I went to bed on Tuesday evening, expecting to head to work the following morning, a little disappointed that our baby girl’s due date, July 22, had come and gone without a hint of her arrival. But instead of sleep, I felt Mykala’s gentle nudge and heard her voice just a few hours later at 3am: “My contractions started, I think.” She sounded so calm that it took me the better part of an hour to fully wake up and realize that this is The Big Show. We began timing duration and interval of contractions, and true to my computer geekery, I created a new text document in BBEdit that I would later save as labor.txt, here’s a snippet:
What a great birthday. I got to sleep in for real and then as if still in a dream, I opened my eyes to a perfect, sunny day. Not too hot or cold, and beautiful. Mykala and I had a spectacular brunch at Woodbury Café; she gave me a card that made me tear up as I read it. Then we went home and sat outside on our patio and actually caught the first sun rays of the year. We’re a little pink right now.
The left picture was printed five years ago by Hand & Eye letterpress in wood and metal type in a run of 80 prints. It is a rather odd size, and necessitated a custom mat. This is the first we have gotten to hang it up, because it sat rolled up in tissue paper in its mailing tube for years while I waited to get it professionally matted. Eventually, we decided that I should simply cut the mat myself and we would make do with this Ikea frame for the time being. Mykala’s efforts got this to finally see the light of day, for which I am very thankful. It is not perfect, but it turned out nicely for a first crack, and I’ll take it for now. I tend to just stand in front of the wall and stare at it, because I like the way it turned out.
The lid of the seventy year old stove creaked reluctantly as I pushed it up and ducked my head under. Dust and the smell of distant eggshells wafted up as I relit the stove with the long reach matches from our landlord Mary Alice. A few years ago, when we woke up to the unpleasant smell for almost a week straight, we had learned the pilots tended to get blown out by gentle breezes. Now, this little piece of knowledge was to get filed in the “no longer useful” category in my brain, along with bits like how to keep the sink and tub drains draining (never use without at least one trap), when to change the screens out for the storm windows (earlier than you think; the days quickly get cold), how to avoid the water hammer (turn the water on more than you think you need), how much to turn down the heat (a Pendleton and a down comforter were musts), how to stay cool when the power went out in the summertime (good luck… meditation?), the trick to shutting the front door (humidity dependent), which outlets dropped cord prongs from them like leaves in fall, and which appliances tripped the breaker if used in concert.
Last night, Mykala and I watched the Academy Awards in glorious high definition. During her eloquent acceptance speech, I did notice that Lupita Nyong’o’s elocution is so refined that if she were a violinist, my own speech would be that of a rubber band stretched around a kleenex box
Mykala and I have little to nothing left in our tanks — it’s been one week since we closed on our first place, and we have been working almost literally every free moment to freshen it up in preparation for this Saturday’s move. We’re talking 14, 16, 18 hour days here.
Today we found out that you are our baby. We love you already. Your mama went to the doctor’s office and they took your first picture. You are very small right now, just the length of a grain of rice — a “basmati grain of rice,” your mom said. I hope that someday you might read what I am writing and it might give you some insight into that mysterious time when your parents were young and not even five years into their marriage. We love one another so so much, and we want you to be in our family.
It’s bitterly cold, the kind of cold that elicits pain the minute the wind hits your skin, and we got some delicious Indian takeout for Mykala’s birthday. We’re sitting at home surrounded by gifts from people who love my wife, and this is precisely the type of moment from which you want to build your life. Happy Birthday, my love.
Sometimes you go into to work and it turns out you didn’t work that day so you scoot back home and open the windows to let the cool fall air in and crawl into bed next to your lovely wife and your fuzzy little orange cat keeps watch out the window and the light gently rises over the hill on which you live and a thought drifts lazily up from your subconscious, through your limbic systems, past your prefrontal cortex, right out through the crown of your head: life is perfect.
Mykala surprised me at the gym today. I saw a young lady out of the corner of my eye, and it was my wife! I don’t like being away from her, at all, even during my gym time. Nine years into our relationship, this seems like a good sign. We talk and talk and talk and take walks and picnics and spend such wonderful hours together. We joke about going to work at the same place, like maybe I can work at a dental building and she can work in an adjoining suite… but that’s a reality I would be thrilled with! After all, marriages aren’t about time apart.
We recently went to my 10 year high school reunion. I wasn’t going to go, but then Nils pep-talked me into it.
I’m really glad I went, but I am still the same shy person I was. So it is still tough to have conversations with strangers… yet I still thrive on genuine human conversation, and during the time I was at the reunion, there was a lot of that going on. I wonder what our lives will look like in another 10 years.
Mykala and I took a 10+ mile bike ride from Prospect Park, down University, across the River on Hennepin and over part of the Cedar Lake trail through the north part of Minneapolis. It was in the mid 70s outside and the sun wasn’t yet setting but was low enough in the sky to turn things nice colors. Target Field was hosting a Twins game. It wasn’t too humid or windy or hilly or buggy. We just sailed along on our wheels.
Ok, have a seat. This is going to take a little longer than my heavily-edited moderately-stilted prose attempts at wit, wisdom, and condensed life experience. That stuff falls flat more often than not, anyway.
Some things have happened over the past few days that knit themselves into a little ball that I feel the need to tug the strings of. You know that part in a TV show where you know it’s the season finale because you can just feel the writers pulling hard at these strings they’ve strung between characters? I always imagine a sweater, and you have a hold of a few of the pieces and you keep pulling and the fabric is bunching and warping in places. You really see how it is all connected. Ok, this is possibly not edited enough. Starting again…
It’s been raining, dark, and cold all day but when I arrived home today, Mykala had put together an indoor picnic. I walked in the door and there was the love of my life in a floppy sun hat, wearing picnic clothes, cold drink in hand, Beach Boys playing in the background, picnic blankets on the floor, Roman Holiday queued up on the television.
After nearly 7 years accident free, Mykala accidentally spilled coffee on her laptop. We took it apart, cleaned the entire thing, put it back together, and it worked… for 4 minutes. This is the last picture of the laptop before it went to the laptop farm. We will miss you, you were a wonderful computer.
