give to the light

​Happy birthday, a gray day like the first one--
You were so brave to enter our world
With its dirty rain, its look of a sepia photograph. 

I call you at college, early and drowsy
I hear you describe the party last night,
How you danced, how dancing is one of the things

You love in your life, like thinking hard. You are
All right, then, and on the telephone
Hearing the high snare drum sound of your voice

I can feel you about to be born, I can feel
The barriers yield as you slide
Along the corrugated glitter,

Like some terrible rubbery ocean built of blood
That parts, at a touch, leaving a path
What should I do, you wonder, after I graduate?

I imagine you curled under your quilt
As a cold light begins to come in where you are
Like a knife in a pirate’s teeth. Dear salt flesh,

I am ready, if you are. I am afraid if you are.
I still ask: will it hurt, will it give pleasure?
Of course it will. On your mark, get set,

We give birth to each other. Welcome. Welcome.
-Alicia Ostriker | Happy Birthday

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I know I keep saying this, but life has been wild. I suppose I should expect that; my baby is rapidly becoming a toddler, taking steps and learning words and always, always beckoning. "Come, Mama, come with me, play with me, sit with me, with me with me." She signs, "Please. Please." I adore her. She exhausts me. Moments to myself are rare and precious and usually filled before they start.

In Spanish, the phrase for "to give birth" is dar a luz. Literally, it translates to "to give to the light." A person, from darkness, brought forth. 

Last year at Christmas we had this tiny, tiny new life in our house. I was not, as many people are, terrified of her. I knew what to do; it had been my job to teach people what to do. I knew what was normal and what wasn't, knew what the professionals would tell me if I asked them, knew what to expect. Our midwives laughed and said they could hardly think of us as first-time parents at all; we had none of the usual fears they need to allay.

Then, suddenly, she was three months old, and just as suddenly I was out of my comfort zone. Delayed, I was a new parent, having reached the stage where I no longer knew what to expect, no longer knew what was normal, no longer knew what the professionals would tell me if I asked. And, as it turns out, the professional advice beyond the medical really drops off by that point. As a newborn, she was a series of beloved tasks, but by three months she was no longer a newborn and we were all suddenly adrift in a sea of new personhood.

Now, she's a few days short of a year old, and we're a lot less adrift, although the tasks are never-ending. She understands more and can communicate more; last week, I told her she had to take a nap if we wanted to go to baby free swim time at the community centre with our friends, and when I put her down in her room she happily napped even though it was an hour earlier than her usual time because she wanted to go swimming. I can, to a point, negotiate with her. She is a person who understands that events go together sometimes.

It's mind-boggling how quickly it happens, really. Last year, we welcomed a baby; this year, a small but vibrant person steps with us into every morning. 

Alabanza.