freed from a marathon nursing session (another growth spurt already, my little love?) i perused the bookshelf for what i remember not and happened across a journal that my sister gave me as i was about to embark on my first trip to VN twenty-five years after our phamily left to meet relatives that have haunted our childhood. as with all my journals, it is sporadic, inchoate, inconsistent. when you grow up with two older siblings and a bratpack of cousins you learn to destroy your diaries as you go along.
i came across this undated entry from sometime in 2001 in the house on 25th St where i lived with 10, jujubee, and sometimes el. (i usually cannot remember dates, i still chronicle my history by where i was living at the time.) back at the turn of the century, i used to write creatively & perform while procrastinating on mind-deadening grad school.
this entry was a dream that i had. an electrifying gathering of many and i was giving a toast or a speech. i was me, but i was not. i think i might have been a man. did i dream this or was this something i heard and remembered in my subconscious? perhaps from another lifetime. so powerfully had i been moved in my slumbers, i roused and in the liminal space between twilight and dawn, i scrawled this down. only one other time in my life have i been so productive in my dreams, and that was to solve a particualrly sticky algebra problem. and now since my speechmaking days are a distant memory, i share this with you because many are the corny, trite or trying-too-hard things i've written--especially in the spoken word zeitgeist era (though i've always considered myself a poet not a spoken word artist; i like iambic pentameter, sestinas and portmanteau) that will never see the light of day nor tarnish your coracles, but this is actually good. this is not the truest thing i have ever said or believed (only my sister knows that) and yet there is something sterling about this that gives me that frisson of third eye clarity that i get when i speak from my heart. which happens not enough mired in the mundacity of everyday life. maybe one day when i write the novels i have brewing in the back of my mind, i will use it. [ed. note: the ellipses represent either dramatic pauses or lacunas where my dream skipped a groove or the roaring of the adulating crowd moved to testify like when the warriors were in the playoffs] :
as far as the spirit can see
are many peoples
many waters
many lands
many faiths
many nations
our common belief unites us
our common belief in true freedom, justice & equality
our belief makes us sisters & brothers
this belief makes our numbers multitudes
it is our reason for living and our reason for dying...
we have learned much from each other...
our ancestors give strength, spirit & knowledge to the world...
my sisters and brothers, we are Hope...
and in every particle, every patch of this earth
there is another
who yearns to be free
the earth herself will resound with our fierce hope
my sisters & brothers
stand up and raise your fist
join in this toast salute
and roar together to fill your body & soul
let the winds carry our voices to every ...
may our words be fertile
may our actions be collective
say with me
free the land
free our people!
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
father's day
father's day has always been something of a mystery to me.
my first memory of father's day is in the kindergarten because school is where one acculturates to holidays when you come from an immigrant family. my parents had just separated and mom & us kids had moved to the mainland from honolulu before the school year started to be closer to my maternal grandparents and motley aunties, uncles, cousins, malteses, zebra finches & seahorses crammed into a three-bedroom across the street. mom was working in a factory job. i played store with food stamps. i had hot cocoa for the first time and burnt my tongue. and i think my dad was going to visit us that summer. my teacher was Mrs. Alexander and at that time, single mothers were still very uncommon. for father's day Ms. Alexander had us twist two strands of yarn around a wire hanger to make a padded hanger for our fathers. well, i chose green & black. camouflage colors. for the jungle. because my dad was in the army. and a whole lot of jumbled things about international politics, smuggled black & white documentaries, war, patriotism, and sacrifice that my 6-year-old brain could wrap itself around. i vaguely remember explaining this to Mrs. Alexander and her assistant. i also faintly remember Mrs. Alexander coming to a home visit with mom though the timing isn't clear and me having some trepidation about it as i played on rusty-nail planks in the backyard of our first apartment on Reynard Way. i know that since that time it was verboten to mention my father for various reasons. i didn't stay long at that school.
i don't know what happened to that hanger. our inheritance consisted of abstruse heartaches and a couple of briefcases of scattered contents that we siblings have secretly pilfered over the years. my brother has the flag; my sister the passport; myself the news clippings. i remember seeing only one token of father's day in there. a construction paper card from my sister that resembled a button-up shirt & tie--the quintessential symbol of a white white-collar father. i guess elementary school indoctrinates kids to be upwardly mobile (teleology of the nation-state blah blah). our father went bare-chested, he wore aloha shirts, tight butterfly blue-collars, formal khaki guayaberas, bộ áo bà ba đen with hierarchically-knotted keffiyeh, and camouflage.
so since my dad was an ocean away, father's day has been rather disconnected and enigmatic to me though i did learn rather quickly and shrewdly how the refugee-single-mom-absentee-dad thing garnered lots of sympathy partic when i flaked on some homework (see bright but does not apply herself for more on that.) my friend's fathers and their relationship to them were all intimidating, baffling, and inexplicable to me.
of course, i make an effort on father's day for my stepdad; at least, i have since i stopped being angry at the world for my laissez faire-latch key childhood and angsty adolesence, ceased being resentful that he wasn't my real father, and finally accepted the unconditional love he always gave us kids (i'm probably the only person who got all misty-eyed when phillip "he's not my father"stepfather became a zombie in Shaun of the Dead. that scene gets me everytime.) still, it is an effort, not burdensome mind you, but something that doesn't come easily to me, like a favored ballad that i can only hum and sing the chorus and occasional odd word or lyric. perhaps i still take him for granted.
so this father's day is the first that i have felt freed of all those past memories, forgotten memories, and lack of memories. the first that i have felt the simple gratitude and love that makes this a holiday. and all for my daughter's father. it is said that having children is healing; through them you remember the magical wonder in Life and through them you re-live your past hurts and hopefully learn, and forgive, and heal. and so, this is the first father's day that i know what it is to feel gratitude for a father, to have a loving, engaged, and present father. one who stays up til the wee hours cooking & cleaning that i may be with our child.
thank you, my love.
my first memory of father's day is in the kindergarten because school is where one acculturates to holidays when you come from an immigrant family. my parents had just separated and mom & us kids had moved to the mainland from honolulu before the school year started to be closer to my maternal grandparents and motley aunties, uncles, cousins, malteses, zebra finches & seahorses crammed into a three-bedroom across the street. mom was working in a factory job. i played store with food stamps. i had hot cocoa for the first time and burnt my tongue. and i think my dad was going to visit us that summer. my teacher was Mrs. Alexander and at that time, single mothers were still very uncommon. for father's day Ms. Alexander had us twist two strands of yarn around a wire hanger to make a padded hanger for our fathers. well, i chose green & black. camouflage colors. for the jungle. because my dad was in the army. and a whole lot of jumbled things about international politics, smuggled black & white documentaries, war, patriotism, and sacrifice that my 6-year-old brain could wrap itself around. i vaguely remember explaining this to Mrs. Alexander and her assistant. i also faintly remember Mrs. Alexander coming to a home visit with mom though the timing isn't clear and me having some trepidation about it as i played on rusty-nail planks in the backyard of our first apartment on Reynard Way. i know that since that time it was verboten to mention my father for various reasons. i didn't stay long at that school.
i don't know what happened to that hanger. our inheritance consisted of abstruse heartaches and a couple of briefcases of scattered contents that we siblings have secretly pilfered over the years. my brother has the flag; my sister the passport; myself the news clippings. i remember seeing only one token of father's day in there. a construction paper card from my sister that resembled a button-up shirt & tie--the quintessential symbol of a white white-collar father. i guess elementary school indoctrinates kids to be upwardly mobile (teleology of the nation-state blah blah). our father went bare-chested, he wore aloha shirts, tight butterfly blue-collars, formal khaki guayaberas, bộ áo bà ba đen with hierarchically-knotted keffiyeh, and camouflage.
so since my dad was an ocean away, father's day has been rather disconnected and enigmatic to me though i did learn rather quickly and shrewdly how the refugee-single-mom-absentee-dad thing garnered lots of sympathy partic when i flaked on some homework (see bright but does not apply herself for more on that.) my friend's fathers and their relationship to them were all intimidating, baffling, and inexplicable to me.
of course, i make an effort on father's day for my stepdad; at least, i have since i stopped being angry at the world for my laissez faire-latch key childhood and angsty adolesence, ceased being resentful that he wasn't my real father, and finally accepted the unconditional love he always gave us kids (i'm probably the only person who got all misty-eyed when phillip "he's not my father"stepfather became a zombie in Shaun of the Dead. that scene gets me everytime.) still, it is an effort, not burdensome mind you, but something that doesn't come easily to me, like a favored ballad that i can only hum and sing the chorus and occasional odd word or lyric. perhaps i still take him for granted.
so this father's day is the first that i have felt freed of all those past memories, forgotten memories, and lack of memories. the first that i have felt the simple gratitude and love that makes this a holiday. and all for my daughter's father. it is said that having children is healing; through them you remember the magical wonder in Life and through them you re-live your past hurts and hopefully learn, and forgive, and heal. and so, this is the first father's day that i know what it is to feel gratitude for a father, to have a loving, engaged, and present father. one who stays up til the wee hours cooking & cleaning that i may be with our child.
thank you, my love.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
yarnage
alot has happened twixt then and now. too much to recount in the respite i have while bébé is snuggled on my bosom in a sling dreaming of bú (sometimes i can hear her little lips smacking away, other times i have to towel off the drool from my clavicle).
i am planning to blog about her birth by and by. elevator version is: all natural drug-free homebirth; 24 hours in labor; just over an hour of pushing; her hand was right alongside her face (gave me a 2nd degree tear which i chose not to get stitched. healed up nicely. thank the goddess! your yoni is never the same tho); she opened her eyes and started mewling as soon as her mouth emerged, even before her body was even born! she was lifting her head from the get-go, no small feat for a creature whose head practically weighed more than her body. the girl is feisty, headstrong and determined. hmm, wonder who she gets that from? yes, there are birth photos & video, and no, i don't plan on posting them to the blog. my yoni would rather be un-notorious. as i said to the boys hurling beads at me while hollering "show us your tits" in new orleans during mardi gras while T scavenged for lagniappes, "my mama raised me better than that!"
for now, i have found my cosmic yarnage twin--except i am infinitely less skilled at yarn craftage. if you don't have a yarn stash in the eaves, nooks and crannies of your house and if you don't have a profile on ravelry.com, you will not get this. seriously. stop reading.
the morning i went into labor, i bought an "amish" washing machine (bought from that company but hey, it wasn't just a punchline, the online amish store does indeed exist, and has a cool wringer, and who would have guessed that i have an affinity for the pennsylvania deutsch? it's the apocalyptic survivalist-cum-granddaughter of my grandparents in me. what can i say, this may make me white, but i love kitchen gadgets nd household sundries even/especially non-electric ones. i just got a foley food mill earlier this week. now, what can i mill?),
8 skeins of ooh so pretty felting wool (in twins) and two hanks of organic cotton yarn. on sale natch. now my yarn treasure box is overfilling. since it was online, i wasn't able to employ the basic techniques of a Yarn Collector however, i did admire the ooh so pretty felting yarn for months & months, would make rationalizations, put it in my online shopping basket, would be rational, delete it, and would come up with more rationalizations, replace it, and so on and so forth, before succumbing to imminent-labor-onset-major-project hormones and decisively purchased them for forthcoming, small but IMPORTANT projects beyond my skill level which i will diligently and heuristically plunge into. sometime. in the future. when i magically have more free time. projects to be added to my lifetime to-do list which i keep misplacing. now what did i buy them for? it's the post-birth hormones and sleep deprivation that make me forget.
my beloved T-sten doesn't understand why i keep buying more yarn (in singles and duos) or rather how the yarn mysteriously multiplies (duh, it's with the dust bunnies. everyone knows how fecund they are) but we've made a tacit agreement about each other's creative hobbies that he won't ask about the yarnage and i won't ask about the photog accoutrements.
let's chalk it up to another stupid power, my hoarding of nifty household gadgets & yarn. if only i could put this on my resume.
i am planning to blog about her birth by and by. elevator version is: all natural drug-free homebirth; 24 hours in labor; just over an hour of pushing; her hand was right alongside her face (gave me a 2nd degree tear which i chose not to get stitched. healed up nicely. thank the goddess! your yoni is never the same tho); she opened her eyes and started mewling as soon as her mouth emerged, even before her body was even born! she was lifting her head from the get-go, no small feat for a creature whose head practically weighed more than her body. the girl is feisty, headstrong and determined. hmm, wonder who she gets that from? yes, there are birth photos & video, and no, i don't plan on posting them to the blog. my yoni would rather be un-notorious. as i said to the boys hurling beads at me while hollering "show us your tits" in new orleans during mardi gras while T scavenged for lagniappes, "my mama raised me better than that!"
for now, i have found my cosmic yarnage twin--except i am infinitely less skilled at yarn craftage. if you don't have a yarn stash in the eaves, nooks and crannies of your house and if you don't have a profile on ravelry.com, you will not get this. seriously. stop reading.
the morning i went into labor, i bought an "amish" washing machine (bought from that company but hey, it wasn't just a punchline, the online amish store does indeed exist, and has a cool wringer, and who would have guessed that i have an affinity for the pennsylvania deutsch? it's the apocalyptic survivalist-cum-granddaughter of my grandparents in me. what can i say, this may make me white, but i love kitchen gadgets nd household sundries even/especially non-electric ones. i just got a foley food mill earlier this week. now, what can i mill?),
8 skeins of ooh so pretty felting wool (in twins) and two hanks of organic cotton yarn. on sale natch. now my yarn treasure box is overfilling. since it was online, i wasn't able to employ the basic techniques of a Yarn Collector however, i did admire the ooh so pretty felting yarn for months & months, would make rationalizations, put it in my online shopping basket, would be rational, delete it, and would come up with more rationalizations, replace it, and so on and so forth, before succumbing to imminent-labor-onset-major-project hormones and decisively purchased them for forthcoming, small but IMPORTANT projects beyond my skill level which i will diligently and heuristically plunge into. sometime. in the future. when i magically have more free time. projects to be added to my lifetime to-do list which i keep misplacing. now what did i buy them for? it's the post-birth hormones and sleep deprivation that make me forget.my beloved T-sten doesn't understand why i keep buying more yarn (in singles and duos) or rather how the yarn mysteriously multiplies (duh, it's with the dust bunnies. everyone knows how fecund they are) but we've made a tacit agreement about each other's creative hobbies that he won't ask about the yarnage and i won't ask about the photog accoutrements.
let's chalk it up to another stupid power, my hoarding of nifty household gadgets & yarn. if only i could put this on my resume.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
she's here!
introducing VL
born at home on 2.26.2008 at 7.57pm
eyes wide open with her right hand grasping for life and plenty to say
6lbs 4 oz
19 inches of pure determination
Friday, February 15, 2008
38 weeks-lightening
weo, bé's head has dropped. this means that bé's head has descended into the pelvic region & sitting on top of my cervix (this is also called lightening not to be confused with lightning, though it does feel electrifying at times). i've been carrying low for a few weeks now, but wasn't quite ready on any level. bé and i have been in conversation about that; i let bé know i needed a few weeks to get ready. respecting my wishes, bé would yo-yo down for a brief touch & go but not linger for longer than my startled gasp before nestling her/his butt under my ribs again.
i've been doing prenatal chiro (specifically network chiro & webster technique) which has been a major blessing in terms of alleviating my chronic pain and adjusting my pelvis & uterus. last week, chiro told me that my pubic symphisis was torqued & stuck. i wasn't surprised, i've been dealing with that off and on for the last 7 years. sometimes it's been so bad my left leg had been shorter by more than an inch. what made this significant now is that meant that the pregnancy relaxin hormone wasn't getting into that joint and it wasn't loosening up like it's sposed to for birth. i wonder for how many other women have had trauma/injury that's impacted their hips & pelvic joints and don't get prenatal chiro treatment during pregnancy and unknowingly get misdiagnosed with cephalopelvic disorder (meaning baby's head is sposedly too big to fit through the pelvis) resulting in unnecessary C-section. (the US has double the rate of cesareans than what is globally considered safe; 80% of doctors admitted they will perform a cesarean to avoid liability and i'm betting the other 20% do it because they have a golf game in Kauai scheduled.) how many cesareans could be prevented with prenatal chiropractic treatment? anyways, my uterus is finally relatively symmetrical as well. it's funny how your cells & organs have these habitual holding patterns that they like to revert to and it takes a lot of encouragement and de-stressing for them to change for the better. my midwife also had me take evening primrose oil to help soften the joint. and after two painful adjustment sessions last week (fortunately though humans are hardwired to forget pain), my pelvis has been loosening as it should.
last night, T. and i practiced labor exercises and found what works for us both. T. lead me through different relaxation techniques and guided meditation. now that we have the birth tub and our birth team is in place (midwife, midwife's assistant, doula & her assistant), i told bé that it was okay to go deeper into my pelvis now, to start practicing, that we are a team and i need his/her help to get through labor; s/he knows what s/he is sposed to do. immediately, and i do mean immediately, bé went deep. every time i gasped at the electrifying sensation bé would pull back a little until i learned not to greet her/him with such chagrin. and got used to the sensation of a head on my cervix. i'm still getting used to not having a little butt lodged under my ribcage. it rather feels like a tennis ball is lodged in my left pelvis. now i know where the preggo-waddle comes from.
bé stayed down there all night. i could feel her/him in my pelvis every time i got up to go pee or eat. i even had a couple of real contractions last night, not the braxton-hicks uterine tightening, but the uterine menstrual kind.
so, we're getting closer. of course we still have to wait for T. to start parental leave and my mom to get here on the 25th before we'll truly be ready.
the funny thing is that after ignoring me for all of the second trimester, týtý has usurped rồngtý on my lap (what little space there is with a huge belly in the way), is the first to greet me in the mornings (and sometimes when i do my wee hours of the morning wee breaks), gotten even more wily about darting into the bedroom especially in the wee hours, and is generally following me around more than usual. maybe she can sense what's up and is asserting her feminine prerogative to be my midwife. (factoid: feral sister cats will midwife each other and co-raise their kittens together. neat huh! i mean lionesses do it, so its not entirely alien behavior to the genus.) there is something about the energy of birth that transcends species. i've attended two animal births by the mamma's persistent insistence (one was our chowchow Ling-Ling, one was my ex's aunty's cat whose name i forget. she was so appreciative, she tried to give me one of the newborn kittens but i told it needed her more). it remains to be seen how our cats will react to homebirth. they will either go completely spastic and turbo around the house and up the walls which they already do 2-3 times a day (in which case they will be banished to the back bedroom), or they will try to reassure us in their feline fashion as they are wont to do when i'm deep breathing through a braxton. as long as they stay out of the birth tub, we're good.
i've been doing prenatal chiro (specifically network chiro & webster technique) which has been a major blessing in terms of alleviating my chronic pain and adjusting my pelvis & uterus. last week, chiro told me that my pubic symphisis was torqued & stuck. i wasn't surprised, i've been dealing with that off and on for the last 7 years. sometimes it's been so bad my left leg had been shorter by more than an inch. what made this significant now is that meant that the pregnancy relaxin hormone wasn't getting into that joint and it wasn't loosening up like it's sposed to for birth. i wonder for how many other women have had trauma/injury that's impacted their hips & pelvic joints and don't get prenatal chiro treatment during pregnancy and unknowingly get misdiagnosed with cephalopelvic disorder (meaning baby's head is sposedly too big to fit through the pelvis) resulting in unnecessary C-section. (the US has double the rate of cesareans than what is globally considered safe; 80% of doctors admitted they will perform a cesarean to avoid liability and i'm betting the other 20% do it because they have a golf game in Kauai scheduled.) how many cesareans could be prevented with prenatal chiropractic treatment? anyways, my uterus is finally relatively symmetrical as well. it's funny how your cells & organs have these habitual holding patterns that they like to revert to and it takes a lot of encouragement and de-stressing for them to change for the better. my midwife also had me take evening primrose oil to help soften the joint. and after two painful adjustment sessions last week (fortunately though humans are hardwired to forget pain), my pelvis has been loosening as it should.
last night, T. and i practiced labor exercises and found what works for us both. T. lead me through different relaxation techniques and guided meditation. now that we have the birth tub and our birth team is in place (midwife, midwife's assistant, doula & her assistant), i told bé that it was okay to go deeper into my pelvis now, to start practicing, that we are a team and i need his/her help to get through labor; s/he knows what s/he is sposed to do. immediately, and i do mean immediately, bé went deep. every time i gasped at the electrifying sensation bé would pull back a little until i learned not to greet her/him with such chagrin. and got used to the sensation of a head on my cervix. i'm still getting used to not having a little butt lodged under my ribcage. it rather feels like a tennis ball is lodged in my left pelvis. now i know where the preggo-waddle comes from.
bé stayed down there all night. i could feel her/him in my pelvis every time i got up to go pee or eat. i even had a couple of real contractions last night, not the braxton-hicks uterine tightening, but the uterine menstrual kind.
so, we're getting closer. of course we still have to wait for T. to start parental leave and my mom to get here on the 25th before we'll truly be ready.
the funny thing is that after ignoring me for all of the second trimester, týtý has usurped rồngtý on my lap (what little space there is with a huge belly in the way), is the first to greet me in the mornings (and sometimes when i do my wee hours of the morning wee breaks), gotten even more wily about darting into the bedroom especially in the wee hours, and is generally following me around more than usual. maybe she can sense what's up and is asserting her feminine prerogative to be my midwife. (factoid: feral sister cats will midwife each other and co-raise their kittens together. neat huh! i mean lionesses do it, so its not entirely alien behavior to the genus.) there is something about the energy of birth that transcends species. i've attended two animal births by the mamma's persistent insistence (one was our chowchow Ling-Ling, one was my ex's aunty's cat whose name i forget. she was so appreciative, she tried to give me one of the newborn kittens but i told it needed her more). it remains to be seen how our cats will react to homebirth. they will either go completely spastic and turbo around the house and up the walls which they already do 2-3 times a day (in which case they will be banished to the back bedroom), or they will try to reassure us in their feline fashion as they are wont to do when i'm deep breathing through a braxton. as long as they stay out of the birth tub, we're good.
Monday, February 4, 2008
fertility charm
okay, i've been eagerly anticipating the public release since i first heard in early january. and its finally out...
my sister is pregnant!
i (not so) secretly believe its because i'm her fertility charm. twice now, she hangs out with me on vacation and during that time, lo & behold, she gets pregnant. coincidence or supernatural?
weo, of course her husband has 50% to do with this. duh. but i like to think i have a beneficial effect on the other 50% like alcohol did for my youngest aunty, happy vibes = implantation!
in any case, blessed day! blessed news! more babies!
my sister is pregnant!
i (not so) secretly believe its because i'm her fertility charm. twice now, she hangs out with me on vacation and during that time, lo & behold, she gets pregnant. coincidence or supernatural?
weo, of course her husband has 50% to do with this. duh. but i like to think i have a beneficial effect on the other 50% like alcohol did for my youngest aunty, happy vibes = implantation!
in any case, blessed day! blessed news! more babies!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
