anyone else

Forehead healing. But now caught a cold. Had to go to doc’s. Asthmatic bronchitis. Doped up on drugs. Forehead in Band-Aids. You sound like a wounded rhino, says a friend. A rhino with a splintered tusk.

Hard to leave the little one with someone else. Anyone else. Why was it easier with Jackie? It was so early on, I just handed her over. I had done my job getting her out. Someone else take over now. But now it is different. Why?

echocardiogram

Took her to get an echocardiogram the yesterday for a heart murmur the doc heard. They hooked her up to wires, did an EKG. Then they did an echo. They pointed and mumbled at the pulsing colors on the screen. They took notes. Then the doc came in and checked their notes and made more of his own. They conferred some more. Various dire scenarios went through my head.

Back in doc’s office, Phoebe dressed again. Josh holding her. Doctor facing us with his notes, looks up and says, “Well, she is totally normal. It is a functional heart murmur. A normal heart.”

I nod. I am so relieved I feel numb.

I proceed to walk into an open file cabinet and cut my forehead open.

a trial run

Our part-time babysitter starts work. This is a trial-run for going in to the office. Just my own work. Just my own work. Not just. How to keep the self-denigrating adjectives from creeping in. Not the example I want to set for my girl.

The big question: how to merge—or at least balance—the two rhythms? The dreamy state of infant awareness: amorphous. Time fluid. Dictated by internal needs. And the other: a state controlled by external forces. Trains, buses, opening hours. Travel logistics. And deadlines. Product shipping dates. Drop-dead book dates. The chronicle of education. The upcoming merger. The exigencies of capitalism.

What could be more foreign to her?

Why do we arrived at this place in our lives—of encroaching cynicism—to start all over again? The new child is just that new. New life. Possibility for a better world. We look at her sweaty ears and see a different self—a different world. We feel, it is trite perhaps, a special kind of hope.

We witness it all over again. Now from the outside. This is how it looks. How can I travel back and forth like this?

on the subway

a child pushing a child

yellow shirt wet hair plastic stroller rubber wheels

what my mother-in-law tells me

First comes “What is it?”

Then comes “No!”

Then comes “Why?”

9/11

A preternaturally beautiful day that was. The butterflies on the 14th floor terrace as we looked south at the column of smoke. But today is rainy, humid, with a weird breeze that reminds us fall is coming.

Nurse, burp. Sleep. Poop. Pee. Change diaper. Nurse again. How can if be the same city? The same life? She knows nothing of that day. She is new. She has no history. That is why people come to see her.

No concern for efficiency here. A different rhythm. But lack implies less. This is not less but more. More fills up all the moments so they are seamless—not pages, but one long yarn of fabric.

hello

What dreams, what images, gallop through an infant’s mind that cause these sudden shifts: grimace to grin? What do they dream of? She has never seen a boat, a horse, a dog, a pack of chewing gum, a blueberry bush, a city bus. What forms do her dreams take?

A smile! With her eyes open. She looks at me looking at her. This is not a dream smile, from unfathomable infant land. Not mysterious. Mischievous. Hello.

I see you.