Gobble Gobble

Much to the annoyance of everyone I've run into in the past two days, I find infinite delight in these two simple words. Have a good day, they say; Gobble, gobble, I say; or, you're one centimeter dilated, they say; Gobble, gobble, I say; or, Hello? Have you even looked at my paper? Aren't you working? Where are you? they say.

Gobble?

"Vanity, Vanity..."

"...all is vanity,"

said the woman at thirty-eight and a half weeks pregnant
as she slipped into her paper bikini
and anxiously awaited her wax.

(Because, you know, giving birth is a heckuva lot like going to the beach!)

Stay tuned tomorrow for...
The Final Pedicure & The Emergency Eyelash Tint

Note to Self

It's a Baby Bjorn,

not a Baby Bjork.

Week 38

This morning's email tells me that my baby is now the length of a leek; but, try as I might, I can't imagine the length of a leek; it seems too small; it seems as if we've gone backwards, as if the peppercorn-cum-plum-cum-peach stage shouldn't be such a distant memory. Two nights ago, I slept fitfully, and in the earliest hours, I woke up and reached for my belly. I had been sleeping in a strange position, a position that when I reached for her made her so much smaller, and the room was dark and I was still half-dreaming, and it seemed, if only for a second, she was gone. In that moment my heart broke a thousand times. I suppose my body is trying to prepare me for all the love I'll feel towards my daughter; God, I hope I can handle it.

Daddy's Girls

I'm feeling oh-so occupied. I stare down at my wild kicking belly, and I'm certain that my students, my colleagues, my guy that serves my apple cinnamon tea with honey are staring too, thinking, Can't you control your baby?

For months, I felt she was a part of me: an extension, a beautiful tender extension, but still very much me; now, though, with each day, she becomes more and more of her own creature.

Last night, pillow-propped in bed, reading yet-another birthing book, sipping on yet-another cup of uterus strengthening tea, I was trying to get her to move for me: Come on, baby girl, I was saying, come on, and my voice shook a little but was all sweet-mamalike and still nothing. Finally, C. came in--Kick, he said, and she kicked.

Hmm...a daddy's girl already? Not quite sure how I feel about that...

Monday Again

"The poem is lonely. It is lonely and en route. Its author stays with it."
--Paul Celan

[Outside, a freeze threatens;
in here (if I just close my eyes):
a thousand spots of heat.]

Realization #72

I actually can believe it's not butter.

Week 37

Your baby is now the size of a free-with-purchase turkey; incidentally, you feel about the size of a Macy's Day Float. Ginormous, you soar through the streets of New York City. Small children cover their heads in fear of your collapse; grown men step aside to make way; grown women shake their windblown hair and smile little secret smiles, the secret of which you're still a few weeks away from understanding and, quite frankly, a little scared of understanding. When your husband asks what you want to do for Thanksgiving you take it as a dig. Ha, ha, you say. Not funny.But then, maybe it's not so bad, being so high up there in the still-changing leaves and the wild blue sky. The air is crisper than you ever remember it being, and, looking around, the world--the world you thought you knew so well--is a whole nother place: pinker, sweeter, ready to be shared, to be passed around like so much cranberry sauce and stuffing while in the background the TV flickers again and again with the sounds of the parade.

At the Office

These days, I chomp on Laffy Taffy and chug water and stare down at my ankles, waiting for them to swell like un-canned hams; these days, I pop Papaya Enzyme to quell heartburn and say little prayers to avoid heartache and sing loudly in the shower, even when I know it'll be a long day, even when I've forgotten to buy new Body Wash or change the razor blade, sing that old church song about melting and molding; these days, I imagine what labor will feel like and if I'll want to get a pedicure in the early stages and if I'll remember how to breathe. I take naps, too--short ones in my cubicle--and then, not quite groggy, I walk back into the office next to mine and (discreetly) grab another Laffy Taffy from the jar, and wow, I think, has it always tasted so darned delicious?

Monday Poem

Love Song

by Carol Muske-Dukes

Love comes hungry to anyone’s hand.
I found the newborn sparrow next to
the tumbled nest on the grass. Bravely

opening its beak. Cats circled, squirrels.
I tried to set the nest right but the wild
birds had fled. The knot of pin feathers

sat in my hand and spoke. Just because
I’ve raised it by touch, doesn’t mean it
follows. All day it pecks at the tin image of

a faceless bird. It refuses to fly,
though I’ve opened the door. What
sends us to each other? He and I

had a blue landscape, a village street,
some poems, bread on a plate. Love
was a camera in a doorway, love was

a script, a tin bird. Love was faceless,
even when we’d memorized each other’s
lines. Love was hungry, love was faceless,

the sparrow sings, famished, in my hand.

From Poetry Magazine, Oct.-Nov. 2002
The Poetry Foundation

Saturday To-Do List

Listen to hypnobirthing podcast.
Wash tiny baby clothes.
Put together bouncy seat.
Drink uterus-strengthening tea.
Alternate between giddiness and tears.
Wonder what she'll look like.

Downy

Said the woman who smelled of fabric softener:
"I want to live a life
where I'm so overcome by love
that I forget to do the laundry."

Hope

I'm feeling so full of feathers and firecrackers; a feeling that I remember so often from childhood, that seemed to be lurk around so many corners, say, waiting at the mall to see the trapeze artist or being at the tent revival and watching believer after believer find Jesus again; hope was everywhere then: it was in Dairy Queen and the Braves and sitting shotgun in the station wagon and saying the pledge of allegiance and wanting to be a ballerina and live at Myrtle Beach; and then, time turned (as it does); leaves fell (again and again); snow came and rain and a whole cloud of mosquitoes, and hope was still there but it came in pulses and flashes: it was standing in line for the bus with my one giant suitcase when I first moved to New York; it was in the sudden pink of the sky on an early morning walk and in the sound of the waves on my wedding day; it was walking to the drugstore to buy yet another pregnancy test, just to make sure it was true, hearing the heartbeat, seeing the profile; and, heck, I've always loved the feeling, but for so long, it's felt so independent, so solitary, so my own explosion of feathers and firecrackers.

Since Tuesday night, though, hope has swelled through the streets of the city. It's palpable. This town--this town that hasn't quite been able to shake the cloud of September 11, 2001, that's had its stock market troubles and its millions of tiny despairs, its fractured friendships and failed relationships--now reeks of hope and love and desire and belief. I'm just feeling grateful to be a part of this time in history, grateful that my daughter will be born in a year when hope was also reborn into the hearts of millions. Thank you, Mr. Obama, for bringing that wild, giddy feeling back to so many of us. May hope cease to be something that catches us only in flashes and once again become something that we stumble into, corner after corner, season after season, whether we're pushing a stroller or holding a hand or running to yoga after having just dropped the kids off at school; may it be something we know and savor and demand, and may, in the end, it manifest itself into something even greater.

Don't Forget to Vote!

Even if your sole purpose is to cancel out the vote
of your wacky
spouse slash neighbor slash coffee shop lady
slash Nader-loving professor with the hair growing out his ears.

My Little Brother: Helga

Pretty is as pretty does.

Looks like Pretty needs to shave his armpits.

Dream 112

Didn't dream of saints--lost or otherwise--instead there was the ocean, so much of it filling the streets, and I kept thinking of how I can hardly swim and how I should be drowning but I stayed on top of the crests; parking meters floated; bridges snapped; the sky was an eerie cloudless blue, and I wasn't fighting the surges, just waiting to be taken down by them, observing how surprised I was that I was calm, not dying, but calm; and when I finally woke--after everything had dried out and the edges of the earth were crisper--I stared out the slats of the blinds at the sun, a different sun, a later sun than yesterday's sun.