The first thing you need to know is that she saved my life. Not like, pulled me out of a burning building or gave me CPR. The saving was entirely in my head, but rest assured, I was drowning, and she pulled me to shore.
I didn't know it was her, at the time. At the time, I refused to consider a name. She was a concept, an abstraction, not a person. All I knew was that there were two hearts beating in my body, and I had to keep breathing because otherwise there was no oxygen for that second heart to push. So I kept breathing, with the vague notion that perhaps after the concept was proved, after the abstract solidified, I could take my leave, and others could assume the responsibility I was too sad, too tired and broken, to shoulder.
I sent her brother to school that morning in a fake beard and a gilt crown. He had fought his way into the world seven years before, taking the better part of two days to burst bloody into my life, a screaming stranger. I was preparing myself for battle again, because his birth was the only way I knew. I had laid in stores of candles so I wouldn't have to face the dark night ahead in the harsh glare of overhead lights. I made myself lay down to rest after the appointment where they told me to expect to wait out the weekend, to come again on Monday to talk about the option of having them end it for me. It was Friday morning. The sun was more brilliant than October sun has any right to be.
When I woke, there was a tide rolling in me. A few short weeks before, my friends had come and wrapped my belly in plaster tape and so the first thing I saw was my effigy, festooned with flowers and dirt and an arcing rainbow. That belly did not ripple and grow taut; mine did. I called my ex, asked him to come and walk me. When my son was born, we had walked in the heart of the night to the harbor and heard the boats crying out for far waters. We did not get nearly so far with her. She let us get only blocks away before stealing my breath and the strength from my legs, forcing me to brace against the signposts and streetlamps. I turned us homeward.
I had barely reached the door when the boy returned, trailing his scarlet coat and candy wrappers. He threw himself around me, whispered to the idea in me that he was glad, so glad. He and his father dragged the birthing pool outside while I tried to sit in lotus and ride over the crests. My mother called the doula, called my best friend. The pool came in, the water came in, I stepped in, and the waves became less violent. It wasn't a storm, just the sea.
Soon my house was full of people that I loved - three of my four best friends, playing Nina Simone on the stereo, brewing tea, eating crackers; my son, holding my hand while I labored, stroking my hair, wiping my face with damp cloths; my doula, who had been my midwife with him, anchoring me with her words, keeping me from washing away. Soon I was asked to leave the pool and attend other things.
The second I stood, the waves bowled me over. I shook and gasped. They wrapped me in blankets and towels, pushed my feet into shoes, half carried, half dragged me to a car. I protested - my son had come at home, in our bed. I nursed him to sleep his first night in the very spot he'd been born. I'd do it again, we were so close to shore! No, I was told. There was no preparation for such an event.
We reached the hospital and I wouldn't let any of the nurses touch me. They could take my signs as soon as I was ready, but I was preoccupied with the swells and ebbs. My doctor came, took a single glance at my tribe surrounding me, and went to sit quietly in a corner. My son was taken out by his dad for a respite from the intensity, but returned in short order, having become distressed that his baby would make its arrival and his absence would be noticed.
She slipped into her first breath quietly, unobtrusively. Three tries and her hair was in my hand, another and I was holding her shoulders, two final ones, and they were handing her slick pink body up to my waiting lips. Her brother clipped the line between my body and hers.
Her eyes were still pools, and, no stranger, she knew me. It was Friday, just before dinner.
Her name means, "She brings joy (goodness)" It is an enormous burden to place on a damp eight pounds of sleep and hunger, but I let her be my joy, and so I lived.
She is a deep, still pool to this day, with spangles on the surface of her. She is sunny, she is sweet, she is steady. She is pragmatic, and yet delights in whimsy. She spreads joy like warm honey.
Were you born in a merry hour?, her namesake was asked.
Nay, to be sure, she answered, my mother cried. But there was a star danced...
And under that was I born.
October 29, 2004
