Lovers

We went out last night to talk. There's always someone around at our house, and everyone always wants to hear what we are talking about and why. Sometimes its nice to get away, in the event that we can't find Maxwell Smart's Dome of Silence.




Our favourite quiet lounge was being renovated (?why? It was perfectly nice before...) so we drove and walked around for a while - this may sounds pleasant but I find it hard to have a conversation when you're walking together in anything below 0 degrees C. We finally found a nice little bistro, and we sat and had a drink and I made lists of our whacky pipe dreams from 2003 ahead, and we tried to decide what to do with the next five years.

We've always been dreamers and planners. From the moment we met, we were arguing about how exactly to make the world a better place. Over the past few years, we've had all sorts of ideas - from going back and living on the mountain,

to opening a bookstore/cafe in Florence, Italy, to starting up a catering business in Barbados. 

Right now, the plan is to build up the place up on the mountain and let birthing women come there to have their babies....Sounds great, no? If you're reading this and you're interested in joining us in this project, let me know.

I digress. Lastnight as we were drinking, arguing - we rowed a little close to the shore a couple of times ("I can't stand the way you always do that..."), and writing lists, I noticed a lovely young couple sitting by the window.

She was pretty. Dark hair, tied up in an abrupt pony tail. Skinny body and face. She was dressed up in tight black pants, and a little sweater and waistcoat. Not much makeup. Her hair was falling in spirals next to her face where it had rebelled against the elastic. He was handsome in a typical boy-next-door-who-hasn't-shaved-in-two-days way. Sexy. He was wearing a button down shirt, with v-neck pullover on top, jeans. You could tell they had both picked out their clothes carefully.

They were in love. She held his hand. He would her hair around his other hand. They smiled at each other and laughed.

I'm putting this message in a bottle and throwing it into cybersea:

Keep your love alive. Never forget that feeling of awe that you had when you were sitting in that Bistro. Time will try to rob you, but don't let it. When you decide to have a baby, be careful. Don't let anyone tell you what to do. Go with your heart. Only you know what you can and want to do - having a baby is like making love, it's between the two of you and no one else.

Plan to sit together, in thirty years, and make a list of crazy dreams from your past, present and future...

Killer Mama

The other day, yesterday in fact, we lit the woodstove for the first time and stayed inside like the two children in the Cat in the Hat and watched the rain. Of course there was laundry and cooking and homework and computer tasks and all that, but when it's pouring outside you do feel like you are just sitting looking. And it did pour, great grey poodles of it.

So when the ten year-old suggested a movie, we adults jumped to it and we all set off to see Spy Kids, even though on one site it had a dismal rating of three. Movies are great! Especially when it's wet and cold, and it's a matinee so you know you aren't spending thirty dollars, if you include a drink (what am I saying - a drink for two people for four dollars?). The warm smell of popcorn, everyone running in without their raingear on yet because it's still October, kids yelling, a young man with his older parents laughing and joking with the cashier. To the movies!

Spykids is about a step-mom who is actually a spy. The step-kids are having trouble with the blended family and ... don't want to spoil it for you. But the most hilarious scenes are at the very beginning, when spy-mom is beating the bad guys, seriously beating them - don't mess with the spy-mom. The thing is, though, that she's about to give birth to the blended baby - product of the new marriage.

This is a bizarre scene presents a beautiful sexy yummy-mummy, dressed in tight leather with belts and things, pregnant and actually in labor, beating off the bad guys with high-powered karate kicks. She says things like "I still have time"   kick, whirl ... "my contractions are still only three minutes apart"... jump, punch, kick, ..."was that my water breaking"?

She leaves the bad guys lying on the ground (kids' movie - they just fall down, no muss, no fuss) and hops into a conveniently waiting ambulance. Next scene, she is rushed into the hospital where she disappears into a room and all you can hear are terrible screams of absolute deathly pain, then whaaaa! A baby!

Oh, dear. I can't begin to unravel the cultural tangle that I observed yesterday in that movie house.I don't know why we are so interested in the image of beautiful women acting aggressively and why we try so hard to silence them in labor. Why don't most women say "My contractions are still only three minutes apart?" 

I do know, though, that I was laughing the loudest when I saw that lovely woman being physical, upright and downright active in labor.

Thank You

I just want to say thank you to all the women who have invited me to attend their births over the past fifteen years. It has been an honor and a pleasure to accompany you through this important time of your life.
And if we only met once when you were in labor, and I rubbed your back but didn't understand your language, thank you. And if I've seen your first child born, and your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh, thank you. And if I caught your baby when no one else was around, thank you. And if you gave birth in an hour and a half, thank you. And if I was with you for three days, thank you. And if I held you when you cried, thank you. And if I spoke to you for hours and you birthed in another city, thank you. And if you had a vaginal birth after a surgical one, thank you. And if you had a cesarean to save your baby's life, thank you.
Thank you.