A New Life---

I have a new daughter. It was a fantastic day. Witnessing a new life begin is always traumatic somehow-it causes waves to ripple out as the world changes one little girl at a time. I experienced a wonderful thing as she was born: pleasure. It was pleasing.

I felt what can only be described as a cacophony of emotions-and I can only really claim a small fraction of those feelings as being for myself, strictly speaking. Oddly enough, the strongest feeling I had was a sympathetic feeling for--well really WITH, my wife. I felt her pleasure at completing a trial-really a series of trials, culminating in this ultimate effort. She was so immensely satisfied because she wanted very badly to be done with the discomfort of pregnancy, but also because she knew there was a whole lifetime of new kinds of joy to be had.

I celebrated alongside her, because I knew how anxious she had been, when the midwife told her that there would be no stitches, and that her recovery would be swift and strong, and prompt.

I celebrate with her now, as I hear her say our baby's name over and over. She relishes the way the name floats out of her mouth, the way you might enjoy a butterscotch candy on your tongue. She plays with it, adding sounds, tagging it with new little endings, trying on new nick names, new special little names that she and the baby might share for the rest of their lives.

My wife adores her children. Two of them are boys, and will in time fall in love with another woman. On the one hand, she looks forward to seeing them grow up into mature men, and experience that love for another person that she and I know. But she also knows that this love will shadow her relationship and position in the lives of her two boys. She will go from being the Sun, to being the moon, and then as their families grow, she will become a distant planet, burning brighter than stars, but distantly, and periodically.

Now she has a girl. This girl will not leave her the same way her boys will. But this little girl will likely leave me, though, the way, the boys will leave their momma. There is that sorrow in an otherwise magnificent and beautiful week. But I will not dwell on that today.

She is immensely beautiful though, and I will make certain that she knows that. I will make sure that every person in her life knows that. And she will grow up into this beautiful sinister world. I can't wait. But I suppose, yes---I will.

I never would have anticipated this life. I certainly wouldn't have chosen it on my own. But I'm loathe to exchange it for anything else.