Eat, Pray, Love

I loved this book. I know, me and 14 trillion other ladies. The movie is coming out soon. I'm anxious about it, I saw the trailer and - uh-boy. I don't remember a best friend that she confides in all the time from the book, do you? They invented a confiding best friend and that makes my heart sink.

A couple years ago around the time it was becoming the ginourmaous massive hit it was to become, one of my BF's and I  went to hear Elizabeth Gilbert speak.  She was on tour with Annie Lamott and I thought boy is that worth the 50 bucks or whatever it was - these were two amazing women breathing the same air. And this is BEFORE I read Operating Instructions, I thought I loved Annie Lamott from Bird by Bird but I had not idea that I loved her as deeply as it turns out I do.
But I digress.

Eat, Pray, Love. What an amazing journey. Such unbearably beautiful writing. I love her voice. I love her. I love her talent and guts and her unbearably beautiful writing. She is worthy of idolizing, and, clearly -  I do it.
And,
I don't think Julia Roberts should've played her.

There, I said it.

I don't.
I'm sure no one had a choice in the matter. But, let me tell you who should have played Elizabeth Gilbert in this movie that is DOOMED to fail because holy crap we all love this book too much and there's no way, just no way that a 95 minute movie is going to take us on the ride it needs to to even for a second give us a glimpse of the page turning goodness.

So yes, here is who it is.
Kate Winslet.
Am I right? I'm so right.

Oh dammit, I just googled that combo and I see that I'm not the first to come up with this. I'm sure everyone else said the same thing. Julia Roberts? Really? No! It should be...Kate. or Laura Linney. That's a great idea too.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that I just finished re-reading EPL and it totally inspired me. Not to leave my husband and go on a soul searching journey, but to stay with my husband and tiny tot and go on a soul searching journey. I think I'd call my version Sweet, Play, Love.

God bless me and my cheesy ways but I need to make that my mantra. What else is there really? That little boy shows me these all the time. His sweetness overflows in the little fountain of joyful squeals, fast crawling toward our waiting arms, and in his sweet smelling hair. If I actually sit and play with him, we find each other. We bonded today over the moving of the big legos from this bin to the other spot.  He stared into my eyes and laughed at my random observations. He's like a little alien who doesn't speak the language but gets it more than anyone I've ever met. And love? As you know, it's all we need. My damn cute husband is a walking lovebomb - when I stop and focus there instead of 18 other places, I hear birds and notice good lighting. So - when I come back to those things,  along with the gratitude I have for the health we have, the love of friends and family, that hummingbird that was hanging around this afternoon -  I can't get all freaked out by the future and all the stuff I'm freaked out by.

Although, frankly,  I'm kinda freaked out.
The trouble with coming out of the movie coma I'm faced with reality and it's a bit daunting.

Towards the end of EPL she talks about this time that she went to an island alone for a week and sat in solitude and silence and faced down her fears. She literally sat still, watched the feelings come and go and then invited her fears, shame and hurt into her heart. I have never heard of anything so brave. I was so moved when I read this, it floored me. Again let me tell you - she sat STILL inside of squirmy awful feelings and let them move through her - and then she INVITED them into her heart. Who does that? Seriously? Rockstars. Not real ones, I use that as a complimentary term. She's my hero.

So there you go. A little sass and sap for you on a Tuesday night, as I continually try to talk myself down from the freak out and back to the SPL.

Your memoir writing mama wanna-be,


PS - Here's some eat play love - stop it with the cuteness, right?

The boys making the birthday cake for the belated birthday party.  Not sugar of course, sweetened with maple syrup...

Birth Story - Take 2

For the last two months I've been taking this amazing writing class from Stefanie of Baby on Bored. Every week a bunch of funny, talented cool chics gathered - got instruction, wrote for a chunk of time and then read our work aloud. It was so damn fun, I'm truly bummed it's over. I'll be putting up some of the fruit of that labor in coming days, but speaking of labor - I want to share a new draft of the birth story that I put up here a few weeks ago.


So to be clear - LCD regs, you've read a version of this story back here. I'm re-posting it because I've spent hours and hours and HOURS rewriting and editing it, and then in a bold move performed it at the staged reading the other night that was the culmination of the class. I swore to myself I wouldn't cry in the telling, and then I did.


Ah well.


This one is 1000 words less than last time, if you're up for it, see what you think....

----------------

“Stop it! Stop yelling at me! Please stop. I just can’t have that right now. It’s not
helpful.”

A hush falls over the room, but I keep up the stinkeye. I’m guessing it’s not very
often that the flushed, sweaty, very fat lady squatting in the middle of the bed yells
at the help.

She says,
“I don’t think I was yelling”.

I say, “You were definitely yelling”.

It won’t be long now before another crushing combo platter of pressure, pain and
pinch will arrive along with the need to bear down. We need to get through this
little discussion fast.

“I wasn’t yelling” she repeats a little under her breath and turns on her heel. I have
time to think, did she just turn on her heel? She’s gone and here I go again.

I’m wild, I’m swinging my head. The wave is back and I’ve got a job to do. Fuck her
and her yelling ways. Fuck that noise and fury. Now I’m the one making it.

I squint my eyes into slits and push my legs up on the bar. Holding up the blue
sheet in an effort to give me some dignity is both useless and pointless, but god
bless that sweet nurse for trying. I bear down and think. Damn. I’m pushing so
hard. I really hope poop isn’t coming out. That’s pretty gross. I don’t think poop is
on my birth plan.

Ah, the birth plan. According to it, right now I’m home in warm water giving birth in
one of those tubs you see in Youtube videos. I’m the picture of serenity and grace,
my husband swabbing at my head with a warm washcloth. No wait, is he in the tub
with me? Is he wearing anything? What did we ever decide about that? Of course I
won’t be wearing anything in the birthing tub but is it weird if he doesn’t wear
anything? Maybe a speedo?

A contraction only lasts between :30 and :90 seconds but it might as well be the
staging of War and Peace. It finally ends and I slowly catch my breath. I gather the
sheet around my puffy legs and stare out the giant plate glass window. The sun
came up some time ago, what the hell time is it? More to the point, what day?
We’re going on hour 54 of labor, for me time and space have given up and are
making out in the corner.

My midwife comes into view, the one I hired for my fantasy homebirth. Her white
turban blends with the blownout bright morning light behind her. She is concerned.

“Jane, you’re going to need to play by their rules here. You’ve been pushing for
three hours now. If you want to avoid...”

She trails off here.

The knife. The knife is the end of her sentence. I don’t have the heart to glare at
her. Her face is too kind. My heart is too tired.

“I suggest that you really try to be accommodating. Let them guide you, perhaps
some extra coaching will help.”

“I don’t want yelling” I weakly assert.

The key yeller marches back in the room, followed closely behind by the physician.
“You’re not pushing effectively,” says the mean midwife. Mean midwife, it’s an
oxymoron, I know. I was driven forty-five minutes across town in screaming labor
to this particular hospital so I could stay under midwife care, and the result is that I
get the mean one. I glare at her squatty form.

The physician takes over.

“Now, I’m going to help you focus your efforts by keeping my hand here during the
contractions.” By ‘here’, she means on his little head which is coming down
sideways. And when I say ‘on his head’, you’ve likely gotten to the right image. Up
the Vajay. I’d squirm but really, why bother? At this point I’ve lost track of how
many people have had their hand there. Too bad I didn’t charge for admission.

In our birthing class, we watched all of these videos of waterbirths. The woman
would be all ohh and ahhh and then at some point a face muscle would twitch like
maybe she’s having a small orgasm and then a baby would pop in between her
legs. A tiny upside down face would suddenly appear there, squinting in the watery
world.

I watched with avid interest. That’s going to be me! I thought. That’s so totally
going to be me! When the birthing coach discussed the epidural I waddled off in
search of more snacks. When she talked about a fetal monitor that attaches to the
baby’s head I scoffed. And pitocin?. Oh no, that won’t be me. Totally. Not me.

Stranded on the hospital bed, the shiny floors are a sparkling sea miles below me. I
am on a barge with sheets and I use the pushing bar to row. I hang up my
birthplan like a sail, its navigation powers are useless against the tide of medical
madness. Pitocin – check. Epidoural – check. And the fetal monitor attached to his
tiny head? Check. Right now surrender looks like me in bad lighting and a gaping
hospital gown.

So I push. And I push. And. PUSH. The physician's hand is there. Her curly head
shakes back and forth as I bear down. They yell, I don’t care anymore. It’s a wash
of sound and wonder, light and shaking muscle.

I am raw and exposed, there is not a single shard of dignity left. My self capital S is
no longer part of the equation, my body is just a powerful machine that’s in heavy
use. The constant pain has become irrelevant. And though that epidural has long
since worn off, I’m still attached to the end of it like a dog on a leash.

So I’m pushing out a person. This important fact has faded into the blur of the long
anxious minutes. What I know for sure is that I will never be the same. I will never
walk the same. I will never have the same fears. I will never wonder if I am strong.

Now my friend runs around the room weeping and brandishing my camera. She
yell’s He’s coming! He’s coming! I can see his little head!

And now he’s crowning. Jesus, ouch.

And then nothing.

We’re between contractions - I guess we’ll be hanging out here. This is what they
call the ring of fire.

In this extended, stretched moment I take a look around. It’s an unreasonably
bright room filled with people I don’t know. There is not a candle in sight. Sure my
friend has the ipod going and Yo Yo Ma is cranking out the Bach, but that’s the end
of the sweetness. The population doubles when a team of dudes shuffle in with
their eyes averted. Apparently there was meconium in the water, (which is an
indicator of fetal distress) so these guys have first dibs on him. All scrubbled up,
they await his arrival across the shiny floor.

I'd heard of the 'ring of fire' - I believed it would be accurate name. And I won't go
on here but suffice it to say it is a fine, fine name and the fire is 1000 angry wasps.

In the next contraction he comes out in a gush. I don't know much about it because
I can't see anything. I have pushed so hard that my eyes are rendered useless –
they are only registering fuzzy forms in white. I’m now looking through the lens of
an impressionist painting, perhaps this is for the best.

He is quickly ripped away and flown across the sea into their waiting hands. I am
left there - stranded in the tangled sheets and blood. I have just turned my guts,
heart and other parts inside out in an effort to bring this guy onto the planet - and
now he belongs to them: medical science.

A team of gloved hands rapidly scrub him as plastic tubes descend deep into his
throat and very being. My dear husband stands by and watches helplessly. Our tiny
infant is being manhandled like a car in a car wash without the water.

3 minutes slowly pass.

He isn’t breathing and neither are we. The air feels heavy, like the moments before
a thunderstorm. Alone on my island I watch the storm approach and I wonder. I am
curious. I am quiet. For me it’s white light and blur and the pound of my heartbeat
in my head.

Finally we hear a raspy cry. A cheer goes up in the crowd.

My midwife insists that he flies back to my chest. I guess this is a little tip of the
hat to my original dreamy birth plan. The trouble is that it's an old idea and I'm not
sure how to get back to her, or back to that warm water. My hands are heavy
flippers as I try unsuccessfully to comfort this little being who is bound and perched
on my chest. His little mouth yawns open and closed with a weak cry. I join him.

56 hours. I did that dance with the force of nature designed to bring human life to
the world for 56 hours.

I know in my heart of hearts that nature knows best, that a tub of water or a pile of
hay is a perfectly fine place to land a baby. But that wasn’t the way it went for us.
Nature took us to a hospital.

And was it okay? It was. Because he was okay.

And my body won’t bear a scar from a knife. Of course there are endless other
scars and gifts that come from moving through the hardest thing I’ve ever endured
cheered by strangers, the sparkling sea, my husband and Yo Yo Ma.


Pictured below - Boy in the NICU with Dad on day one of life.

Living in Oblivion

Helllloooo Racefans!

I have never in my blogging career - (right, all nine months of it) - been gone so long. It was so sad! I missed you people. I missed my incessant checking of Sitemeter and that hopeful check of my email in my constant longing for your comments. I missed reading all of your blogs (boy do I have some catching up to do) and obsessively word smithing mine.

But I'm back and I'm ready to dish.

I've been in a make a movie cave for the last weeks, it's simultaneously a very fun and painful place. It's like that trash compacter that they land in in the middle of Star Wars. I'm surrounded by soupy trash, the walls are closing in and yet I'm hopeful for a rescue of some kind. And when it comes, which, by the way, looks like reaching the end of the day and by some miracle all of the shots on the shotlist have been achieved, the pain of the stress and angst goes away and then I blow a hole in another wall and climb in again hoping that I don't find myself in yet another giant trash compacter with snakes under the water. (or whatever the hell those things are).

And if you're wondering why I love this job based on the description above, I'd have to say that I'd agree - it absolutely makes no sense.

Have any of you seen the movie that I named this post after? Holy bejeasus is it good. It came out about a billion years ago with Steve Buschemi and I think that it's required viewing for any filmmaker. I was completely living in that oblivion for the last few days. Complete with on-set drama and surreal scenes.

We shot Friday from 11am-11pm. Saturday from 11am-12pm-ish. Sunday from 3:30pm-3:45am and then Monday from 6:30pm-6:00am. (well those were my times in and out - thankfully my crew wasn't there as long, most of them anyway). Needless to say my eyes are still bleeding from lack of sleep but I'm also still running on adrenaline.

We made a movie!

We did it!

With a crew size ranging from 25-50ppl each day we all gathered and moved lights and rolled camera and acted and got mad and got excited and brandished a fake gun which required a cop to stay outside of our location and had a really talented actor suffering terribly in a giant dinosaur mascot costume. It's a beautiful blur and there were many moments that were so unbearably stressful. Like these!

* we've only got 1 hour to get the three shots with the kid in it before the studio teacher shuts us down! (many faces were mad, but we got through it with a mad talented kid)
* we've only got 15 minutes before we lose the cop or he goes into overtime and kills our already stretched budget! (we did it, no overtime)
* we've only got :30 before we have to leave the liquor store. (we were out in 5 minutes to spare)
* our permit just ran out, that lost shot? (we didn't get it. sigh.)

And then there were moments that were so freakin' awesome. I guess it's like any extreme sport, sometimes it just hits. Like this!

Clarity, magic and genius collide. The right exact words tumble out of my mouth and the actor says 'ah-ha!' and the shot is just exactly the right size with the right lens, with the rich color and the backlight and all of these pieces play into a sweeping little symphony including the pacing of the dolly moving just the right speed and the light flare hitting and the performance reaching it's warm and exacting peak and then the valley comes and the dolly is done and I yell cut and do a Tiger Woods fist pump (I know he's a jackass, but a talented one so I'm going with him on this fist pump thing) and then we're on to the next. 

And we try again to find that sweet, sweet spot.

I guess that's why I'm wearing my Princess Lea buns on my head and willing to wade back into the water. That altered state is what the yogi's meditate for, the athletes train for, the actors find and lose, the artists take drugs and wander back to. It's frustrating that I need a BUNCH of damn people and a place and a script and a lot of money but sometimes I get that lucky too.

Wheee. That's all I can say. Fawking wheee. Lucky me.

With wild eyes and grateful heart,



P.S. - If you're wondering how the hell I did this project along side my husband with a one year old in the house, I'll tell you - it's a one word answer. Grandma. This film would not by any chance in a million been made without her incredible generosity. She just moved in and did the deed, she was Mom and Dad rolled into one cute Gram for 5 days and much of the days leading up to the shoot. We're amazed and our gratitude could never truly be expressed...

P.P.S. - This picture for some reason sums it up for me. The dinosaur butt coming out of the back seat along with our gaffer that day posing under the starlet just makes me really happy...more pics to come fo sure.

She's Having a Baby

Yep, I've known I was going to use this movie title for this post for a long, long time.

It's time for the birth story kids, it's time. Our lil hero turns one in an hour, we'll celebrate him on this day for the rest of his life, our lives. This life. (draft started 11pm on April 5th)


----

This time last year I was in the hospital wondering what the eff I was doing there. I had just gotten an epidural put in by a very hot, sassy, gum-snapping Armenian chick whose work was overseen by a giant man with an awkward walk. I was terrified. There I was perched on the edge of a hard bed with a breeze on my butt and what felt like duct tape up and down my back and the tiny long needle about to go in.

Snappy gum: Don't move. It's really important that you don't move.

Me: Contraction. WAIT! Please wait. I can't Not move during a...... aaahheeeighhggghggheihhh. F*ck. HOld on. Ouch. okay. hold on. okay. go ahead.

Snappy: Ok, this will sting a bit.

Me: Seriously? Nothing can phase me now.

enter needle

Snappy: Ok! Great, so now you will soon feel relief. Push this button (hands me a contraption on the end of a cord with a red button) if you need more relief, it will dispense more medicine.

Me: Neat.

So the army of amazing women who had followed me, the belly, and cute hubs across town to the fancy-ass UCLA medical center now disperse in search of sleep. My midwife says, sleep. Take advantage of this epidural to finally get some rest. Sounds like a pretty good plan since I have not slept since 3 am Saturday morning when the 'rushes' started - and this is now 11pm Sunday night. The boy isn't going to come on April 5th after all. Or April 4th either (our first guess seeing how labor started that day) I guess we'll meet him tomorrow.

'Rushes' by the way, is the lovely term that midwifes and other lovely hippy-dippy sweet people who want to make you think that you can give birth in a lovely home-like candle lit setting or in a calm part of some damn sea or a water tub with dolphins n' such and gracefully and gently move through the feeling of the 'rush' of sensation and by calling it a 'rush' it is somehow not the FAWKING TIDAL WAVE of PAIN and utter ridiculous PAIN and searing hot PAIN and bone-crushing body-wracking FAWKING PAIN and I guess it's not a bad plan to call it something other than the FTWOP (fawking tidal waves of pain) but I think they were pretty darn misleading but thankfully I am not angry. Really.

As they are leaving, I am a mix of compassionate for their needs along with a hollow feeling of being completely deserted. I watch their backs march away into the inky night which is visible through the giant window of our strangely beautiful hospital room that has nice dim lighting. The view is sweet of Westwood's spots of lights and perhaps campus beyond. Sleep they said. As my awareness fuzzes out into the lights visible over my giant belly and the form of a sweet sleeping husband on the bench, I feel grateful for their beauty and their kindness and belief in my ability to have a natural home birth but also just a little bit grateful for the gum snapping Armenian gal and her freaky needle.

And I fall into delicious sleep. I  close my eyes and ask the images of the previous 40 hours of my existence to disappear into a drugged oblivion. The walking and walking and the waves of pain and constant throwing up and the sitting on the toilet waiting for the world to end and standing and no, actually, walking and the waves coming consistently and then intermittently and none of it added up the the labor I was supposed to have. The walking sure. The singing even on Saturday night as my doula, BF and I did laps around our block. The beautiful moon behind the black palm trees in the gentle April night. My sweet doula and her constant presence. The warm smell of hubs neck as I leaned into him, his gentle ways and slight anxiety obvious through the haze.

What wasn't invited was the lack of rhythm. The fact that the swimmer was turned and his shoulder was stuck in some weird way. That the labor was termed 'prodromal' which is a mystery but I think says something about my head that isn't great. The IV drip due to my inability to keep anything down, even water. The thought-out labortime snacks I had prepared sat somewhere nearby, I think someone quietly nibbled on them at some point. I can't remember. The time at home was behind a wall of water and glass and pain.

-----

A few hours later I am awoken by the midwife on duty, she needs to 'check me' to see how well the pitocin is working. Fine. That's fine, check it out. She frowns and pulls her gloved hand out of the exit zone.

Nice midwife:  Oh well, okay. So. You're only dilated to 5cm. We were hoping for more. We need to up the Pitocin.

Me: Neat.

Nice midwife: Try to go back to sleep.

I nod.

This room is very large, I feel like I'm on a boat in a sea of shiny floors. They said it was the nicest room in the wing, sure seems like it. Let's ignore for a minute the beeping of the heartmonitor on the baby that I was never going to get, even if they said I'd need it. Let's ignore the machine hooked into my body providing a flow of narcotics surging into my body and the little one, the thing I was never, ever going to do. Let's focus on the fact that I don't feel the GD rushes. Oh. Wait a minute.

Me: Ouch

crickets

There is no-one here. Cute hubs is asleep on the bench. I don't have the heart to wake him. I'll just push this little button on the end of the thing here, because this 'sensation' is starting to heat up - oh boy.

Me: OUCH. Shit. Um.

The FTOP's are back. That's not the bargain I struck here. I gave up the last remaining shards of my 'birth plan' and dignity to end the reign of pain that had gone on for 40 hours at home and in the car. I am now fully in their world and their world is supposed to be pain-free.

Me: DAMMMMMMIIITTTTTTTT.

Cute hubs: Zzzzzz. (poor guy he hadn't slept for 1/2 of Friday and most of Saturday night either)

Time to call the nurse. She arrives eventually and promptly calls snappy gum who eventually (after many more FTOP's). She rolls in there rolling her eyes at me.

Snappy: You have sensation?

Me: Yes, plenty.

Snappy: Did you push the button?

Me: Several times.

Snappy: (SIGH) Let me see.
(pause while fiddling with machine)
Okay, I reset it. It should work now in about 20 minutes.

Me: 20 minutes!? Are you serious?

Snappy: (Eyeroll)

----

So this goes on. There is no more sleep. But at 5 am it's time to check again, (I wish I'd charged for admission for access, by the end I probably could have paid the hospital bill) and the good news is that we're fully dilated kids. Game on. Let's push.

My army of women slowly arrive as the hubs awakes. Dawn streaks out over UCLA as the pin lights disappear and I wonder about the college kids going to their classes and how they don't know that something miraculous is happening right behind them, right up there on the fourth floor.

At 7 am I have 'labored down' enough and I start to push. Due to the epidural which is now turned off but is still attached, and fetal heart monitor, I cannot push like a normal person, I have to squat awkwardly in the bed or do some kind of upside bar madness. It's not comfortable. It's not reasonable. But I'm okay, it seems okay. Strangely people keep coming in and saying that I look really glamourous. Which is ridiculous. The nurses say "You're the most glamourous pusher I've ever seen".

I bet.

So an hour passes. Then another one. And still I'm getting pretty good feedback about my efforts. It's certainly not easy and by now I think it's about time to get this lil party over with but oops looks like I'm losing one of the key players.

Nice Midwife: Well, I'm afraid my shift is up - I'm going to turn your case over to our next midwife on duty.

And now you know why I"ve been calling her 'Nice midwife'. Cause here comes the other one. 

This new woman enters and before shaking my hand or as much as a hello she checks me and the progress of the boy through the ol canal and now another frown and the stark, nasty disapproval makes my heart drop into my swollen feet.

Mean Midwife: (scowling) Ok, let me see you push. I don't think you're being effective here.

So I proceed to do my glamourous pushing which involves a head toss and some real strain, I mean really - but based on the look on her face, it's not enough.

MM: You're pushing with your face and your legs, you need to push right here. (She illustrates with by thrusting her hand into the spot of which she speaks. Apparently she's touching his head.)

Me: Scream.

Next comes a confrontation. MM and her folks decide to coach in a non-midwife manner during a contraction by yelling "PUUUUSH" and "RIGHT HERE!" and "OTHER THINGS" and I am just. not. okay. with that. Sure it's a very Hollywood labor moment but I just can't abide by this scene at all. So after I finish panting I yell.

Me: I can't have you yelling at me!

MM: I didn't think I was yelling.

Me: You were.

MM: Scowl.

And by 'pushing back' (ha ha) I create a tense moment that involves a conference outside the room with my real midwife (the one I originally hired for a homebirth) the MM, and the physician on duty.

The RM (real midwife if you're not tracking with my initializing) reappears and strongly encourages me to play ball (as it were) seeing as how it's now Monday morning and my water broke on Saturday and if I don't want to end up under the knife, well. I need to shut the eff up. Not her words exactly, but I get it.

----

So I push. And I push. And. PUSH. And I get more productive with the pushes, it's less glamour - more progress. The MM does not come back after the above conference (there is a God) but the physician is just as adamant about touching his head ALL THE TIME while I push so it is a deeply uncomfortable (and intimate) experience.

The following hour is something I'll never forget. I have never felt more vulnerable, raw and exposed. I have never been so strong and beautiful. I have never had to do something so incredibly fawking hard. And I've never had such a profound reason to partner with my body. I'm sure it will sound cliche but I dig into a part of myself that I had never met. It's somewhere under the gut, surrounded by soul right next to the heart and nowhere near the brain. It is primal and destructive. I am a cyclone, a whirling dervish a slow rumbling earthquake. I hear a roaring sound resounding in my head, I have no idea if the screams and grunts I hear are mine, as far as I can tell the room is silent as I watch the whole thing from inside and above.

And the time in-between the contractions is so weird. It's a ride on the FTOP's which are massive and huge and fantastic and then we file our nails and wait for the next one. Finally my girlfriend is running around the room weeping and brandishing my camera yelling 'he's coming! 'he's coming! I can see his head!'

Now he's crowning.
And everything stops.

But. He just sits there.

I'd heard of the 'ring of fire' - and I believed it was an accurate name. And I won't go on here but suffice it to say it is a fine name.

F*AWKING HELL-O KITTY WHAT THE EFF DID I DO DESERVE SUCH PAIN?

This is my inner monologue, outwardly I am strangely calm. I focus on my breath. It's 11am and I've been pushing for four hours and really? People? I am just done. So I take another breath.

In the next rush okay contraction he comes out. I don't know much about it because I can't see anything, my eyes have been pushed out of working order and it's all a fuzzy Renoir wash. So after only four and 1/2 hours of pushing, it's done. He's here.

----

What I have failed to mention thus far is that there was some evidence in the water that caused some alarm that the boy might be in distress so a team of dudes have been called. They arrive in a quiet shuffle all scrubbed and ready to meet him at the table across the shiny floor.

He is quickly ripped away from me and flown across the sea into their hands. I am there alone on the island, stranded in the tangled sheets and blood. I have just turned my guts, heart and other parts inside out in an effort to bring this guy onto the planet - and now he belongs to them. Medical science. A team of gloved hands and plastic tubes that descend deep into his throat and very being and my dear husband stands by and watches helplessly. I can't see any of it, but later he described watching this tiny infant being scrubbed and handled like a car in a car wash without the water.

3 minutes pass.

There is an oppressive weight in the air, like the humidity before a thunderstorm. Alone on my island I watch the storm approach and I wonder. I am curious. I am quiet. I don't know why but I don't feel anxious, just curious.

Will he stay?

Finally a raspy cry. I think a cheer went up in the room, I can't say.

The Real Midwifes of LA County insists that he come onto my chest. I guess this is a little tip of the hat  to my original dreamy birth plan of the candle-lit water birth and the sweet bonding and the alleged fact that the tiny guy will come crawling up to find the easy breastfeeding because of course there has been no drugs or anything to inhibit breastfeeding.

But this isn't the world I live in anymore, it's an old idea and I'm not sure how to get back there. His little mouth is yawning open with a weak little cry and I'm helpless like a beached, blind manatee. My hands are heavy like flippers as I try unsuccessfully to comfort this little being who is bound and perched on my chest.

But he's gotta go. The team of faceless carwash guys want him down in the NICU.

Hubs goes with them. And now there is nothing. I'm just there on the windy beach. I'm lost in a blown-out world of white and shapes, I still can't see.

----

56 hours. I did that dance with the force of nature designed to bring human life to the world for 56 hours.


Unfortunately I felt like I fell off the stage when I couldn't 'see' the birth at home anymore. When we took to the Prius caravan and covered the entire LA basin in search of a hospital with midwives, I'd turned in my shoes. And then the force of nature had to deal with the force of medical science. And in my humble opinion, they don't get along well. But the good news is the boy was born, and he was okay.

After they all roll down the hall to the NICU, my midwife (aka RM) - turns to me and says she is glad we are here, at the hospital. And as I look at her sweet make-up-free face under the turban and see the kindness and sincerity on her face, (what I could see of it), I say I am glad we are here too. But they better not give him antibiotics...

----

Happy Birthday BHB, I'm so glad you stayed.

In a wash of memories and relief and love,



PS - The NICU story for another time. Thanks for reading this. Hubs and I joke that telling our birthstory is almost 'real time'. Hopefully it wasn't 56 hours for you...

November 13th

"We interrupt our regularly scheduled Movie Monday Madness to bring you a special bulletin about November 13th the movie and November 1st the short film"

OHMYGOD! HOLYSH*T! HOLYCRAP! I'M FREAKING OUT! (and yelling, obviously) But. OMFG!

It Happened! We did it! You did it! It was did! Ok, okay. I'll stop yelling. But, as you'll see, it's incredibly yell-worthy.

Our short film got funded! We just today surpassed our rather ambitious goal of raising 13,000 over the internets in hunks as low as 2 dollars, and for one person as much as 2,500 dollars - we somehow gathered enough signatures and people willing to put their CC where their typing fingers are and this is how it happened....

That Kickstarter site is so damn amazing. It's really just so special how they help artists and filmmakers and non-profits and bakers and bloggers and anyone who needs funding. It's an online democracy for art. Anyone can make it happen! It was such a perfect forum for us to get the excitement centered and focused - an incredible piazza if you will where we can all mill about and admire other people pursuing their passion. And let's be clear, the number one reason I liked the piazza's in Italy? The gelato. That's what Kickstarter is missing! A dairy sugar treat. Actually - you can get delicious fig newtons up there from Cassie, I did!

Ah but it's pretty darn sweet tonight, let me tell you. Needless to say I'm just so thrilled. It's overwhelming to me that 95 people so far have stepped forward to support us. 95! I got 95 emails that said 'New Backer Alert! So and so is your new backer! Amount pledged x dollars'. So 95 times my little heart jumped when the emails came in. And some of the times if the numbers were especially crazy my heart and feet would jump around the room and our little baby would squeal and my dog would look worried and my mom and step dad get excited and IN FACT!  I just scared the kee-rap out of the cute hubs because as I was looking at the email to see the wording for the above sentence when another 'Backer Alert!' came in for a big hunk of money from a dear friend and I just skitterred across the house trying to squeal quietly and scared him a little bit. What is happening? Why am I so lucky? How are we loved so much by friends, family and strangers alike? It's just nuts, and I'm shaking with the prospect of it. Make that 96 and wipe the tears from my face for the 45th time today.

So that's what is going on over here friends! It's an incredible day. February 1st. I'll never forget it. This experience has given me a new faith. It's a humbling and moving reminder to me of the great Nike campaign from the 90's.

Just Do It.

And we're gonna.

Your incredulous hostess of soon to be movie making fame,



PS - Thank you again to my dear blogee friends who are among the 96. I so appreciate you. And thank you again JJ for putting up the widget on your blog. Love you and the B-day Bea!

Signs

One of my BF's ever was my roommate for about eight months. That actually didn't go so well but thankfully the friendship survived it. She and I shared a love of looking for 'signs' from the universe, which some days I am totally tuned in to and other days you could land a flock of angels on my head who are delivering pdf instruction booklet's on how to live joyfully and have s-loads of cash but I'd be too busy watching dog videos on YouTube to get the message. My friend/roomie was always noting that there were planes going overhead right at a particular moment that related to her mental state and was also concerned because she heard sirens alot and wondered darkness it might be alluding to. My then boyfriend-now-husband thought it had something to do with the fact that we lived under a flightpath and three blocks from a hospital. Jeez, what a cynic.

So I was just sitting down to write this post about a recent event that we could easily categorize under 'sign' when I heard a little voice outside my front door. We have an impressively large front door, and due to the hot evening it was open. Apparently this very large door is very inviting to a little-voiced- completely-ineabriated women which is what I found when I shushed the yelling dog and peered out into the semi-darkness. Unfortunately the porch light was off but through the screen door (not security door mind you, this is a troubling fact) I witnessed a wobbly little blonde person with what I believe was a large bottle in each hand. We enjoyed the following conversation:

(bongo kicked it off)

bongo: Hey! Wtf are you doing on our porch! It's freakin 11pm lady. Hey!
drunk lady: Hi there. Nice doggy. Can I sit on your porch?
me: No sweetie, I'm sorry.
drunk lady: (indignant) Whaaaat? Really?
me: No, I can't have you out there I have a baby sleeping in here and this dog is going to keep barking...
my head: WTF! Why am I telling a crazy lady on my porch about my sleeping baby!?
drunk lady: (heading toward the chair) It's nice here.
me: I'm sorry, no you cannot.
my head: Is she wearing bunny ears?
bongo: Dammit! My porch! Hey!
drunk lady: (turning back toward the street) They call me tinkerbell!
me: That's great. Okay! Have a good night!
drunk lady: somethingelseverytraceyjordanfrom30rock
me: (swinging giant door shut) Have a good night!

So okay, that's an odd little scenario. And yes you bet it makes me grateful for my brown dog even though he looks drunk too with a lampshade on his head.

But here's the really weird thing. I was thinking about how I was going to link back here to talk about the recent sign I experienced...(please stay tuned, it's coming). And if you went back there, you can see why this is weird. And if you didn't, fine! I'll tell you. At the top of that post, (did you finally go that time?) is a picture of tinkerbell. Seriously! Is that nuts? Okay, I'm kinda freaked out.

Let's pause to illustrate a few points using photo evidence:

Giant door behind big dog head

above: Big headed baby and post-op pooch on the porch. I guess tinkerbell has it right, it's a great porch for hanging out...


Me looking all glam for a pregnant lady. Again, as large as I am, how big is that door? BHB was almost fully baked, this was the week before he showed up.


Ok! I'm finally getting to the story. So if you did follow one of my 45 links back to the Courage! Courage! post you probably read about how the hubs and I are making a movie. Starting with a short first, which is very billy bob uh-huh slingblade of us. And if you did read that simpy stuff about how a-scared I am about it, then you'll appreciate what happened. And if you did go back there, you should probably comment there so I know you did. Omg I'm annoying.

The feature is called Nov 13th. The short is called Nov 1st. I won't say much here but I will tell you that the story involves a vedic astrologer. One night hubs and I were talking about said movie and how we need a website for it. So I decided to go search an image for the background of the site. I typed in 'Vedic Astrology Chart' and used google images. I find a few, nothing thrills me until I scroll down and find this one.

So if you just went there you might have noticed what I next got very excited about. Try it, go to that image, and hit 'save as'. Tell me what happens.

Right? Isn't that crazy? Here is what I saw:

I literally almost threw my laptop out of my lap from the shock of it. How! What! Why is this image called "Nov_13_chart.gif". So for those of you reading late night with blurry eyes here is just a reminder: Our feature is called Nov 13th. Seriously.

Upon further review I find that the image comes from another blog, an astrologer's blog. Big whut-whut to Juliana. I scrolled through in search of the answer, and apparently she created this chart for a full moon last Nov 13th, 2008.

So can I get an amen on the freaky-deaky nature of this event? So is it a sign? Do we pretty much have to make this movie?

Tonight handsome husband and I had another meeting about the shoot. We've decided to make it a daily ritual to meet for 20 minutes to check-in on our progress. My current journal (which is being handily ignored in favor of this blog) has this on the cover "Anything you do everyday can open into the deepest spiritual place which is freedom". Rumi.

So, we are going to meet daily. And I'll keep y'all posted. Right now we're choosing between two long weekends to shoot the short. Either Nov 6-9 or Nov 13-16. That's pretty much a no-brainer, right?

Courage! Courage!

Gonna go a little Disney on you here, ready?
Why do we have the dreams we do?

Why do I dream of directing feature films that make people laugh and cry in a dark theater? (It makes me heart drop to even type that) Why should I be inflicted with this practically impossible dream that countless other saps have? Why, damn you, why~!

Medium shot: Jane crying in the rain, crane shot as we lift up and away from her as she shakes her fists at the sky.

I've often wished for a more 'normal' or realistic dream. How about becoming a Dentist? Or a Contract Lawyer? Sure these are tough professions but not freakin' insurmountable. In fact, so sweetly simple. You go to school, you get mounds of debt, you buy a shiny car with seat warmers, you buy a big-ass house, you pay off debt, you raise a couple of kids and freak out when they want to become musicians or filmmakers and do you know why? Because it's a painful, shrapnel filled road filled with disappointment, phonies and existential crisis rendering, gut-wrenching doubt.

So I'm sitting here in my rented house with the sweet, sleeping baby in the next room and the handsome husband typing in the other room (he's pounding out his novel) and my throat closes as I listen to "Title and Registration" on my itunes because this song just about sums it up for me. Dreaming, wishing - reaching and wondering. Will it happen? Or will I die with the disappointment and regret of not doing the thing that I feel somehow destined to do and simultaneously scares the shit out of me?

Ugh. I hate this post. Can you feel my angst? I can't type hard enough into this keyboard to give these words the urgent bold, italic juice that this topic requires. It all sounds so pat and obvious. But. How will I achieve this impossible dream? Cue all of those damn quotable magnets that say shit like 'whatever you dream you can do, do it, get off your ass loser' Oh wait, that's the way it rolls through my addled brain.

Or any of these others that lift my spirits and inspire me in that sparkly, otherworldly way and simultaneously piss me off to no end...



So let's summarize. I need courage, and fast. This fall my mom is going to roll into town to help us out and take care of the ankle-biter so we can shoot our short film...which is a fundraiser for our feature film. Today the husband and I met about it during nap #2 and ohmygawd even talking about it riled up my nerves. Ridiculous? Totally. I can shoot anything for anyone else any day of the week and feel no concern, but when it's the script that hubby wrote that I love, love? I'm shaking in my flip-flops.