosis speaks to Reeve's inaccessible, though recent, memories of learning to walk. Maybe it speaks to the thrill and terror he feels now as he learns to swim, revisiting the strange boomy, inchoate underwater realm of an even more inaccessible memory. Since he was 14 months old Reeve has enjoyed standing by the water's edge, fishing pole (denuded of hook) in hand, contemplating the realm beyond water's surface. This summer, with hook, he caught his first fish to the shock of us all. Reeve's jumping body bespoke the awe he felt in discovering the power to extract a living creature from the water. As he watched it swim frantic circles in its tupperware tank, Reeve declared "I'm gonna keep it forevah! I'm gonna cook it for suppah!" -- a logical impossibility with which his elder brother confronted him. Reeve thought a moment, then rejected such stuck-in-the-box thinking. "I'm gonna keep it forevah! I'm gonna cook it for suppah!" he declared as if Duncan simply didn't get it.

Sometimes Reeve's passion for Ariel looks like pure devotion: He gazes at her with the wonder of a little man in love. Other times his passion looks like pure identification; they are one and the same. Maybe passion is exactly this convergence.

Yesterday as Ariel rode with us to Costco, Reeve pulled her tail off for the umpteenth time. "Mommy, Look!" he announced, as if this were a novel event. But then, and this part was new, "I made her human." Not a person. Not a girl. Not even "a" human. Just, human. In the rear view I watched him watch her seriously, as if trying to figure out what that meant.

Then, "Can we get Scooby Doo yoguhts at the stowah?"

The View from the Treehouse

Somewhere in the woods of New Hampshire stands an empty treehouse. Its bunks have yet to give slumber to small people, its spy holes yet to detect enemy advances, its shingles yet to gray from their first winter. Completed at summer's end, the treehouse remained fixed to its pines as the family station wagon disappeared down the road on Labor Day, taking hostage its little residents.

It is said that, on top of its obvious altitude advantage, this treehouse confers extraordinary sight to anyone who peers out from within. Much like the wise worm in "The Big Brag," the visitor to the treehouse finds her vision able to bend with the curvature of the earth in any direction. Early this morning a Monarch has fluttered into the treehouse for a rest. The butterfly remembers the kindness of the little people who once climbed here when they caught her but decided to let her go. She looks down the road in the direction of their departure. With dizzingly clarity, she finds she can see for hundreds of miles, past bridges, highways, commuter rails, barges and skyscrapers...

Their green car comes into view first. Double-parked for street cleaning in Brooklyn, New York, the car wears a rubber "Bumper Badger" against urban assault. It appears the little people have abandoned their leafy residence for a brick one wedged among matching ones. The brook where the little people caught fish and frogs has given way to concrete sidewalks that pinch the roots of trees.

She finds the little people sulking at the breakfast table. Sweaty, shaggy heads are now washed and shorn. Bare feet now wear new school shoes. No meandering this morning -- it's all rush rush rush to meet the F Train. The little people look stressed as they join the jostle. On closer look, the big people look a little stressed too. Even the four-legger looks bewildered, overwhelmed by a million smells he'd forgotten during his country sojourn.

Their migratory distress fills the Monarch with dread. This is more than she wanted to see. She has never known anything but the drifty days of summer in New Hampshire, but she knows she too must migrate. She flutters out of the treehouse and the vision is gone. Overhead the great blue heron soars from the pond to Blow-Me-Down. Wild turkeys nibble in the grass. The Monarch nibbles some milkweed to calm herself. But a breeze brushes her wings and she knows its time. She lets go and it lifts her.

All day she flies over green hills giving way to gray grids. The sun rolls over her from port to starboard. As night approaches the wind dies and she drops, exhausted, into an endless tangle of lights and piercing sounds. She doesn't smell milkweed anywhere. At last she finds a honeysuckle bush clinging to a chain link fence where she stops to rest and drops off to sleep.

As the sun rises again, a familiar sound awakens her: The voices of her little people! In helmets, they fly down the sidewalk on shiny metal scooters ahead of the four-legger, who is unhappily tied to one of big people by a harness contraption. The butterfly flutters her wings with excitement. They see her too!

"Mommy, it's the Monarch! Let's catch it!"
We don't have a net, the big person explains, and we don't want to damage its wings. Let's just say hello.
"Hi, butterfly! Hello!" they shout. The Monarch and the little people gaze at each other for a single moment that holds every happy memory of summer.

Then the busy little people scoot away, chattering, "Mommy, why do they call it a butterfly anyway? That's a dumb name. She doesn't fly butter, does she? We should call her a Flutterby..."

The Monarch opens her wings and lets the wind carry her away.

Vanilla

It's just past sunset, and five years ago today at exactly this time my brother-in-law died. I have no idea how to observe this moment. I spent the day simply, at home and with my children in the park. I resolved to enjoy the existence of this day, my existence, to notice and feel everything, to take nothing for granted. I walked around the baseball fields of Prospect Park while my two little ones fell asleep. I played with the kids in the fountains at the playground. I felt the humidity wrap my body. I noticed the pendulous clouds over treetops dense with peak of summer leaves. I didn't dwell on the specific memories of this day five years ago. It took me three years not to flinch physically when recalling my sister's voice on the other end of the phone. Now I mostly just miss Gary. I remember how much I wanted to sit on a porch with him on a hot summer night, drinking beer and laughing at the absurd enterprise that is parenthood. My eldest Duncan is five, so his age will always mark the number of years we live on without Gary. They never met. I wish I had a ritual or some other guide for this day. I'm too recently Jewish to know how to mark a loved one's yartzeit, though I'm grateful at least for a Hebrew word since our language lacks one. So, upon my sister's suggestion, I am eating vanilla ice cream, lifting my spoon to Gary.

Through a Lens Brightly

My last conversation with my grandfather was a production call. Picture me on my cellphone, pacing my garden in Venice, California, toddler on hip. Picture him (whom we called "Gar"), in his assisted living apartment in Essex, Connecticut. I briefed him on our 2 options: Cheap($600)= projecting the films at a wall to be videotaped and burned onto DVDs. Expensive ($2400)= a "telecine" transfer and shot-by-shot color-correction by a skilled technician. You know which one Oliver Stone would have picked. Gar would have no less for his version of history.

Gar was not a filmmaker. He made his long and successful career in insurance. But he was a notorious shutterbug and archivist. In retirement, he made an album for each year in the life of the family. The winter before he died, he asked me to help with a project. In selling their home to move into their assisted living apartment, my grandparents unearthed their disintegrating 8mm family movies. Would I help him transfer them to a more permanent format? I was finishing film school in LA and had contacts who could do the high-end transfer at a cut-rate.

Thus, with the Disney studios next door in the San Fernando Valley, do I owe my punk telecine operator Kevin for revealing the true magic of movies to me. My grandfather's first film dated to 1941, just a year after their marriage, and features my grandparents as newly weds visiting Hanover, New Hampshire for "Green Key Weekend" at Dartmouth College. It was faded and scratched, a visual distance to match the temporal. But in Kevin's skilled hands, my gorgeous 24-year old grandparents (younger that I was by this time) were suddenly bright and unmarred by time, walking the streets of what would become my own hometown. Smiling coquettishly to camera, my grandmother Memar's newlywed adoration for the camera operator made my own heart skip. In 6 hours of footage my grandfather himself appears in less than 30 minutes, and yet he is everywhere, deciding what will be framed and in what spirit... The family dressed to the nines for Easter. Kids running the waves of the Long Island sound. The Big One caught in Card Sound off Key Largo, Florida. Mule rides in the Grand Canyon. The last film was shot in 1964. Gar was in fact, if not in title, a filmmaker to rival Frank Capra. Through his hopeful eyes, it was indeed A Wonderful Life.

When my mother got wind of our project, she asked to throw our Davidson family movies into the batch for transfer. In contrast to my grandfather's footage, which I was eager to see, the prospect of my mother's made me anxious. Hers pick up in 1966 and end in 1974. In other words, I would have a glimpse into life B.D. and A.D. -- Before the Divorce and After the Divorce. If there were happy images B.D., I wouldn't trust them. If there were happy images after, I also wouldn't trust them. I wanted to see images of my father as a part of my household, since I was 14 months old when he left and had no memories, and I dreaded the prospect. Did anyone catch on film the moment our original family ended, which I understood to be when my mother received a letter from my father over Christmas 1970? I put the films in the telecine batch for transfer, but I let Kevin do those on his own.

If my grandfather was the family Shutterbug, I am the Shutterfly of my generation. I clog cyberspace with yet another photo or video of my kids. Duncan was not even a month old when I bought his first album, and I get itchy when my albums fall more than a year behind. My eye is always lusting for the picturesque frame, always editing. My husband thanks me for documenting our family's lives. Other relatives undoubtedly groan when "Shutterfly.com" cheerily announces that "Samantha has shared some pictures with you!" I am victim to the parental delusion that every single second (=frame) of your child's life is momentous and worthy of record. And what I can't catch on film, I write in their little books. Or blog about.

As I write this I am backing up 28 hours of video shot over 8 years, and I am racing against time. The electronics of my camera, once state-of-the-art for documentary filmmaking but now obsolete even for home videos, are nearly shot. In this footage, I am watching Jordy and me get married; our children are born and are growing up. Baby Duncan's hands wave in the air like a conductor's; Reeve jumps wildly in his bouncy chair; Tucker gets tossed in the air by his exuberant brothers. My pleasure in filming them is palpable in the images.

But I also notice that the shot often cuts out precisely when the fun and love turns to sadness. Tucker tires of the tossing and cries. Reeve and Duncan's game of chase ends up in a collision. In truth, my displaced attention through the eyepiece seems to precipitate -- or at least fails to ward off -- the meltdowns. When the hard things hit, the screen goes dark. It occurs to me that the dark gaps may contain the parts of the story we most need to understand.

The most important gap in my photographic record spans June to August, 2005. On June 25, 2005 my brother-in-law Gary Lehmann was killed by a drunk driver. I remember at the time feeling that it was inappropriate, even sacrilegious, to film anything, and it didn't seem necessary. Images and feelings from that summer are burned vividly in my memory. But now I wonder about my nephews Christopher and David and niece Katie, who were 8, 4 and 2. Will they wish I had kept the camera rolling?

Less than a year after their father died, Christopher and David came down with the chicken pocks. It was mud season in Binghamton, New York, which tries the spirit in the best of times. I did the only thing I could think of -- Home Video Therapy. I edited a special episode of "Sesame Street", re-titled Duncan Green Street, of goofy vignettes intended to make them laugh. My good-sport husband submitted to a time-lapse of sticker "chicken pocks" appearing and disappearing on his face. Baby Duncan in the bath turned into "The Creature in the Tub." The Lehmann kids make an appearance as a mariachi band from video shot earlier that winter in Arizona. The episode ends with a montage of all the cousins to a folk song -- "There's a dark and a troubled side of life... But there's a bright and a sunny side too!"

The other day my oldest, Duncan (now 5), wanted to clarify that the movies I make are "real" versus Scooby Doo and the Cyberchase, for example, which is "just a story." This led us to a discussion of "Duncan Green Street". Duncan was emphatic that they are real. I tried to reveal my hand in spinning the story a bit. He rejected the idea that this makes them in any way "just a story." Worthy ethical questions arise from my editing of my children's, nieces' and nephews' memories, not to mention questions about my own character and courage. But if I could make these kids laugh, ethics be damned.

By the time I looked at my mom's family movies, it was two years later. We had left California and lived in Brooklyn. I had begun a new feature screenplay about a couple with two kids fighting to save their marriage. I was aware of the intersections of art and life: Jordy and I now had two kids under age 3 and our marriage was strained. The photo record wouldn't reveal this fact; stunning photos from a family trip to Jones Beach on June 7, 2008 belie the fact that Jordy and I fought most of the car ride home, for example. As I sat at the Lonelyville Café one morning struggling to craft the courtship of my fictional couple in such a way as to plant the seeds of their relationship's demise, the bomb of awareness went off. Duncan was nearing 4, Reeve nearing 14 months. I was fast approaching the exact point in the life of my new family when my original family died. More than anything in my life, I was determined to give the story a different ending.

I decided to watch at last my mother's 8mm family movies as research for my script and for my life. It was impossible not to look only for clues in absolutely everything leading up to the end of 1970. Lots of Springer Spaniel puppies. My older sister as a newborn in my father's arms on a sunny July day. Stunning vistas of the Rockies. My mother and little Kristin feeding ducks. A few years later: Memar and Gar take my mom and Kristin to a zoo in Colorado. Then I appear in a crib. Kristin grabs a zipline and fearlessly flies across the back yard. My father smiles encouragingly at Kristin as he teaches her to ski in the driveway. I wish I could hear. I search my parents' faces. I search Kristin's. I find no clues, no foreshadowing. Baby me appears again in my crib; clothed, unclothed, rolling, on my tummy. I assume my mother is filming. I can feel her eyes on Little Me through the lens, craving these fleeting moments the way I crave my kids'. My father makes a goofy face at toddling me, then breaks into a big smile. The camera tells something very true but also feels as if it is trying very hard. Taking turns filming, my parents never appear in the frame together at the same time.

Suddenly it is Christmas, 1970. A Christmas tree hemmed with packages. In our pajamas, Kristin and I gorge on gifts. The camera follows us for several minutes. My father is gone from the frame. Our toy-drunk little selves are oblivious. But then suddenly he is there, helping us to blow up a punch-dummy toy. I am totally confused. How can this be? The story I remembered was that Mom, Kristin and I flew back to New York to be with my grandparents for Christmas while Dad stayed back in Colorado to work on his dissertation. Then my mother received the letter in the mail that it was over. But here we are together, sharing the most normal of American Christmases. Dad helps me get on a little ride-on toy. Kristin tries to make her new bicycle go.

Cut to: Easter. My hair is longer, my walk more steady. The wrapping paper is cleaned up. And he's gone. I am carrying a little Easter basket. Maybe I was looking for eggs? Now I am looking for those missing three months between the Birth, the Death, and the Resurrection.

My mother kept her wedding photos in the closet; I've never seen one at my dad's. My grandparents' houses were purged of images of my Other Parent by the time I was conscious. This always made me very sad in a child's inarticulate way. A lot of my own childhood must have been edited out in the process. But I got used to it. I assumed what had been erased was too painful to re-visit.

So I was wary of my mother's nostalgia in asking me to transfer these films; I felt she was never been able to accept fully that things happened as they needed to, whereas I had had to craft my own version of the tale that made the divorce inevitable. I was fearful of opening mine to question. But as I watched, I felt a growing strain. I was imposing the narrative of divorce over delicate images trying to reveal other things to me.

Through her lens, my mother lingers lovingly on my little waving hands -- exactly as I once lingered one morning in Los Angeles on Duncan's little hands. She captures a quizzical look on my face that could be my own son Reeve's. She zooms in on my little feet, a shot I could match cut with Tucker's just this winter. I get to see myself crawling across the grass, then attempting a first step. Her camera must have had an on-board spotlight, as it literally lights up its subject while the corners of the frame sink into shadow. As I am watching, I let down my guard. Whatever else was going on between my parents, she captured my father's loving eyes on Kristin as they watch a 4th of July parade together, and on little me as I deliver a present to him in his arm chair. I let myself begin to trust these tender moments as also true.

My grandfather's home movies can seem naive to suffering, but he was not. Gar's mother died suddenly when he was two years old. I imagine his first memories were of his grief-stricken father and his own grief, both for his mom and for any conscious memory of her. It is probably true that Gar's impulse to film his family in the cheeriest light was a sales pitch, even to himself. (After taking a good snapshot, he used to exclaim, "That one'll cost you a million bucks!") But it does not follow that what Gar filmed was a lie; rather, they reveal how he too enjoyed the parental delusion that his kids' (and grandkids') lives were momentous and worthy of record, come what may. So too for my mother. Perhaps she rolled camera in hopes that the film itself would hold the family together, but maybe she just responded to the poignant moments that are the gifts of parenthood without knowing how the story would unfold. It wasn't until I became a parent and looked through the other end of their lenses that I understood.

Now I am eternally thankful for my mother's few captured frames from a past that resists retrieval. I forgive the eternally hopeful eye for any fictional license taken in her efforts against what I imagine was a bleak emotional backdrop for my parents. My mother's determination not to leave our past on the editing room floor, whatever discomfort it may cause, gives evidence of the greatest force in the universe, more powerful than divorce or death: A parent's love.


Postscript

By some mysterious orchestration, my universe pulled back together two years ago when my father and step-mother moved back to the New Hampshire valley where both my mom and step-father and my in-laws live. From my boys' perspective, not only don't they travel between houses to see their parents, but they get six adoring grandparents in one place. This winter during a rowdy lunchtime visit of cousins and various grandparents I was captivated by a loving conversation my father was having with my 3-month-old Tucker. I framed them up and rolled camera. After our return to New York, I got an email inviting me to view my sister Kristin's "Kodak Gallery album." As I clicked through her photos, I came upon a mirror image of Dad and Tucker, with me in the background behind my video camera. We caught the same moment, or it caught us. The kids hold the camera now, and the dad stays in the picture -- illuminated by the bright reflection of sun on fresh February snow.

The Empty Nest

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I have always been suspicious of this holiday as another Hallmark invention (a la Valentine's Day) exploiting vaguely religious roots to monetize the guilt of unexpressed love. My suspicions were confirmed: After animated birds delivered Mother's Day cards in a dozen different languages in an e-card I received yesterday, a link offered "a brief history of the holiday." It was indeed a Roman festival to honor the mother goddess Cybele, which was later appropriated by early Christians to honor the Virgin Mary.

What does it mean that the first link in my google search for "Cybele roman goddess"leads me to www.teenwitch.com where, among other options, I can stop corporate blood libel and take action for witches rights? From this site I can catch up on my pagan shopping and, after a few private lessons in casting spells, etc., earn my certificate as a High Priestess of Cybele. My teen witch activist friends also teach me that the Vatican is built on top of the original temple to Cybele, also known as Gaia -- the deified Mother Earth.

This last part interests me. I'm not the first woman in the History of the West to notice how the Christian Church removed the feminine creative powers from the Holy Equation. Maybe if I were raised Catholic I'd have a relationship with the Virgin Mary, but even Mary is a "mother of God" as opposed to being God(dess) herself. The Holy Family consists of a Father, a Son, and a Holy Ghost. Many mothers I know report feeling like ghosts much of the time.

As a mother to 3 boys under age 5, I'm aware that their experience with women is pretty focused on me. I'm not a Freudian, but it makes sense that their attachment to me is both intense and ambivalent. Truth be told, I experience ambivalence on the other side. I have loved (obviously) having these babies; I delight in their bodies and minds; I am wired to respond to their sleeping, eating, and emotional rhythms. I take pride in anticipating their needs, whether for cheese sticks and oranges on the walk home from school or for an early bedtime, and I consider it a reward to watch them run happily in the woods lost in a fantasy of jungle exploration. But I get annoyed by the constant migration of matter in my house (how did the toothpaste end up in the kitchen sink? Why are their socks under every chair and table in the living room?). I get irritated when, for example:
...My body becomes a jungle gym or "fire pole".
...My freshly made bed ends up in a heap of covers and pillows ("But Mom! It's our fort!").
...I give in to requests to make "green eggs" that no one will eat thanks to, of course, their gross color.
...I ask a thousand and one times to get shoes on while feet remain stubbornly bare.
...Within seconds of the older boys falling asleep, baby Tucker wakes up.
...Duncan and Reeve must both possess the same toy boat at exactly the same time, and therefore chase each other screaming with claws bared.
...My efforts to be Casual Mom, i.e. allow them to paint in the basement without supervision, result in (gee!) Reeve's body in paint from head to toe.
...My refusal to rent Scooby Doo and the Cyberchase from the movie store for the umpteenth time gives grounds for a sit-in protest, i.e. two screaming boys sitting on the sidewalk refusing to move.
...Jordy's and my rare efforts to go on a date elicit tragic laments about our neglectful parenting from Duncan.
...I wonder whether my time-out from "work" will be penalized by the sputtering end of my barely begun filmmaking career (or any career for that matter).
And I get positively furious when Duncan or Reeve hurt the baby, intentionally or unintentionally. (Mama Tiger rage instincts, it seems, bypass my Homo Sapiens' "Positive Discipline" techniques.)

But in the middle of the other night, a chilling vision appeared. I was nursing Tucker and thinking forward to the long, loud hours after school/before dinner the next day when the Ghost of Mother Future visited me. One day these boys will no longer return to our house. No shoes to put away. No screaming matches to mediate. That inevitable quiet, foretold in this present 3am stillness, filled me with dread. The chaos of motherhood can feel unbearable until one contemplates the alternative. I can barely write this without my throat tightening.

I have never read my boys The Giving Tree. That book offends and grieves me. He comes back to her when he needs something from her. (Should we wonder that the tree is a "she"?) What does the tree get in return? She gets sat on! All that for the privilege of his ass on her back. Typical. This book not only conflicts with my coming-of-age politics, it offends my inchoate sense of environmental justice. Exploitation of Mothers = Exploitation of Mother Earth! High priestesses of Gaia/ Cybele, rise up! This is not the version of motherhood that I want to teach, so I guard the secret truth: I too would give my kids my apples, limbs and trunk even without a guarantee that they would come visit my stump.

So what is Mother's Day really about? To judge from the florist at the end of my street, it's about running out to buy Mom cut flowers on Sunday morning and a greeting card with a message written by an unpublished novelist in a cubicle at Hallmark. These are nice. (But involve maiming more plants.) Jordy and the boys gave me a very pretty necklace.

But my lingering question is, what do Moms really want on this day? Or at least, what do I want? I like holidays that act as reminders of actions we should often take -- remembering the dead, celebrating political freedom, giving thanks, the rebirth of hope, etc. Sadly, we can't even seem to remember for that single day, devolving as these holidays often do into ritual equations such as Independence = grilled burgers and beer, Hope = a new Wii. Rarely do they evoke the kinds of reflection that say, at its best, a good Passover seder demands. The engine of such reflection is imagination, putting oneself in someone else's shoes -- the fearful Israelite, the fighting Colonist, the starving Pilgrim, the Mother.

Yesterday by 11am, we wandered out to the sidewalk where the boys found all the neighborhood kids and their parents gathered with no particular plans for the day. The four mothers in the crowd had all surrendered our roles as Social Coordinators for the day. As a result, Mother's Day on Howard Place looked like a people adrift. (Truth be told, this masculine-inspired aimlessness resulted in delightful serendipitous play time for kids and parents alike.) The mothers struck up a discussion over whether Mother's Day meant we should "relish our roles as mother" by spending the entire day in the company of our children (the fathers thought this sounded good, which we promised to remind them of on Father's Day), or whether it meant we should be relieved of our motherly duties. And if so, what did that mean? Spa treatments? Lunch with our girlfriends?

What I want on Mother's Day is an indication that my family has taken the time to imagine my role and talk amongst themselves about what I give the family as the Mom and come up with some way to express their understanding. The problem with The Giving Tree is not only that the boy/man asks her to give again and again, it's that he takes her for granted. He never once pauses to imagine her as a being that exists for any reason other that serving his needs, or even how simply not to destroy her through his own taking. If Mother's Day hadn't been hijacked by Hallmark, maybe that boy would have learned to think about bringing the tree fertilizer. Or harvesting her apples in a sustainable way. Perhaps making a bench from one of her limbs instead of chopping the whole thing down. Moms, like trees, offer a lot more protective shade when they are left standing.

But like the tree, I felt mute to ask for what I wanted yesterday. By 3pm Jordy could tell I was tired and frustrated. Without a plan for the day, we all spent a lot of time waiting around the house trying to figure out what to do (never a good idea for us). Jordy's efforts to get the older boys out of the house to give me "peace and quiet" were well-intentioned, but most of the time they were out I was caring for the (awake) Baby Tucker -- not a chore, time I relish, but nonetheless, not a deviation from my regular days. Duncan had mentioned making dinner "for me," which reflects the assumption (rightly based in every day experience) that Mommy Makes Dinner, hence even feeding themselves was a gesture of kindness "to me," but Jordy, without whose help Duncan's ambitions wouldn't materialize, hadn't mentioned it, so I was unclear whether I should be getting dinner ready. When Jordy detected my exhaustion (up 5 times the night before)/restlessness/annoyance that no particular imaginative effort had been made about the day, he confronted me. "Tell me what you want," he asked.

The problem in answering his simple question was that the answer lay in what I wanted THEM to do, except the boys are 5 and 3 and hence depend on his leadership, so I really meant HIM. Jordy knew that and did not take it well. (Smacks of passive aggression. Felt yucky saying it too.) I am not his mother, but I wanted him to teach our boys how not to take me for granted, how to love me in ways beyond the function I serve to make their lives better/function. I wanted them to reflect on what I give that can go unnoticed in the flurry of daily life. I would have loved a gesture -- open to interpretation! -- that showed sympathy and understanding of how very much time I spend anticipating and attending to other people's needs. (I make a separate shopping trip to get the specific brands of cheese and cereal they all like!) In other words, I would have liked to have my needs anticipated, which of course, begins with imagining them.

I sound like a whiner. We don't like trees or women who complain about being under-appreciated. My mother gives my grandmother a hard time for insisting on Thank-You notes -- if that doesn't teach you not to demand appreciation, what will? And anyway, isn't the highest spiritual good to give without requiring acknowledgment? Or, more practically, can't I appreciate the daily tokens of acknowledgment my family gives me? My husband is adorable and extremely expressive of his love. He initiates the laundry when his underwear drawer is empty. He unloads the dishwasher without being asked. He reminds the boys to thank me for dinner. Duncan makes me a beaded necklace almost every Friday at school; Reeve runs into my arms at the end of the school day, "MOMMY!" Their desire for Mama-snuggles at bedtime and wake-up are actions speaking louder than words. (And in fairness and thanks to Jordy, he made a lovely spaghetti dinner, did all the dishes, walked the dog, and took out the trash.) Maybe the problem is the concentration of expectations into a single day. Why should we pressure ourselves to "fit it all in"? How contrived!

But again, I hear Rabbi so-and-so giving a midrash on such-and-such parsha about why we are bound to observe ritual days in the calendar: To remind us to direct our attention to things we need to do to keep ourselves morally or spiritually intact, usually involving either making good with people we love or with God. I am not ready to give up on Mother's Day as a meaningful day in the calendar. What will happen when the boys no longer need morning snuggles? Will they remember their old mama?

On my dog walk yesterday morning, I found a bird's nest that had fallen from a tree. I felt the mothers of my youth -- my mom, my step-mom, my aunt Sue-- exclaim, "Oo! Won't the children find that interesting!" as I picked it up and carried it home from Prospect Park. As my boys peered into it, I realized this was another woman's empty nest! Do those baby birds remember how carefully their mom sat on them in this nest? Do they appreciate how hard this bird mom and dad worked to construct this little home? I almost cried.

Duncan and Reeve snatched the nest from my hands and turned it into a crown, then a frisbee. Of course those baby birds don't remember. They are too busy making their own nests, finding worms, and juggling complicated brooding schedules. Maybe this is why Jordy forgot to send his mom a card. And maybe this is the greatest expression of love for one's mother: to undertake the making of your own nest, knowing the babies will fly away without calling (or even Skyping) as often as we'd like.

But next year, I won't wait. I won't even drop hints. Come Monday before Mother's Day, I'll ask flat out: So, guys, what's the plan for Mother's Day? And if they can't come up with anything, I'll help them imagine.

Now

The blazing sunshine is melting the remains of last week's blizzard. It is suddenly March 1st. At home I'm sure the sap is running. And I have three children.

I feel a bit like the pebble drawn back in a little boy's slingshot. Last December, time stretched forward without me, held as I was in the tightening grip of an expectant little hand. Then all at once, he let go and here we are, flying forward at a dizzying, exhilarating speed.

But there was a moment of complete Now as time inverted on that day, December 8th. To place it in the flow, I'd say it was sometime around 3:45pm, though time is beside the point. It was above, beyond, outside of the clock. It was a place, or space, as much as a moment, and it was something I felt I'd known before but had forgotten. Like chocolate, I can't recreate the taste through memory alone, but I can recall that it was blissful. I suspect I knew it when I myself was born. I want to recall it when the moment comes for me to die.

But I need to back up. On December 8th I woke up around 6am to find my underpants wet. It wasn't urine; it smelled salty and clean like the ocean. My hard belly was not yet contracting, but I knew it wouldn't be long before our little dude would be riding the rhythmic waves toward our shore.

At 6:54am (according to my iPhone), I texted Ali & Maria: "Looks like my sack is leaking & I am having stronger braxton hicks to early contractions so I think i will be calling soon!" Ali back: "It's a great day to have a baby!! i'll be here!"

The sun peaked into the kitchen as we went about our routines. Shrek cereal (aka Mini-wheats) for Reeve, coffee for me and Jordy before Raisin Bran, honey cereal (Cheerios) for Duncan, fishie nugget lunches for school. By 8 o'clock, the waves were gathering every 15-20 minutes or so, nothing I couldn't breathe, shower, or walk the dog through. So I suited Wiley up to escort Jordy and the boys to the bus. Jordy would drop Duncan at Chai Tots, then Reeve at escuela. I would take Wiley to the park. We would meet back home by 10am.

The park was stunning. Clear crisp sunshine through bare trees. After Wiley did his business on the path above the baseball fields, I called our midwife Joan, whom I expected to be overjoyed at the civil hour of my call. She sounded exhausted; in the background–someone else's child. My heart sank. Though she didn't say so, it seemed she was with another laboring woman. She asked me to call again as the contractions got closer together. I resolved not to worry. As Jordy would say, Joan is someone you'd want in the trenches with you. She would work it out.

Wiley and I joined the other dog walkers in the Great Meadow. When the contractions came, I would pause and breathe, enjoying the feeling of enacting a great secret in public. Wiley lollopped about, sniffed new friends, rolled happily in the crispy grass. As we made an extra loop around the duck pond, I turned my face to the sun through the stark tree limbs, and remembered our yoga song: "May the longtime sun, shine upon you... and the pure light within you, guide your way on." I imagined gathering this sunlight to bring home with me for what lay ahead. They were getting closer. Time to head back.

9:45 - 30 secs. Jordy and I must have arrived home by then, as this was the first in his diligent log of contraction onset and duration. 10:04 - ditto. 10:14 - ditto. 10:27 - 50 sec. 10:39 - 1:10 sec. 10:46 - 40 sec. 10:50 - 30 sec. 10:56 - 1:12 sec...

Between contractions, we wandered about a little giddy, unsure what to do with ourselves, feeling a bit like we were playing hooky on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday. We went ahead and "bagged" our mattress. We discussed plans (A), (B), (C) and (D), depending on the timing of it all. I must have called Magdalena -- no text message on record. She would pick up Reeve at 12:30 as usual, then Duncan at 3, as usual. We texted our friend Cheri to ask if our kids could go to her house to play after school, depending. Should they be there at the moment of birth? Would my groaning worry them (even though Duncan had begun to explain to random third parties that, "My mom is going to sound like an animal at the zoo, because when you're having a baby, every time you yell it helps the baby come out")? Would Reeve need Mommy-ness?

11:29 - 1 min. 11:36 - 1:30. I remember putting my head on the dining room table and the kitchen counter, variously, as Jordy placed his hands firmly on my hips and exerted counter pressure. We got into an almost pleasant routine. 11:40 - 1 min (long tail). Jordy and I made lunch. I think he had a sandwich. I had leftover lasagna made by Duncan's friend Ava's mom Sunny. 11:48 - 1min. 11:55 - 1:10mins (more intense). 12:00 - 30 sec. 12:11 - 1:20mins. 12:15 - 1:05m. I was strangely fascinated to see what each one would be like, as each one was unique. At the hospital, a paper ticker would have graphed the contractions, but I could have drawn each one with greater accuracy -- the particular curves and spikes, the relative altitude of intensity. It turned out to be such a relief throughout this labor to focus inward to observe my "progress" rather than having intrusive internal "exams" and measurements (other than Joan's regular fetal heart rate checks) from technicians and devices.

Downstairs was beginning to feel like nothing but hardwood floors, metal chairs, and doorbells. I needed to retreat in my cocoon so I climbed the stairs with the feeling that I wouldn't descend them again until I had met our baby.

I found comfort on the birthing ball in the den. Knees on the floor, I draped my body over it, rolling. I played my iTunes birthing playlist softly on the computer. Sometime in here my cellphone rang: It was the plumber. Months earlier I had left him a message to call next time he was in the neighborhood to help with a loose sink leg in the bathroom. Of course it would be now! We let the call go, but then the house phone rang so Jordy took it. "Hey, Andrew... Actually, she's in labor... (What's that?) In labor -- we're about to have the baby. (WHAT! GET OUTTA HEYAH! GO HAVE FUN!)" This was our motto thereafter.

I moved to the bedroom for a while, riding the birthing ball on top of the bed while I stared out the window. Our neighbor's sweet gum tree had lost all but a few crimson leaves that blew in the bright air amidst the last of the hanging sweet gum balls ("soot gremlins," as Reeve calls them in reference to TOTORO when he collects them on the street). They held my gaze steady through a number of contractions as Jordy lovingly countered each one with a firm grip on my hips behind, then noted the contraction for the record. It was so quiet. Just a late fall day at home.

12:20 - 1:02mins. 12:26 - 1:20m. At 12:28 Maria texted: "Just in karate until 1:30p." Me back: "Great! Do you want to head over here between 3-4?" "Yes." 12:31 - 1:20m. 12:37 - 1:15pm. Somewhere in here, Joan called. She was on the sidewalk out front.

Joan and Jamie tiptoed in. Joan sat with me in the den, listening as much as watching, while Jamie set up their impressive kit -- from gauze to oxygen tank -- in our bedroom. Jordy presented the log to Joan, who smiled kindly. "I guess we don't need to keep this any more?" he surmised. She shook her head. The last entry was 12:42 - 1:20mins. Jordy brought coffee upstairs for Joan and Jamie; they had been with the other laboring woman since 5am, though she had not yet delivered. Joan had called in another midwife to stay with her, as the labor was very slow to sputtering, a VBAC. Not easy. Expected it to be long. Thought we would be done in plenty of time for her to go back. As Jordy and I tried to plan when to bring the boys home in relation to Baby's arrival, Joan said she guessed our baby could be here by 3-4 o'clock. Jordy couldn't believe it would be so soon. I tuned out the predictions, not wanting the pressure of estimated arrival times one way or the other. Always I felt aware that this would be my last labor and it felt so good to let it be what it would be.

Sometime between 1 and 2pm I decided to get in the bathtub. Jordy helped draw the water and we arranged the pillow I'd bought for the occasion. The aromatherapy candle went unlit but gave a subtle spicy smell. The rushes were getting stronger now, and my need to rest in between was greater. The warm water helped. When they came on, I lifted myself and put my head on a towel over the tub's side. They were growing more acute. Ali arrived, a gentle smile and warm eyes greeting me at the door. She whispered, "How you doing?" She took Jordy's place for sometime by my side -- don't know how long, can't really remember what we talked about. I just remember how quiet and gentle and comforting her presence was.

Then Jordy returned and I wanted to get out. He helped me put on the blue bathrobe that Gary Lehmann gave Kristin for Mother's Day before Katie was born. I wrapped my arms around Jordy's neck as a rush came on in the bathroom and hung from him, swaying, while he wrapped his arms around my lower back to give support. This felt very good. Throughout Jordy whispered words of encouragement -- that I was doing such a great job, that he would be here soon. Through the crack in the door I saw Joan come up the stairs. She poked her head in to ask if that one felt "pushy" -- my vocalization sounded different to her. That was Joan's Jedi moment. Yes, it was the first inkling of an urge to push. She monitored the fetal heart rate again as she did throughout. Steady at 115-120bpm, as he was throughout the whole pregnancy.

It must have been between 2 and 3pm now, and I wanted to go back to the den on the ball. The sun was behind us now and the room was bathed in gentle blue light. On my knees, gazing out at the wide blue sky, helped by the music, memories poured through me. As Annie Lenox sang, "What do you see, on the horizon? Why do the white gulls call?...And all will turn, to silver glass. A light on the water. All souls pass into the west..." I was brought back to Venice beach with baby Duncan, Jordy and mom on her 65th birthday, awestruck at the sunset over the Pacific before us, hearts heavy missing Gary. Sometime later: "Little darling, it's been a long hard lonely winter... Here comes the sun..." brought me back to the days after Reeve's birth, cozy early spring, toddler Duncan waving his hands with his Dad as they made "suns" rising over newborn son Reeve, that explosive first spring in New York after our long first winter without the California sun. I cried quietly at the improbable magnificence of being here.

Up to this point, the intensity had grown gradually, reaching a peak in the bathtub that was sustained now with each contraction. At some point, Jordy had to attend to something in the hallway; without his hands on my hips, I felt a flicker of panic. I called to him. He rushed to my haunches and it felt manageable again. When I felt my brow and shoulders tense, I imagined directing my breath into those places and could feel them let go. I drew on the images I'd stored up -- the full moon of December 1, the round open pendant of my necklace -- to imagine my cervix opening with each contraction. I talked to Baby, reassured him that there was nothing to fear, that we were all here to ease his passage and would greet him on the other side.

And that's when we reached escape velocity. It felt as if I rode a wave up and up and... Just didn't come down. There was no active pain, just a sense of my body, our bodies, in a firm hold, attaining orbit on our rubber birthing ball. Everything was round and open and quiet. Floating in space.

A midwife once referred to the moment before pushing as "the rock and the hard place," the scariest place Mama will go to on her journey, especially when she's given birth before and knows the fierceness that lies ahead. In my previous labors I had the irrational but tempting desire to stay right here, pregnant forever. This was the moment I specifically prepared for the third time around, the place I most wanted to go without fear...

Eyes open I saw bare trees dancing in an infinite blue sky. Eyes closed I saw colorful points of light suspended in darkness. It was so peaceful I thought the actual birth might never happen -- that I had prepared too well and had gone someplace so far beyond that we could never make our way back.

And it was just then that I felt a fullness in the birth canal and knew Baby's arrival was imminent.

I asked Jordy to ask Ali to call Magdalena. It was suddenly clear to me that I wanted the big boys with us. Jordy supported me standing again. Knowing now where the birth would happen, Joan and Jamie managed to transport the whole operation from our bedroom into the den, slipping a shower curtain under Jordy's and my feet with us hardly noticing. Wiley had stayed at my side all day, so I asked Joan if he could stay. Whatever we wanted. So Wiley kept his post on the couch.

I swayed with Jordy to the music, making infinity signs with my hips. He kept his hands always supporting my back as I rested my head on his chest, which felt so good. Over Jordy's shoulder, I noticed Maria in the corner with the video camera -- when did she slip in the room, that ninja girl? My groans rumbled from a deeper place in my body as Baby's head filled my lower body. I remember saying to Jordy, "I just want to open and let him go now."

Moments later, that's what happened, so quickly that I almost didn't get my underpants off in time. First came the SPLASH as my water broke and hit the shower curtain. We all laughed - amniotic fluid soaked Jordy's jeans! I asked for the boys and someone (Ali?) told me they were on their way, but I knew now I couldn't wait. Baby started to come down. Like a good quarterback Joan knelt down, ready to catch while Jordy remained standing to hold me up. Ali stood silently in the doorway. Maria was tucked in her corner. Joan encouraged me to slow down so as not to tear, but between my roars I said there was no way I could possibly slow this train now. I reached down between pushes and felt his warm hard head between my legs. Can you imagine? I still cannot. Incredible. Another push or two and out came his head. Joan carefully supported him. "Cord is clear." (Could he see my happy toes yet? At 37 weeks I had them painted bright red to be a cheerful welcome sign for him!) One more groan and out he slithered. 4:08pm, December 8, 2009. "You can reach down and hold your baby now," Joan said lifting him to my arms. The song playing at the moment of his birth was, by ridiculous chance, our prenatal yoga love song! May the longtime sun, shine upon you, and the pure light within you, guide your way on...

Tucker cried vigorously in my arms, instantly turning bright pink. His body was so beautiful and big -- we didn't need to scale to tell us he was bigger than his two brothers at birth. He blinked up at us, the soft twilight falling in the den still brighter than the world from which he had just arrived. Aunt Robin would later say it best -- he looked "familiar," but very much his own person. His crinkled brow gave him an air of seriousness, an age beyond his seconds of life. Joan wrapped his back with a receiving blanket my mother used to wrap me forty years ago. Jordy sat beside us and we embraced each other. I've never felt so close to another human being.

Moments later Duncan and Reeve arrived with Magdalena, who later told me they heard his first cry as they walked in the door downstairs. They had stopped off at Connecticut Muffin for a hot chocolate to await further instructions, then packed it up and came home as soon as they got word. Reeve came straight to our side. Duncan took in the situation, then joined us. It was a happy jumble of kids and baby and first efforts to breastfeed and dog. Ali and Magdalena then took the boys down to watch "Totoro" while I prepared to pass the after-birth. Duncan returned to see the placenta, which he had read about in a storybook about birth. Joan lifted the amniotic sack with her hands -- "This was the little tent where your brother lived for nine months." He was very interested in the strong rubbery umbilical cord.

My guardian angels delivered apples and pears sliced on a platter. Vitamin Water arrived by straw to my mouth. Night fell as we weighed him -- 8 pounds, 8 ounces -- and Joan checked all his parts. He smelled so good, earthy traces of vernix on his head. Joan put on his first diaper and a pair of zebra socks Aunt Robin had given Duncan as a baby. Jordy took him while Joan and Jamie gave me a few stitches in the bedroom and gave me a shower. Then, after a few instructions and plans for a follow-up visit, their gear all seemed to fly back into their bags, they opened their umbrellas, and like Mary Poppins, they disappeared with the wind. (I later learned they returned to their other laboring mom, who delivered the next morning at 5am.)

The guardian angels fed the big boys downstairs while Jordy and I made phone calls to family. Later Maria gave the boys a bath; I remember them all laughing -- what was she saying to them? In P.J.s with wet heads, we five gathered again on the couch in the den where Mama and Papa toasted with a Chimay Red beer (thank you, Leeanna Varga) while the big boys cooed over their new baby. At bedtime, Jordy took Tucker again so I could read the boys stories and we sang our goodnight songs. Another day in the life.

Once they were asleep I went to the kitchen where Ali and Maria had warmed the last of Sunny's lasagna for me. By 9 o'clock we said our goodbyes and they too flew away. When I went up to bed I found Maria had left a pitcher of water and a plate of fruit on my night stand. That night I drank and ate it all. I was so ecstatic I couldn't sleep a wink.

Today is April 28th, nearly five months later and two months since I began to record this story. Baby Tucker is napping in the crib. The cherry blossoms have nearly all fallen, the daffodils are long gone, and the leaves have returned to the sweet gum tree, gracing the sidewalk with shade as the sun gathers strength. Tucker smiles and giggles. On April 3 at 10 o'clock pm he flipped himself from back to tummy, a trick he now performs the instant you lay him anywhere. This week he discovered the jumpy seat where he can practice bipedalism and propel himself to thrilling heights. At his four-month appointment he shocked the pediatrician by "tripoding," sitting up -- a six-month milestone; we credit Duncan Green, Tucker's personal trainer. Reeve brings Tucker his little stuffed puppy dog "Douglas," which Tucker can now reach for and grab, and reads him "Dora" books. The babysitters affectionately call the Baby of Unusual Size "Baby Gordo" (chubby baby). The winter is a happy blur of snowstorms, visits from loved ones, trips to Arizona and New Hampshire, and Reeve's 3rd birthday party. Tucker and I find our way back to that timeless place when we sit quietly and nurse, but more often the lights of the universe stream past us in bright ribbons. We are back in Time. But everything is changed. Pieces of myself long broken are mended. I am grateful beyond measure for this little guy. Our family unit feels complete, as if the last passenger got on board and we are off...