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the first few days of life "the first few days of life." what an incredible statement. i sit here, preparing for inevitability any-day-now happenings, when a bowling ball squeezes out of an opening the size of a lemon and the little girl who has had so much fun kicking my internal organs around for the past eight months finally gulps waves of real oxygen. there is no real way to prepare for a happening such as this, no real book of advice or list of postpartum tips that can possibly make a person feel more or less secure or take away that initial shock statement in their brain: "okay, so NOW what?" the first few days of life...explain to me how ANY woman could not feel like a goddess, bestowed with the power of creation, the power to germinate a human soul for nine months, to push that soul out into the world, to nurture and care for and tend to that soul until it slowly takes its own steps, one at a time and always away from you, for the next eighteen years of its life? what woman could not feel like the mother of all creation when told that her singing voice is a hypnotic sedative to the sleepless babe, that her breastmilk can not only feed insatiable appetites but also heal minor cuts and abrasions, irritations and infections, and can help in the shedding of the umbilical chord, that eternal scar of birth, sometimes pierced by older children who wish to adorn the temple of their bodies with various silver charms...the first few days of life. an artist can only do so much, a writer can stir a cauldron of soft adjectives and watch the descriptions bubble over with the right ingredients and become captured in the ink stains of a written page but nothing can compare to the creation of true and vigorous life from the primordial soup of the womb, from the union of two impossibles swirled together in some lightning storm, growing hands and feet and tongues, the creation of eyes and ears and nostrils all switched on to the fabulous third dimension where senses are something other than a dream and a single touch on the right scent of evening can be heavenly... a woman, in herself, has been a living boarding house, a constant nurturer, a confectionery factory, a guardian, a barrier, a breathing machine splicing together the elements of life in that mystery of her womb, leading a human child through all levels of evolution, from long ago when tails were necessary to when the earliest homo sapiens needed eyes on either side of their skull to watch for predators through once when humans were waterbound and needed gills - stage after stage after stage in this internal theater, growing soft fur to protect the skin that is growing in just beneath the surface, the small little body in practice mode for the real thing - that inevitability, any-day-now. a woman, within herself, could nurture a human life single-handedly for years, feeding and grooming and keeping a body warm, protecting from infection and unfriendly animals, a living jungle gym, a human pacifier, something nice and warm and comfortable and safe to sleep next to (this is why men love them so much, really.) a woman responds, half instinctual, half learned, in the half instinct half learning universe of the modern human mind, and becomes the world, if just a short while, and becomes the earth to one small open and gaping mouth, providing everything needed without question, loving without condition, omnipotent, omniscient - a mother. the first few days of life, and we wonder why our children see us as gods. |
