First of May

It's the baby-child's nineteenth birthday today and also my mother's eighty-first. Add that many years together and you get a century of life.
Sort of amazing when you think about it.
We got together last night with the usual suspects- the tribe, the troops, and had a supper and a cake. It was a carrot cake that I'd made with at least a pound of carrots in it and an apple, too, all grated into the batter. Billy did not have a piece. I promised to try and figure out how to make him a bacon cake for his birthday and I will.
I can't help but think back on all my kids' birthdays to the original day of their births, each one locked away in my heart and my mind, the happiest days of my life without a doubt.
This time nineteen years ago on Jessie's birth day, I was probably throwing up. I always vomit in labor. A lot. My midwife, who had been with me for every one of my babies, came into the house as I was puking and said, "Yep, she's in labor."
And I had been, all night.
I am a slow baby-haver. Slow, slow, slow.
But that last birth was such a sweet one. The first of May- how could it not be?
I walked and walked and walked. Besides puking, I walk in labor. It's the only way I can handle the pain.
My husband and I took a walk outside, making our way slowly around the neighborhood, stopping for contractions. It was raining on and off, but warm. The magnolias were in bloom and he picked some for me from a tree down the road. We brought them home and put them in a vase by the bed and I like to think that one of Jessie's first just-born experiences was smelling those magnolias.
My girlfriends were there. My friend Anna from Norway, my Lynn, my Liz (not my Lis, whom I didn't really know then). They were all in the kitchen, cooking away, making a feast. Lynn decorated with paper banners. I couldn't have cared less, being busy in the otherworld of transitioning a life from there to here, which is a completely mind-and-body-occupying task. Also there were my brother, White, from Washington, my man, of course, my midwife, my other three children.
I finally pushed Jessie out about five-thirty in the afternoon. She was perfect in every way, right there from the beginning. No struggle to get this one going.
Another midwife friend showed up just after Jessie was born. She'd been at another birth and I think she cried because she'd missed mine. She dived to my face and kissed me.
My other two brothers showed up right after the birth to meet their new niece. They are my baby brothers, Chuck and Russell, and in so many ways, my own first babies because I was twelve when one was born, thirteen when the other came. They stand in my mind as the real joys of my childhood. Chuck and Russell and before that, learning to read.
When my brother Russell came in, he said he'd seen a huge rainbow on the way over.
Perfect icon for the child I'd just birthed, this baby I hadn't known I'd wanted.
She was a small thing for me- only seven and a half pounds and here she is today, almost six feet tall and she shimmers when she walks and she shimmies when she dances and she just finished her freshman year of college with all A's and she plays the mandolin and obviously, the fairy godmothers that showed up at her arrival were done for the day and just emptied their sacks of charms upon her, then flew off home for their suppers.
After the birth, everyone ate the feast that had been prepared, except for me because my stomach, after all that puking, surely wasn't up to it.
I woke up around two a.m., hungry as a beast, and I took Jessie into the kitchen with me because I couldn't leave my newborn in the bedroom, and the only thing left to eat was egg salad which I do not like. Every shred of the carrot cake had been consumed and that's probably why I made a carrot cake yesterday.
I hear that my mother was born on an elevator because her mother gave birth so fast. She's still strong and hearty and I think she had a good time last night, too. She and Jessie have shared nineteen birthdays together and I doubt I could ever have given her a better gift than a grandchild to share birthdays with. She and Jessie have a special bond.
I named Jessie after her grandfather, her daddy's daddy. His name was Jesse and he was named after his Aunt Jessie, so there you go.
Loops and circles and arcs of light and life.
Happy birthday, Jessie girl. Happy birthday, Mama.
I am so proud to be a link all of this, whatever it is.
I was born to one, gave birth to the other, it's been something, and so it continues to be.