Sunday, July 31, 2011

Maya Grace Anderson


Sunday July 31, 2011     

The week started out with a bang, or a blast, or a series of screams and into the void arrived Maya Grace Anderson, born Sunday morning July 24th.  She came into the world beautiful, and graceful, and with an appetite to fuel her eight pound six ounce frame.   I had just finished watching the Askals, (national football team),  play Kuwait in round two of the world cup live from Kuwait, (meaning it ended about 2:30am Sunday morning), proceeded by my quick lapse into sleep; proceeded by my  return to consciousness about twenty minutes later with an unmistakable plea for aid from the other side of the bed.  

The moment the impending event switches from the abstract to the actual is indeed a surreal moment in what will be many surreal and sublime and anxiety inducing moments over the next few hours.  Dylan took thirty hours to arrive from the time it was apparent, “that it was time,” so I vacillated about going too soon but my gut, (and Marilyns), suggested it may not be thirty hours this time.  There are virtually no taxis in Angeles, and the closest taxi stand is kilometers away but the ever ubiquitous trike could be flagged as easily as swatting at a fly in the dark early morning heat of central Luzon.  Off we sailed, leaving Dylan in the care of Marilyn’s cousin, whom we took on a few weeks back as a nanny in anticipation of the big event.  There we were - tearing through the tropical night, me on the back of the motorcycle, hanging off the side, with one hand on the roof of the sidecar, while ducking my head inside to make certain Maya was not arriving in anything other than a delivery room.   The glorious absurdity of it all never ceases to leave me totally gobsmacked.

Our midwife runs a clean and well maintained birthing home and has delivered over eight thousand babies in her career, including Dylan, and I felt safer there than a large hospital.  Also, as is the habit of birthing homes in the republic I was allowed to be present and actually helped with the delivery, which is totally verboten in the hospitals.  It was great!  Hospitals are so institutional and often they can’t even compare in terms of sanitary standards.  But I digress.  We arrived about 5:30 a.m. to find Grace, (our midwife), already up and one look told me she had already been busy doing what she does best.  Marilyn was dilated but being only one centimeter we got her to bed and waited in the recovery / pre delivery area, which is a nice white tiled room with four private beds each separated by a series of optional hospital pull curtains for privacy and a facing wall of windows that looks onto a courtyard with an aviary and all manner of flora and a few renegade fauna.  It’s all very organic and simple but we really like it. 

At 10:00a.m. Marilyn was only two dilated two centimeters, (tens something of a goal, for the uninitiated).  Grace was not too concerned and suggested we ‘bed down’ as it could be six hours at the rate of dilation.  Every birth, as Grace is fond of saying, “is quite different,” and Maya proved the adage true.  Two good pushes, a lot of coaxing, and a mere thirty eight minutes later Maya entered the world!  One of the truly profound moments in a person’s life, for parties both within and without the womb.  The burden and blessings of her birth are great as will be the task to rise to the occasion.  Here’s to life! 

Monday, July 11, 2011

Reflections Amidst Raindrops


Reflections Amidst Raindrops

Sunday July 10, 2011
Three years, four months, eleven days, and twelve hours in country, (sans puddle jumps to Hong Kong and Malaysia for absurd visa satisfactions).   Has it really been that much time?  I remember Laurel, from another life at UCLA, admonishing me for being too cognizant of time.  I knew better! Her street infused intellect always tasted of the bittersweet optimism that so often appeals to youth.  I have felt old since I first learned that we don’t live forever.  Six years old, standing over the pink toilet at 5818 Kelvin, processing the information I had just gleaned from my mother with a mix of existential malaise and bulging bladder that only a six year old can know. It’s as if my mother told me that news this morning, I can still see the bathroom completely and those louvered windows that made up much of the door to the left; open, close, open, close.  My son affirms my preoccupation with time, and the anniversary of my birth this past Friday brought it all into sharp relief.  This curious Friday anniversary almost marked the birth of my daughter!  What a long strange trip it’s been! But I digress.

Life in the republic is harrowing, to say the least.  I manage to keep us living reasonably well.  In retrospect it utterly eludes me how, some days, we have not merely survived but done so without incident or harm, even flourishing from time to time.  The bottom could fall out tomorrow and while this is true everywhere in the world it is the rule, rather than the exception in the republic. We have endured a purse snatching, pick pockets, a massive and devastating typhoon, looters, and a noteworthy home invasion robbery, remaining, throughout them all, reasonably sound of mind, body, and spirit.  The rampant corruption is top to bottom in all facets of national, provincial, city, and barangay life both civil and government. It’s like a late stage cancer that somehow manages to keep the body looking authentic, even beautiful, but is a heartbeat away from complete and utter collapse.  Contrary to what one would perceive from this description, however, our familial life, in the midst of this, has never been more stable or commonplace.  In spite of the crushing poverty, deception, and criminality I have accepted the reality of the madness, sworn not to be consumed by it, and relish my family.  Ultimately I will either have to find some way to build a well defended home on a beach front province far from the urban insanity or leave the country all together.  I don’t fancy the notion of what is required to endure here.  I have witnessed sufficient deception for one life.  I’d take calm and placid any day.  To see my children grow strong and healthy and know the world from a position of security, compassion, strength and well fortified perspective.

We were hoping our daughter would be born on Friday, July 08, 2011, but she remains reluctant to vacate the womb. Marilyn’s birthday is Friday, July 15, 2011 so maybe she’ll come about mid course and split the difference.  I can assure you I was totally shocked when the ultrasound results came back with the gender.  The sex of the baby being that singular trait exclusively the domain of the father, I was awed and amazed at the notion of both a son and a daughter.  We’ve been vacillating on names as most parents do; wondering what she would prefer; We were reasonably committed to MAYA, but also really like CHLOE, which my friends can’t fathom but I think has such a groovy ‘40s feel to it, also in the running are SHANON, (which sounds too much like a playboy centerfold),  and Savannah.  Marilyn likes Savannah, but it occupies middle name status… and Maya Savannah is just wayyyyy to much onus of obligation for anyone to carry around for a lifetime.  Feel free to toss in suggestions.  The names only firm when the inks dry.

As we stand at the breach of our daughter's birth I read through the Manila paper this morning.  Three primary sources of domestic news exist; The Philippine Star, (too USA today), the Manila Bulletin, (pawn to the prelates), and my preference, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, "BALANCED NEWS, FEARLESS VIEWS" as the masthead declares.  The current administration under Ninoy Aquino came to power last year under a mandate to end corruption.  Aquino is heir to an assassinated father who inspired revolution and a mother who led the country out of martial law.  He appears to have a sincere appetite for confronting the unabated rape of his country,  from hands both internal and external, but it may be a task of such epoch proportions no mortal can possibly steward the sword to its desired end.  The previous administration under Gloria Arroyo is now indicted almost daily with a new charge of gross plunder and graft  involving everything from government contracts, price fixing on the domestic and export agricultural markets,  and literally hundreds of charges, directly attributed to her own hand or the result of her leadership.  Pick a con and Gloria was either writing the order or responsible for the hand that did the deed - bribery, racketeering, and extortion was occurring anywhere an opportunity to cop a peso existed.  

Far too many adorn themselves in the thin veneer of church and state, but sharing one’s ‘blessings,’ and ‘national pride,’ are so often just threadbare  raincoats covering egregiously selfish agendas and appropriation of others body, mind, and soul.  I can walk less than a kilometer from my home and see girls bought and sold like so many kilos of rice.  The girls either don’t know they are being bought for ten cents on the dollar, or learn to accept their predicament and work the angles to their advantage.  There are occasional delusions fueled regarding love but its just simple commodity exchange taking place at its most base and basic level.  That’s all it is; It’s an economy better than rural provincial poverty, (I’ll grant one that); in the booze saturated, frequently drug laced world they accept  to earn ipods, cell phones, and laptops, they become revered as veritable celebrities to far flung families grateful for the ‘remittance,’ or contributions to the coffers.  But for every jive story of a girls life improved, I’ve seen a thousand used up and spit out the other side, trampled on for a few years and left to decay, usually with just as little as when they started once everyone’s  plucked their feathers like so many chickens to the butchers block.   I’ve never subscribed to the notion that shiny shit is better than dull shit, a rational that fuels  the cyclic insanity of the sex trade here - shit is still shit, whether or not one knows they’ve stepped it… or how many times or even how much of it.  Never underestimate the power of denial.  

In spite of all this, or perhaps because of it, I have met some phenomenally resilient people that inspire me; they are a reminder that the soul does not have to be dispatched under  the weighted pressure of so much stone;  the authentically strong and caring shine with a brilliance from the weight almost mercifully impossible in the safety of the first world suburbs and I am reminded of Plato’s enduring words, "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."

I go forward, embracing and protecting my family and will endeavor to write more.  I think its time to emerge from  my self imposed exile.  I’m happy to answer any questions and all notions to the contrary I am living a most decidedly righteous life. Nothing could have prepared me for the buko republic… and perhaps that was ok too.  

 

Birthday Update

Friday July 15, 2011
Today is a milestone.  I am just not sure which milestones it will represent.  It will either be Marilyn’s birthday or it will be Birthday + 1.  There is a little girl that is most decidedly comfortable where she is and I have mused that if I was being well fed, well housed, and living in peace I too may be reluctant to rally forth into the madness of the seven billion…. Plus one!

 

Birthdate Update

Saturday July 16, 2011
Still on standby!  Sorta like watching paint dry but with a lot more anxiousness attached to the process.   This morning one of the kitchen pipes burst… it’s faster and easier to do it myself.  More on that later – gonna go for what will most certainly be our final pre-launch checkup.