Birth Day

When Mr. Moon and I got together, we got busy. By the time we'd been married for one year, we had a one-month old and a business.
Well, I had the child. He had the business.
We both knew we wanted a baby and he knew he needed to start a business in order to support us. He did his part in the baby-making and I did...uh, nothing, in the business.
This was because
(a) I had a nine-year old, a seven-year-old, and a new-born, and
(b) My business sense was in direct inverse proportion to my ability for procreation.

We were both, Mr. Moon and I, thirty-one years old when Lily was born. I thought I was a pretty experienced baby-haver and mama.

And the universe laughed and laughed.

Lily was my fastest birth. Only about fourteen hours of labor. But the child weighed over ten pounds and she had her little hand up by her head which I knew because I could feel it down there, punching my bladder for the last few weeks. It took me a very long time to push her out and when her head finally emerged, her shoulders got stuck. This is a very, very serious problem and can lead to all sorts of problems, including death. But the midwife was fast-thinking and had me flip over to hands and knees (the Gaskin maneuver) and Lily was born. She needed resuscitation. She was blue, she was still.
It was scary.
Outside the day was as beautiful as a day in late September can be. A day like today, in fact. Crystal clear of sky and air and there were lavender roses by the bed and a cradle, hand-made by her papa lay in wait.
Here's what Hank remembers about that day:

The day you were born, May and I stayed home from school. Mom was in labor, and we played out back all day. We pretended to have a traveling cart, with a team of horses, and we kept ourselves entertained while Mama did her job. Dad had made a screened porch into a master bedroom, and that's where you made your appearance. We didn't know your name until Mama used it to conjure you. 

And that's exactly what I did. While our midwife was giving my baby oxygen, she said, "Talk to her. She needs to hear her parents."

And so, even though we had not settled on a name, I called to her. I said, "Lily Rose. Breathe. We love you." And we touched her and she took a breath and she wailed and she wailed and turned rosy pink and the room became clearer and joyful and we all laughed and I took her to my breast and there she was. Perfect and fat and pink and gorgeous and sturdy and strong and given a name. 

Lillian Rose Moon. 

And Hank and May were called in from the backyard to come and greet their new baby sister and I was delirious with joy and determined NEVER GO THROUGH LABOR AGAIN and her father was so happy that when I told him we were never having sex again, he accepted that, and his parents came to see her and they were so pleased and even my mother was there and she took Hank and May to Wendy's and brought us back hamburgers and they were the best hamburgers ever eaten on this planet in the history of all hamburger-eating. That night Lily slept in the bed with us, and it was a miracle every time Lily moved and breathed and nursed and her father and I barely slept, too incredibly stoned on the sheer wonder of her being there between us. I had never loved him so much. 

And today is a day like that one was. Cool and clear and I am thinking of that birth, thinking of that baby, all grown up and a mama times two herself.  I am thinking of the sheer wonder of it all again. The love that ignited the spark of life, the pain and work of labor, the glory of that day, the fear when she did not breathe, the joy when she did. 

Every time I've ever had a baby I felt with their births as if I had been reborn myself. If there is one thing on this earth I am proud of, it is that I know in my heart that I started my children off right, having them at home where the love that got them in there got them out and they were born in love and received in love and they have known love their entire lives and are able now to give and receive love knowing that it is their birthright. 

They were birthed right. 

Happy birthday, Lillian Rose Moon, daughter of my womb, mother of my grandchildren, friend of my heart, glory on this earth. 

It is a beautiful day. And it is Vergil's birthday too. Today is the anniversary of the day he was born and who knew that a little baby boy, born on a mountain in North Carolina in his own mama's bed would grow up and fall in love with my last baby (yes, I did have sex again) and make her so happy and I just sent his mother an e-mail thanking her for bringing him into the world and raising him so right. 

Well, I'm all teary again. 

I've had a walk. There is not one cloud in the sky. My only sorrow is that I had to take down the web of a Golden Orb weaver because it was right in the path of where we walk to get to the clothesline, the hen house. 

I waited until she was safely on that red bucket and I feel bad because I hated to undo her work but I really do not want to run into her when I go to shut the chickens up in the twilight. 

It seems cruel to be mean to a mama today but she can build another web.

I am thinking of all the women who are laboring right this second to bring their own babies into the world. I am sending them and their children love. I am astonished at the way this works, the miracle of it, every time. I would wish with all of my heart that every baby born, every day, is born into love.

What a beautiful day.

Happy Birth Day to us all, even as we are merely reborn into each new day, and especially to Lily and to Vergil.

Love...Mama

It Is My Baby's Birthday

It is Jessie Moon's 24th birthday today. I think that at right this moment, she is flying somewhere over the Atlantic, maybe, flying home from her honeymoon, her sweet husband by her side.

At her wedding, what I wrote and read for them

 started out, as is appropriate, with her birth which was a rainy day, a day where magnolias bloomed, a day when all of my brothers and all of Jessie's siblings and my dearest friends were with me and her father when she was born, a day where, after her birth, the sky cleared and a rainbow appeared.
Sounds unlikely, doesn't it?
Well. That is just the way it happened.
I also talked about dancing. I talked about how Jessie has always been a dancing girl and how she and Vergil dance so beautifully together and how they should always, always keep dancing. In the times of light and in the times of darkness and how in those darker times, they should hold each other especially closely to that they can help each other to find the rhythm again, should it go missing. Because no one knows what the years will deliver but that if they just keep dancing together, it will be all right.
And I believe that with all of my heart.

It's my baby's birthday. She is newly wed. The twenty four years of her life have gone by like a finger snap for me. Like the lighting of a candle and a flame growing up a wick, bringing light.

I've been going back through pictures and of course I'm in tears. If you were here with me, I would show you hundreds of pictures and I would tell you the stories and the stories would involve all of us, her brother, her sisters, her father, me, our shared beloved friends, and then this great love story of her meeting and courting and being courted by Vergil.

Well. Here are a few of those pictures. I have no idea why I've chosen them above all the others but as always, I am just going with my gut. Together they tell a little bit of the story of her life. So far.

Me and that girl, a long time ago. Dog Island.

Jessie and her best friend, Melissa, also on Dog Island. Melissa was one of her bridesmaids. They have been friends and sister-friends and bandmates for forever and ever.

In high school. A picture of the Cicada Ladies being born.

Jessie and her daddy, again, in high school.

With her fairy godparents, Lon and Lis, when she got the mandolin which Lon had made for her. 

Dancing with Vergil in our hallway, the first time he came to visit.

With our dearly beloved Colin who loved her so much and who had to come and check out this Vergil guy. He approved of the Vergil guy. All was good. 

With Owen, the day after he was born.

When she graduated from FSU Nursing School with Miss Nana, her favorite teacher, a woman who had been my favorite teacher when I was in nursing school before Jessie was born.

Jessie and Vergil sitting on the front steps of their house in Asheville right after they moved in.

The day after Gibson's birth when he was still a crumpled little monkey. 

With her sisters right before she got married.

With her husband, right after she got married. 

Jessie and her grandmother, who shared her birthday. I think this is from the year that Jessie turned seventeen and Mother turned 79. Something like that. This is the first birthday of her life that Jessie will not be sharing the day with her grandmother who adored her. I hope it is not too much of a sadness in her heart because in truth, her grandmother is finally and at last in peace and at rest and all of the suffering and unhappiness of her last years are over.

She would be so proud of Jessie. Of that there is no doubt.

It is my baby's birthday. She was born to me twenty-four years ago and she has been light and love and joy ever since. I imagine she always will be. She is a dancing girl. She has found a partner to dance with throughout life. She is dancing her way home across the ocean to us from countries far away where she, I feel certain, has danced joyfully with her fella. She will come home and she will continue to do her own unique and light-filled dance as she works with mother and babies, as she tends the home she and Vergil have made, as she perhaps eventually births her own babies. 

Then she will begin to know how much she is loved. Although, actually, I think she has an inkling already.

Happy birthday, my darling, dancing girl. Happy birthday to Mean Aunt Jessie. Happy birthday to my back-pocket baby.

You are loved. 

Our Birthday Boy

 Owen is three today. Three years old. How is this even possible? 
And when I ask that question, I don't mean how did he get to be three so quickly, what I mean is- he's only been here for three years? On this earth? In our lives?

When I had my first child, I realized that in some way, in some realm, it seemed as if he had always, always been here. Yes, of course I could remember the time before when he wasn't, but, somehow, once I'd met him, I realized that in some way, he had always been here. Just not palpable, perhaps, but still, very much a part of my universe. And I am not a woo-woo person. It just surely felt that way.
And then did again when each of my babies were born and now, I have the same feeling about Owen and his brother Gibson, too.

Yes, their physical presence is relatively new, but their spirits- well. Let's just say that I recognized them immediately at their births.

Three years ago today. There they were. The brand new family. Don't Lily and Jason look like, "Yep, he's here! Our Owen is finally here!"?

So now, of course, I've just been going through old pictures and my god, the child has been such a happy and beautiful little soul for his entire life. 

Every stage of it. I could put one million pictures in here because that's how many I have. Not so many lately because he's learned to hate the camera. But occasionally he will still pose. Mostly with his brother. 

He's so gorgeous, that grandson of mine and he's brought us so much joy. Not just his mama and his daddy but his Mer-Mer and his Boppy, of course. He snatched our hearts out and kept them in his pocket from his first breath.

And of course, his uncle and aunties all adore him. In fact, Owen's entire life has been about being adored. 

 And I think that has a lot to do with the kind of person he is which is a wild, loving person. A curious and demanding and sweet and funny and glorious kind of person.

Yesterday he told his mama that he loves Baby and that he does not want her to put him back in her belly but that we should keep him always.

We feel the same about Owen.

We shall keep him always and he shall keep us. He and his brother both are the latest and most tangible of the heartstrings which bind us all together because in adoring them, we adore each other and we see the love in ever more visible ways.

Happy Birthday, Owen Curtis Hartmann. You are three years old. As impossible as that seems, it is the truth.

You are loved. You are beloved. You are our destiny, our fate, and our joy.

Happy, happy birthday. We'll see you tonight.

Love...Mer Mer

It's My Pity Party, I'll Cry If I Want To

Last night Jessie went out to eat with Lily and Jason and the boys. Here they are, having a fine time. I asked Jessie this morning if the boys had been good. She paused and said, "Well, you know Owen."

It's just impossible for an almost-three year old to sit still at a restaurant. She said that he put a bunch of mustard on his sandwich and then he didn't like it. So his mother licked off the excess mustard.
I have said it before and I will say it again- Lily is the BEST mother.

While they were eating out, I was at home with Mr. Moon in the biggest funk you can imagine. It started in the afternoon, that funk, and it hasn't dissipated yet. I just feel completely useless. I feel as if I don't exist until someone needs me. I feel as if the stuckedness I've been feeling has set like concrete, finally drying and is now hard as a parking lot.

Watching hours of Bravo TV yesterday did not help matters. I didn't even feel like reading. I'm reading a good book but it's depressing. It's depressing because it's about people who get stuck and it's depressing because it is beautifully written and it's a first novel and I didn't write it and there you go. It's depressing because it's just depressing. (For the NYT review of the novel, go HERE.) At one point while watching Bravo TV I decided that even if I didn't feel very well, I could go upstairs and pull out those boxes of unsorted pictures from the past thirty-six years of my life. I could start going through them, at least try to file them in some sort of order.
I reached into the closet to pull out one of the boxes and just the sight of those drug-store photo envelopes holding images of people from three decades ago, some of them now dead, made me want to weep.
Just go ahead and stick a gun barrel in my mouth, I thought. I shoved the box back into the closet and shut the door and went back downstairs and the mice can continue to shred those pictures into nests.

I'm struggling. I am really struggling.
I think that sometimes when you are prone to depression and you fall physically ill, it feels like depression and then, depression does follow. Does this make sense?
No. Why should it? There is nothing logical about depression.

Well. I am going to take a shower, I am going to go to town to run a few errands. I don't have to but I can't simply sit here today, beating myself up for all of the things I am not doing, all of the places I am not being, all of the ways I am not succeeding, all of the dreams I have not allowed myself to have.

Birthdays. Aren't they great?

Happy Friday, y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon

A Birth Day Love

I think Owen spent at least forty-five minutes in the bath tub today. He wanted to wash a Power Ranger and then once he got in there, he just kept having a good time. He didn't need a bath so much as he just wanted to play in the water and I completely understand that and I have no problem with hanging out in the bathroom with him while he plays.
He likes to listen to the seashells in there and hear the ocean in them. He listened to that one above and then told me that it made him think he would like to go to the beach.
I think that's what he told me. Something about going to the beach.

Ah. That boy. I look at that picture of him and I see his mother and I see his father. A perfect blending of genes in a boy who is thinking about the beach and listening to the ocean in a shell.

May is at the beach. It is her birthday today. She called me and we talked. May and I hardly ever talk on the phone without both of us ending up in tears but in a good way. A sweet way. An I-love-you-so-much-it-makes-me-cry way.

Today was the same. I told her that in a way, she had been my Gibson. That second child who completes the lesson of love which children bring with them. The lesson that shows you how absolutely limitless the love you have in your heart for your children is. I told her that I had heard of people who loved their first child so much that they decided never to have another and that I thought those people were cheating themselves of the rest of the message. Not that I think that everyone should have two children. Or any children for that matter, but that for me, it was certainly her birth that taught me how foolish my fears had been for my entire pregnancy with her- the fears that I could never and would never love another child the way I loved Hank and would thus be cheating this second child.

The second she was born (on my bed in a very small trailer house right down the road here in Jefferson County, thirty-four years ago this morning at dawn), and delivered unto my arms, I knew how very foolish those fears had been.
I knew my heart's ability to love was boundless and what a lesson that is.

I've told this before but I will tell it again- that before I got pregnant with May, I kept seeing a light out of the corner of my eye. A little light that would come and then flash away before I could focus on it. Drove me a little crazy, it did, but I was pretty in touch with the cosmos in those days. I wasn't too worried. I sort of figured...

So today on the phone I thanked her for wanting to be here enough to show up as a light way before she showed up as a baby. I thanked her for loving me. And then I said, "Thank you most of all for letting me love you."

And we both cried. And I am crying now.

We do not love our children each in the same way. Any mother who says she does is either lying or a very different sort of mother than I am. How can I love my Jessie the same way I love my Hank? How can I love my Lily the same way I love my May? I cannot. They are not the same and my relationship with each of them is so very different, just as they are.

I love each of them in very special, unique ways but I love them all more than I ever knew I was capable of loving and May is my baby who taught me that.

I don't think anything has made me happier in a very long time than the fact that May and Jessie and I all got to be with Lily when she had Gibson nine weeks ago. It was fitting beyond measure. It was perfect. My second child was with her sister when she had her second child. It was a moment of purest ecstasy for all of us. I have put this picture up before but I am putting it up again.

We are a chain of genes and of spirit and of love, our hands upon each other's bodies, welcoming the newest perfection of the manifestation of the love we all hold for each other.

In some ways, May is me and I am her. Oh, we do not confuse ourselves for each other, but we know we are entangled by more than those strands of RNA and DNA. We are entangled by the strands of our love for each other which is the strongest thing on earth. Just as I am entangled with all of my children but today, it is May I am mostly talking about. The daughter who looks like me, sounds like me, walks like me.

The one who came to me in light and then in body.
She walks in light even as I speak and I love her more than I knew I could and I do believe that love like this is something which even the ages will not diminish. If I believe anything, it is that the love we make and take is something not only as real as our physical beings but more so, and as such, will remain part of the this universe for as long as it continues. And may even have existed before we came to know each other in this existence. I'm going out there on a limb with that one- not quite sure- but as every mother knows, when a child is born, it is almost impossible to remember a time when that child was not there. So...perhaps.

And that's what I'm thinking about this evening as the sun is lowering in the sky and the day's heat is simmering upon the ground and how thirty-four years ago tonight I had had a day of giving birth and taking my newborn to the doctor to have her pronounced perfect (and oh, how that resident hated the idea of a home-born baby!) and then came home to rest and then make a supper out of the garden and how tonight I will also cook potatoes out of my garden and how much I love that child.

Owen has gone home to be with his mama and his daddy and his baby brother whom I already love as much as I love Owen which seems impossible but there you have it.
It's true.

This is my life and the light and the love held within it and these are my babies and it is May's birthday and I am just so damn grateful for all of it and no, I have not, nor will I ever do everything perfectly but you know what? That's not even part of the deal.

I have loved. And May taught me how endless that well of love is.

And she has let me love her and still does and I wish her the happiest of birthdays and we shall gather together soon, this tribe of love of ours, and celebrate that.

Key Lime Pie will be involved.

That and love.

Amen.

Next, Lily's Birthday

It was a good birthday party. There were lots of vegetables and cheese and crackers and a salad and pizza and a yummy cake and ice cream. And presents galore which Owen opened one at a time, all by himself, and squealed with joy and he got boots that he put on immediately and a giant soft elephant and a monkey man doll that his mama made him

and a drum and mallets

that he only wanted to rest his arms on but which he did not want to give up to open the next present and a drum set and an easel and books and stickers and puzzles and , and, and....

He got a tricycle and a red wagon from Bop and Mer.

Figuring out the pedals is going to take some time. He can already do the bell though.
Of course.

Buddy Waylon was there with his mama Shayla and he was a very polite young man and tolerated the fact that Owen was getting one present after another with more grace than I would have managed. They sat together to eat pizza and ice cream. They are beautiful boys.

That's Waylon and Mama Shayla. Daddy Billy couldn't make it. Tummy illness. We missed him fiercely.

The best part for me was when it was time for the cake. Owen's been getting ready for this cake situation for quite some time. He knows how to blow out the candles. And when we told him it was finally and at last, time to have cake, he grabbed me and wanted to sit on my lap, which he did, and they brought in the cake and we all sang Happy Birthday to him and he blew out the candles with great skill and determination. None of those pictures came out, but here he is right after.

He knows how to lick the candles as they come off the cake, too.
He's too young to make a wish so I made one for him.
More. More and more and more.
That was my wish.

And now it's getting on time to Lily's birthday. It was about this time twenty-six years ago that I woke up and lay quietly, feeling that familiar feeling of the uterus beginning it's powerful rhythmic dance. I got up and went outside and sat on the steps and looked up at the stars and knew it had begun. I did not call the midwife or even wake my husband, but waited until I was certain sure.

She was born about five the next afternoon- my shortest labor by far.
I labored in the house and in the yard where Hank and May had built a town in the camellia bushes and played as I walked the perimeter of the yard with Mr. Moon. When it was finally time to deliver her, the midwife and I had to do some fancy steps to get her out. Over ten pounds, that brawny child had her hand up by her head, increasing the difficulty and there was shoulder dystocia but I flipped over to hands and knees and she was born and the midwife had to get her going. It was scary, but then she began to breathe and she was fat and healthy and took to the ninny right away and it was heaven and a miracle and friends were with me and champagne was drunk and pineapple juice and the joy of her cry rang throughout the world or at least, in my heart it did.

Well.

The cake is out of the oven. It sits in three pans, tomorrow to be three layers and it is so rich with chocolate and with lemon peel and orange peel, just enough.
It is the season of cakes and of birth and of change of season and of that wavery line which gets so thin at solstice times. The curtain can almost part and glimpses gotten of a woman squatting, of great effort being made, of a woman's face begging for help and I remember that when I finally, finally quit fighting the process and began to chant, "I love you, baby, come on baby, I love you baby, come on baby," she descended and made her way into life.

Sometimes you have to coax that spirit into being not just with blood and muscle and the shifting of bones but with words too.

I don't know.

It worked for me.

Beautiful Lily was born, beautiful Lily has given birth and will do it again.

Good work I did that day, twenty-six years ago.

I hope her cake turns out well. I am so glad she was born. I love her so much, my Lily girl.

Pictures Of A Birthday Party

When we left Lily's house just a little while ago she said, "Now go home and update your blog."
She just likes to see cute pictures of her son.
Well. What can I do but her bidding?

It was really a fun party. Just a few of us. Just enough. Lily and Jason and Billy and Shayla and Waylon and me and Mr. Moon and Hank and Owen.
The kids love Uncle Hank. Both Waylon and Owen think that Hank is the coolest thing ever.
They're right but somehow my presence scared Waylon to death tonight. I have no idea what I did but from the moment I stepped out of the car, he was NOT HAVING IT!
I felt bad but not that bad. I mean, I'm the old woman that children in grocery stores flirt with. I was mostly just puzzled.
Here he is, holding on to his Dad's hair, giving me the suspicious look.

Personally, I think he believes I want to steal him. He could be right.

Owen mostly just helped his Bop celebrate. Here he is, sticking candles in the cake. Waylon helped with this project too.

Then he helped Bop blow the candles out.
"Make a wish!" I cried as they breathed in.

I hope they did. I swear to you- that cake was not tilted like that when we left the house with it. It's sort of a Dr. Seuss cake in the picture. Who cares? It was good.

Then Owen helped Bop unwrap presents and read cards.

I got Bop three shirts and a pair of shorts. Owen had to try on all the shirts.

Actually, Kathleen gave him this shirt. It's traditional.

Here's one I gave him.

The best part of the whole crazy evening, though, was when Owen stumbled and fell and began to cry and Shayla offered him comfort. He went right to her and hugged her tight. And then he kept on. Hugging her and hugging her. And hugging her.
That boy! He just loves to hug the pretty ladies. Check this out:

He knew he was getting some lovin'. It reached the point of ridiculousness and he was still hugging, still grinning.

It was almost embarrassing. Owen was full of the hugs tonight but Shayla got the best and longest. Without a doubt.

We finally wrapped it all up after everyone played some sort of crazy video game while Shayla and I washed the boys.


Mr. Moon won.

Which is fitting. It's his birthday.

Ah-lah. I am tired. So were these boys.

Another successful birthday celebrated. Thank y'all for coming along.
Now let's all get some rest.

Love...Ms. Moon