Sunny Daze: Lo cotidiana magica

Every day the Boss wakes up mewling, demanding MILK. NOW DAMMIT.

After a gluttonous intake of whatever white liquid appears, her head falls askance and we tiptoe her back to the bassinet, smiting one another with enraged glances if one of us stubs a toe audibly on the bedpost. No sympathy for a broken toe here, nay- if that broken digit wakes the baby, you’ll be the one limping around swaying her for the next hour, my friend.

Between 6am and 9am, the Boss issues her Incantations from a somnambulant state; they are a mix of a trumpeting elephant, billy goat and the dinosaurs that attack Newman in the Jeep scene of Jurassic Park 1. The Incantations are accompanied by vigorous arm swinging and occasionally some head bobbing before falling back into the deep REM cycle her dad and I haven’t obtained in weeks. If there are messages within the Incantatjons, we know them not, but they’re issued with great passion.

Then she and I settle in for Morning Snuggles, the highlight of my day. She burns like a furnace on my chest and I lie there frantic at the thought of waking her and frantic at the thought she’ll overheat in her fleece sleep sack so as she smiles contentedly and with closed eyes, dreaming of a river of milk, my heart rate steadily increases, my throat grows tight and I wonder if I’ll pass out from anxiety.

Her cries and breathing and strange utterances are our morning soundtrack, the morning’s tintinnabulation and, like church bells ringing across the sky, she calls us to mind, and to hark, and to listen and to be present. Church bells give you pause, strike the sky, pierce the ho hum of daily life, and she is just like that, this tiny boss. She is the ringing of bells, clear, piercing the air, calling you to mind, mind life.

And to bring the milk.

Sunny Daze: Mary Oliver Reminds Me

A lot of my day is spent looking at my daughter, being naptrapped (a phrase Emily introduced me to and which is now my state of being for approximately 60% of the day) and listening to her breathe.

In the morning, I put her on my chest and I feel the heat of her. Occasionally some impulse to leave or do something rises—to go be productive or what not.

This morning when that rose, I thought of the poet queen Mary Oliver and her beautiful tribute to presence and life, in her poem The Summer Day.

As the urge to go take a shower, or bake some bread, or set up a charging station, pecked at my brain, I looked down at Sunny’s face and thought “Really? I think there’s something better to do than this?”

In Oliver’s poem, after she tells us about the grasshopper she’s watching, she says it thus:

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything (fade)* at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

—

As for me and Sunny, there’s no place else to be. We’re in a bubble with one another, getting to know each other, looking into each other’s eyes, sticking our tongues out at one another. There’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be than listening to her raspy tiny breath. 

*Ive edited the poem here. 

https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-133/the-summer-day/

Sunny Daze: The Big Bad World

When Sunny was in my belly for a whopping 42 wks, I could make all the decisions for us. I drank decaf coffee, forewent the turkey subs, swore off sushi, stopped surfing for a few months and got the flu shot / booster / Tdap shot. I was able to control what was going into us for the most part, able to keep her safe in the little swimming pool from which she kicked and punched me most often at night when a black bean burger w fries was cramping her living quarters. 

Now, she’s two wks old, and she’s IN THE WORLD. 

The idea is frightening at fuck to me and as I bounced her around our house yesterday, I realized just how helpless I am to keep her safe. 

We are doing the basic things: keeping her appointments and vaccinations, breastfeeding, allowing her to sleep, getting her outside but it all feels like so very little when there are nuclear arsenals, anthrax and the common cold looming around every corner.

I guess we just can’t think about it too much, can’t let our minds drift there. 

But I look at her little eyes blinking up at me and hear her little coos as she’s suckling or sleeping and I realize how much power she has to break my heart. 

I’d never seen her outside of ultrasounds a mere three weeks ago and now I would do anything for her, feel a love that is terrifyingly potent for her, feel my throat and chest constrict when my mind bends and thinks of losing her.

Researcher Brene Brown discusses this in her book The Gifts of Imperfection. 

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1141160-fear-of-the-dark-i-ve-always-been-prone-to-worry

I don’t know the solution other than to devote myself to loving her, to savor every moment, dwell in gratitude for her and the time I have w her, and to bravely go forward.