A Year Ago

A year ago tonight I went into labor. Luciana turns one on Sunday. Every day as I hold her I marvel that this can be so. I get teary a lot because my baby is not, in fact, a tiny baby anymore. She is actually incredibly tall and incredibly stable, and her body is so sure of itself as it moves through space. Her mind is up to things I couldn't fathom being witness to in those early days of her life. I get teary because that's what moms do, I guess, not because I would have her slow the pace of her glorious life for me.

We're having a party for her on Sunday, and I have a feeling that I'll cry during the Happy Birthday, and probably again that night after we put her to bed and I can take a minute to be still.

A year ago I wrote this in my journal:

I feel like my emotional vocabulary is so limited right now. --I don't know how to describe what it is.--I feel, as I walk, like I'm only half-connected to the ground, like I can only half-focus on what's in front of me. There's the presence and the knowledge with every blink, every dish I pick up, every time I sit down to get quiet or rest, that the baby is coming soon. My body is about to do something it's never done before. It knows what to do. It knows what to do, and the baby, my baby, the soul that's chosen now, and chosen me and Sky, knows what to do.


If we didn't know each other a year ago, you can read the story of how Luciana came into the world here. I didn't know what this year would be, and I certainly didn't know what my labor would be. She was born after 4 days and a wild ride worthy of Mr. Toad.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me for the love I feel for this girl and the gift that motherhood is. More on all of that after Sunday.

photo by my splendid sister Nina

Home

We were here last week. 5 square miles in the Caribbean Ocean and, including us, there were 8 people on the resort. 

We had

Time as a family

Time as a couple (oops no couple pics)

Time individually with Luciana

Time alone

It was such a happy week--we haven't had that much time together the 3 of us since Luciana was born and Sky was home for 10 days. Sky and I haven't had dinner together for a week straight since the same time. We'd spend all day on the beach, come back to our enormous villa for naps (for which I joined Luciana and which if you know me is completely out of character. I loved every second of mosquito-netting-draped cool-white-sheeted sleep), and after Luciana went to bed we'd hire a babysitter to come watch TV while we rode to dinner in our golf cart. I started reading a novel that's longer and more complicated than Hunger Games. I forgot my phone in LA and didn't long onto email except twice for 5 minutes. 

We're home and Sky's back to working 60-hour weeks and Luciana and I are on the park circuit, but we're all still feeding on last week--feeling really close and despite baby jet lag and some 4am wakings, rested and refreshed. I have spent a lot of time in my life wanting things different: wanting a different career, a different body, a different income, a different house, different talents, WHATEVER. And I've spent a lot of time counting: calories, dollars, credits on actors' resumes that I've been jealous of, minutes I sit in traffic. I didn't want anything different last week, and in thinking about this year with Luciana--and I had a lot of time to think-- I don't want anything different than it's been or how it is. She's coming up on a year this month, and part of me feels that I can't keep playing the card of I Have a New Baby so Therefore I Don't Have to Have My Life Figured Out. However, I don't have it figured out, so for today the card stays in the deck. I don't know why, but sitting under the full moon by our, um, private pool (thanks, upgrades), I made a wish that I stop counting. It's always a sign that I'm scared of something, and I got to remember last week that there is nothing to be scared of. Life is, and always has been, exactly how it's supposed to be.