The Fire Tribe

Abe,
Today you and I danced to:

• “Windfall” by Son Volt
• “Redemption Song” by Bob Marley
• “Big Indian” by The Dandy Warhols
• “Tomorrow Comes Today” by Gorillaz
• “Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away” by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

That means it was a good day.

Sweetest dreams my friend,
Pa-

P.S. I also read to you about the rocks and minerals of New England: micas, garnets, feldspars and quartz. You slept in my lap and the words fell around you like raindrops.

Abe,
It started early this morning with cramps that swept over your mother like slow rolling waves. She moved like a caged tiger, pacing with a fierce energy. We'd look at each other, wide eyed and say, “It's happening…” though honestly we didn't know what that meant. We woke up the midwife with a telephone full of questions. She assured us that all was fine and that you were a long ways off.

Your Mom and I moved like dancing, cheek to cheek, swaying gently in the dark, movement against fear and pain.

We had no road map, no previous experiences to compare this against, no touchstones but each other.

I went to bed late, with the thought that it might be a day or more before I met you. I was supposed to be well rested. “She'll need you more later,” the midwife said. I woke at eight, feeling refreshed and guilty, wondering why I had been allowed to sleep so long. Your Mom was up all night, quietly ushering you down and into this world. She sat in the dark and meditated and moved with the pain. I am sorry that I missed this time, but understand it was for her alone. Or for you two alone.

Liz the midwife came over about nine to check in. Your Mom was so composed, so calm and clear that we all just figured the jet was still on the runway. Liz conducted a quick exam, 'breaking the bag' and discovering that your Mom was ten centimeters dilated. I still don't know what ten centimeters dilated means, but Liz was amazed and suggested that we decide quickly if we wanted to go to the birthing center or not. We decided to stay here and welcome you home at home.

Suddenly the apartment was like a mobile hospital. There was an oxygen tank in the bedroom, absorbent pads everywhere and a wooden birthing chair/archaic torture device that proved to be as uncomfortable as it looked. Your Mom was the star of a well-trained three ring circus wearing surgical gloves.

For three hours a team of two doctors and two students guided your Mom through the sweeping waves of pain. She stood. She crouched. She slammed her hand on the floor. She grabbed things. She roared and screamed. She breathed like a dragon. Eventually she ended up on all fours, in the tiny alcove in the center of our apartment with at least one attendant at every corner.

I did what I could: warm compresses, massage, quiet encouragement. I never doubted; I never worried. It seemed so clear to me that everything was going be all right.

I thought I saw your head peek out, thick with black hair. I didn't believe it; the mechanics seemed impossible.

You arrived very suddenly. The crown of your head, peeking a half inch more than before and then whoosh, your head, your face, your wrinkled beautiful nose. You filled your lungs with a shout to match your Mom's. Another rush, another push and you were in my arms. A beautiful, squirming baby boy with fingers and toes and squinty eyes, no doubt alarmed by the bright world.

I am not the witness I promised. I have no gleaming details for you of those first few seconds. Your voice was powerful strong. Your Mom saw you and made a musical note, a breathless sound I've never heard before and likely never will again. It's OK, it was enough to be in that moment. She touched you and pulled you close, forgetting that you were still attached. There was movement and discussion all around and but I heard no words. There was you and your Mom and that was all. We touched, all three of the new tribe. We told you your name, a secret until that moment: Abraham Amedee.

I cut the cord and then the many helpers swooped over your Mom. I took you into the bedroom and we lay together on the bed and talked. You were calm and attentive and looking around. I hugged you close to my chest and had waves of my own come crashing over me. The first time I said, “My son,” tears came to my eyes.

You were born at 12:10 p.m. on Saturday, October 1, 2005. It was sunny when you were born, but the day also brought torrential rains, hailstones and thunder and lightning. I am vain and proud enough to think that the gods were pleased to announce your arrival. You weighed 7 lbs. 9 oz. and were 19 3/4 inches long. You have clubfeet- ankles that turn in at uncomfortable angles. They will never stop you from running, jumping or climbing.

Here you are, sweet heart of the universe.

Pa-

A lifetime of thanks to Liz, Amanda, Evelyn and Jen, who carried us all through this on invisible wings.

Child,
I remember being a hero one night in southern Thailand. Your Mom and I were standing in a dense crowd on New Year's Eve. A paper mache Osama bin Lauden had just pranced past. The sky over our head was alive with sparkles and fire, gunpowder and singed paper raining down on our heads from the fireworks display. The explosions echoed off the skyscrapers and made our bellies rumble.

Your Pa thought he'd died and gone to an over-stimulated heaven; your Mom just thought she died. She tugged on my shirt and looked gray as a ghost.

It was easy fix. I gathered her behind me and lunged through the crowd, pushing a wave of people ahead of us like a fierce little barge. And after two minutes in the clear air past the crowds, your Mom was fine.

Perhaps I am a hero of little problems, but it's good to feel useful. Sometimes when I think about the coming event of your delivery, I get kinda freaked out. I'm afraid of how helpless I will feel, watching your Mom in such pain.

I know that labor is an incredibly natural part of the process and all that. I know your Mom has the strength and will to manage the pain and fatigue. I know that her hurt will be paid for one thousand times over with the great prize of you. I know that I can be supportive and truly “be there” for her during this amazing moment. I know that I'm not supposed to be able to stop the pain or make it all go away. I know that's ridiculous and unreasonable to wish for. But I can't help it. I just want to be able to help or ease her mind when she's feeling bad. It makes me crazy to sit by, useless.

I will try to help, but I have already been told not to take it personally when it doesn't work.

If all I can be is a witness, I will be the best witness that ever was. I will recall every detail and treasure every moment and keep it safe for all time. If you ever ask, you will hear the story in heroic detail. Actually, you'll probably hear it whether you ask or not; I'm like that with stories. But that's a way I can contribute to the moment, and maybe even be useful.

See you soon,
pa-

These Chuck Taylor All-Stars were crocheted by your Grandma T. Every kids' first pair of kicks should be this cool.

Child,
Sundays are the only day of the week into which alarm clocks may not intrude. And sleep we do, sometimes, like today, until 10:30. We were up too late last night, watching Six Feet Under. I have been told that sleep and time for watching movies will soon be lost to us, but we are enjoying them now.

All I do is make the eggs, but I get credit for Sunday's breakfast. So it's eggs scrambled with soy cheese, chicken sausage, cinnamon toast and fruit. Tiny local cantaloupes are a Sunday favorite, but the blueberries make our eyes water. We eat slowly and plan the day.

Your Mom moves gingerly these days. Her hips ache, perhaps with the weight of you or from a muscle pulled at the gym. We don't go as far these days, but we don't seem to mind. We visit Costello's and eat scones and tiny chocolate-coconut-creamy things. I know, I know, we just had a huge breakfast; Sundays are for sleep and food and gathering in. You will grow up with a long line of Sunday rituals.

I am distracted by football on the TV, soccer beamed in from France. Your Mom makes me focus. Together we make a picture of the future. It's truly a picture, a drawing of three years from now. You are at the heart of this picture; it's about where you live and who surrounds you. It's about how we want our family to grow. We live on the east coast and you can play with your cousins and see your grandparents on the weekends and more. It's about the kind of work we do because it's important and because you should see work as a creative and meaningful endeavor, not as drudgery or the selling off of precious life.

It's a good picture and I hope you grow up in it.

Inspired by other ideas, we swing by the library and raid the shelves: books about making books and Steve Earle's El Corazon CD.

Grocery shopping is an eternal part of our Sunday rituals. Surprisingly, we have winnowed down our Sunday grocery trips to one quick run to the pricey organic store. We cruise the samples (dijon mustard and blueberry-flavored bifidus enzymes) and grab a handful of items. The new bagging clerk is a knucklehead. K- and I debate whether bagging ability falls under the rubric of common sense.

I sneak out on Sunday afternoons and go the climbing gym. Sometimes I feel silly climbing fake rocks indoors, but as soon as I touch my hand to the wall the world slips away from me. I know holding still is the right way to meditate, but taichi, yoga and all the other sanctioned forms of calming the mind fail me. I got to be moving and it seems if I'm bodily at risk, I'm right where I belong. I spend my time in the bouldering room, climbing short, intense routes that don't require ropes and pulleys and partners to catch your falls. Mats are good for that.

I leave the gym and am struck by my good life. I feel great and grateful for this day, sun shining after Saturday's prescient rainfall. I feel strong and alive, poor and ambitious, ready for everything and anything. The promise of you fills my thoughts everyday.

While I was at the gym, your Mom sent your grandparents ideas and info about visiting you.

Sundays are nap days. And then dinner. Sleep and food and gathering in.

After dinner we drift off into our private orbits. I do laundry and work stuff. Your Mom fusses around and plans her week. Later we sit together and eat treats. We draw up a contract of sorts. It has terms and conditions that instruct us to eat pie with friends and write books next weekend. It reminds me to sleep. This, of course, is negotiable.

I'll rest my hand gently across you in minutes.

Good night.

Pa-

Child,
I have heard small stories about what my parents' life was like when I was born. I have seen a handful of bleached out pictures. And still I wonder. I wonder more about it now, as we prepare for your arrival, than I ever have before. I want these pages to offer you some record of what life is like for Kristin and I: who we are, how we spend our time, what this place is like and what's on the stereo.

Tuesday I woke up in a hotel in Eugene. I travel for my work, sometimes a lot, to the various cities and towns of Oregon. Tuesday was typical of my work days; I stood up in front of 25 people and drew a big picture on the wall for three hours.

I missed my time late at night with you belly-kicking on Monday. I imagine that traveling will get harder after you're here. I already miss Kristin terribly when I go, but both of you? That'll be crushing, the gravity of my time away.

It's great fun to have a job drawing on walls and telling stories. It's a way of teaching I've discovered that puts all my strange quirks to good use. I hope that throughout your life you know me as a teacher; it is decent work and keeps me from disappearing completely into the dark hours of my days. I am outgoing and funny when I teach and train. I am expansive and thoughtful and my intentions hum strong and true. I met your mother in a training session I was leading. Teaching jobs have launched me into the greatest adventures. At day's end, it feels OK to be a teacher.

As a way to introduce myself to the group, I told them that you were on your way. Now there's a small, sweet pool of goodwill for you in Eugene. I think people are delighted by the idea of the eternal hope children promise. And they get to tease parents-to-be about the forthcoming loss of sleep and a steady stream of dirty diapers. How touching. And original.

I drove back from Eugene with my colleague Trish. She spent much of the trip surfing the internet on her cell phone. This is an arduous process in this day and age because the screens in telephones have such poor resolution. By the time you read this, today's most amazing technology will be relics. My sluggish phone connection to the web will be a historical oddity. Cell phones will be small and strange and beyond my imagination.

Trish and I talked a lot on the trip. I think you have opened up some vein in me; I recall little details of my life and have sudden outbursts of random, unnecessary philosophy. People have been very tolerant of my stories that go nowhere. I hope I am not moving into that phase of life where I think what I think is worth everyone else thinking about.

When I got home I immediately checked the phone messages, snail mail and e-mail. Though I claim strong anti-social tendencies, I have a compulsive need to be in contact. It's an ugly vanity I think. Happily your Grandma wrote a note. As she sorted through her late mother's papers she found a family listing that she sent. She didn't suggest we give you any of these names, but I pass them along to you as part of your songline: “…a list of the names of her mother and siblings, the Durochers or Desrochers: Celina, Malvina, Mary Louise, Olive, Anna, Eva (Anna & Eva were twins-Anna was my memere) and Laura who was the baby of the family. The brothers were Francis, Peter, Dave, Fred and Paul who were twins, Henry and Joseph.” That makes Anna your great-great grandmother.

After testing my contact with the world I went straight to bed. I don't often nap at five in the afternoon, but training absolutely exhausts me. It just pours out of me until I'm completely empty. I can't do it any other way. The long drives don't help any either.

The evening traced a common ritual. Your mother and I eat together as often as we can, though we rarely eat the same meal. We have different foods, she and I. I eat nothing but chicken in convenient formats. She eats vegetables, rice, fake and sometimes real meat. She is feeding you well.

I spent several hours that evening working on the computer creating a graphic for a work Fun Day flyer. Sadly it was a rush job and not a very good one. Even though I think I did a bad job of it, I am an archivist. If you ask me someday, I bet you I can find a copy of that water skier on crutches.

As ever, I stayed up too late. When I finally laid down, you booted me in the hand a few times as I talked my silent talk to you. Your Mom was awake. These days she's having a hard time sleeping. She'll wake up at two or three and be awake and fidgety for a hour or more. I don't help matters any by arriving to bed so late and needing to grab her midsection to feel for you. It's rather impolite really, but I do it every night. It's like living near the ocean and hearing the surf; your body voice is soothing and magical.

The day fades from me.

pa-

Child,
I remember french toast, cinnamon and sugar mixed in a plastic bear with a flip top head, grilled cheese sandwiches on square perfect bread, tiny sweet pickles and flat Coca-Cola served over ice. These were my favorite things. I remember coffee can santas and snowmen, apple cider and countless gifts under the tree. I remember a tape-to-tape boombox with short wave radio stations, crackling static from around the world. I used to record the garbled messages and mix them into the spaces between songs. When I asked my Mom why I had gotten this gift, delivered in July, far from my birthday and giving holidays, she said, “Your Grandma loves you, you know.” Before that moment I had never considered it; her love was a constant, too easily taken for granted. She fed me, marvelled at how much I grew between visits and was content to sit together quietly. We did a lot of that last month when I visited her. She was tired and drawn, ravaged by illness and cure. She asked after you and looked forward to your arrival.

Child, your great grandmother passed away today. I am so sorry for you both, that you will never meet. She was strong and sweet and very beautiful. The music in your family runs through her; she could play any instrument and could pick up a tune by ear. She was always good to me. I think you would have liked her a whole lot.

I miss my Grandma.

pa-

Child,
You are a fire in my heart.

You are the sleepless in my night.

We share a turning, you and I. Late at night when I settle into bed, long after your Mom has curled up to sleep, I reach for you. I rest on my side and gently push against your red room. And you always push back. A kick, a punch, a rumble and tug, a twist inside; you keep my hours.

Do you feel the same perfect stillness I do, the way the cool air and darkness wrap over us like an ivy? The night is alive, full of promise and possibility. You might have the greatest idea ever for a story or hear the perfect crush of a song in the headphones. Raccoons may come prospecting in your backyard or maybe you just bounce in place, subject to a strange gravity no one admits to understanding. Every morning I make a promise to sleep and every night I break it. Sleep is all fine and good, but it feels like thievery. I drag through my days, anxious for the life the night brings. I come alive.

And there you are, bouncing and bashing around. At one, at two and even at three, I feel you swimming, rolling in space. I make guesses: hands or feet? dreaming or awake? rumba or disco?

Everyone seems delighted to warn us about sleep loss. They remind us that we won't get a good night's sleep for two years. Exhaustion is apparently a symptom of parenthood. I know that there will be nights when I will wish and wish that you would sleep. But I also know that the only thing that would make this very night any better would be you near me. I would love to share this time with you.

When I lay down to sleep and rest my hand on your belly home, as I will do shortly, I am briefly alone with you. I talk to you, words too quiet to hear, but sent nonetheless. I tell you about my day or about the last idea or song I heard humming through the wires. And you kick and punch and rumba along, living the night your own private way. When I drop my hand and lose my contact with you, I get sad for one minute. I can't explain it exactly. I miss you. I wonder how long until you kick again or bash and bounce around. I feel sorry that I will miss it, finally laid low, temporarily defeated by sleep.

You are a fire in my heart.

pa-

Child,
Four years ago today, your Mom and I were married. It was a most amazing day, warm and light. I have never felt so surrounded by love; your whole family was there, celebrating with us.

The wedding was as we live, artful- in a do-it-yourself kind of way, and rich with friendship. A friend married us, another did the flowers, another the cake, the dress, the photographs and so on. Everything was important and every moment was a treasure. Friends and family stood and spoke about us, as individuals and as a couple. And then we spoke, read our vows to each other and made a lifelong promise to each other and this fierce family of yours.

I read my vows to your Mom again last night, as she drifted off to sleep. They are still true and now, even more alive. The love we honored that day is the very wire you hum through. You are a celebration of love, deep and abiding. You are founded in loyalty and honesty and fidelity. You are love manifest.

Pa-