One Small Step For Bradley

After you've willingly exited an airplane flying at ten thousand feet, much of the rest of your day seems rather boring.

Such was my day, Monday, October 11th, 2010. After my dear friend, Josh Lozoff, took me to skydive as a gift for my impending fortieth birthday, I spent the rest of the afternoon fantasizing about doing it again, and again, and again.  Never before have I experienced the complete zen, whole mind-a-blank wonder that filled me from head to toe as I rocketed out of the Cessna aircraft and sped to earth at 170 feet per second. Once I stopped screaming, I realized how extremely happy I was. That the Earth was clearly getting nearer made my comfort even bigger. I am in the hand of God, a time-rift without decided conclusion. Do i live or die? What bliss to know these feelings at least once before I smash into the Earth.

But the 'chute did work. I did slowly and gracefully float like a little wind-drifted balloon, back to the ground.

Some have called this a rash, selfish act. I am a father and a husband. These are my life's work, and I take them very seriously. My rebuttal is simply this: we take risks daily. Getting in an automobile and joining faceless thousands upon our highways is more of a crap shoot than working with a professional skydiver. Climbing a cliff, relying on my knowledge and ability is much safer than choosing to enter traffic at any given time of day.  In addition, traffic, cars, and faceless drivers seem to detract from the sanctity of my daily life, not give solace, or provide me with an immediate experience with the miraculous. Perhaps I'm not looking close enough. I'm too busy driving.

In the thirty five seconds of free fall, I knew something akin to complete peace and spiritual understanding that has only increased my ability to be a present and loving partner and parent.  That, to me, is not only important, but in my life, absolutely necessary.

Plus, it was cool.

A New Five Happiness...The Feast Has Moved. Please Make Note

We have spectacular mornings. The sun rises with a deep golden hue and crawls lazily, heavily on the tall Loblolly Pines. A gentle heat seeps into everything and animates the day slowly, like a young child blowing up a balloon, or an inner tube for a ride down a river. The song birds begin just before dawn, ever mindful of sleeping beasts, careful only to sing just enough to carry dreams deeper and early risers with reverie. Tanagers, Blue Birds, Cardinals, Titmice, Chickadees, Wrens, Flycatchers, all reach an harmonious crescendo come breakfast time. Wildlife of every conceivable variety: Great Blue Heron, Red Tailed Hawks, Fox, Canadian Geese, Snakes, Turtles, and on and on...

By the afternoon, distant thunderheads, several miles high, trundle and morph into fantastical shapes and push breezes through new green leaves in ancient trees. The heat is only a harbinger of Summer fury, in its infancy now, but we can feel it-climbing out of it's crib and testing the latent powers it holds. Summer will be hot and humid. But we have that time tested, age old stand by, ensuring a consistent civilized nature: The ocean.

A mere three hours drive, the eighty degree waters, the lukewarm tide pools, the huge swath of beach sand, the sea oat forested dunes, the tickle of worn boardwalks and piers, festooned with crusty locals fishing for dinner. The occasional treasure; a shark's tooth, an intact conch, deep blue sand glass...and the companion of the wave's metronome measure-the lure of instant bliss. One, two, three...dive and surface reborn.

There is a great deal of that here, for me especially. I feel reborn into a world I am deeply familiar with, but each day seems new like a foreign country. The feeling I've only just arrived imbues the time with the same magical aether which permeates one's arrival to a new world. New smells, alive senses, sharp eyes, unknown people...everyone a potential friend. And now, this is Home.







Tallulah has settled in. She sleeps now, on my chest, wrapped in a comfortable cloth origami tying her to my body. Her weight comforts me, and as she gets heavier, I get stronger. She has begun to reach for the things she wants, and it all ends up in her open mouth. She looks like she is trying to taste the world. I remember discovering, perhaps at age four or five, that by touching objects with my tongue, I could instantly discern their composition-glass, stone, metal, plastic. Like an oral oracle, the taste and texture were unique. The temperature, exact. And I was always right. I imagine Lu doing that with everything new, the air, a toy, her foot...

Five Happiness, content, rests its head on your shoulder, as if to say, "I want to be still, and let the world, this new world, swirl about me...you are a rock and I hold on..."

I Love My Gay Daughter

Last night, Felicity and I took Tallulah to a small party. An informal evening, there was a photo contest between friends in Seattle and San Francisco. The party was an opportunity to judge the entries. But Lu was the big star. Except for that two year old who can talk and stuff. Whatever.

To hear so many people tell us that Tallulah is beautiful, that she is an amazing baby makes me nervous for her impending adolescence. I mean, if she's stopping them in their tracks now, what are we to expect? In this small, selfish way, I hope my child is gay. Is it so wrong to want to spare her the taunts of young adolescent male cruelty? I'm already practicing yelling to the world, "I love my gay daughter!" It confuses the conservatives, and I like that.

I was a sensitive boy. I never forced my opinions on girls I liked. But I watched other boys shove their desires and project their dreams on these intelligent, beautiful girls as though they were play toys. I can only craft my daughter's intelligence into such a power for good that she will be able to ward these inevitable suits with taunts and stratagems of her own. That'll show 'em. "Go on, Lu. Challenge them to a game of Boggle."

Felicity and I like to joke that until now, no baby has ever been born. There has never been a baby like this baby! (Said behind mock tears and sobs.) "Don't look at this baby! You don't know about our baby....aaaahhhhhhh!"

No one can possibly know about our baby, because she's the first. As I write this, it doesn't sound nearly as humorous as when we say it. So, I'll have to film this and post it so y'all can watch just how silly we can get with this li'l lump o' sugar. God, I love the apostrophe. It is just SO expressive!

Are we good parents, or simply having a blast at our daughter's expense? She's bound to grow up Republican if we continue like this.

And Today...

"We are born knowing how to eat, but we must learn how to roast" - Francois Rabelais

What did we learn today? Perhaps that sitting babies upright makes burping easier, or to wait a beat or two before completely removing a soiled diaper. I learned the world does not disappear if you close your eyes.

Bills! Those forlorn reminders of our duties to our utility lords are piled high upon the desk in unopened envelopes. Sifting through the heap, I realized that I must return to work next Monday. I have lost muscle and brain in this two week tender trap of my infant focused life. I have forgotten how to wake up at five am. I have forgotten that I am now the sole provider for my family. I feel as though I am a superhero with no powers.

But I have some new skills: A keen sense of purpose; the unfailing drive to provide; the knowledge the each day will find me arriving home to a house filled with my favorite things, (read: people.) That is motivation enough.

Last night was awful. I felt like Tallulah was angry with us. Screaming, fussy, over-tired, and simply not willing to accept it. Felicity and I took turns sleeping and overseeing the fussybug. I finally gave her a terrific swaddle and tucked her under my arm and went to bed with her lying next to me. She was asleep in moments.

Small miracles do happen. I am satisfied by such little victories. Some part of my idealistic, grandiose childhood has perished in the wake of my girl's arrival. But I still yearn for mountains to conquer, and lands to explore. They wait for me, but my little family cannot. This mountain, though movable, is my adventure for now.

The Little Things

"Kiki" holds Tallulah for the first time.

A full week or more has passed since my last post. Tallulah has visited the doctor twice now, leaving both times worse than when she arrived. First the dreaded heel stick, the nurse squeezing my daughter's heel to transfer blood onto a sheet of paper. Then a hepatitis B shot yesterday. The awful delay between the needle puncture and the impending cry was heart wrenching, though I have become more stoic in my regard to Lula's experience of pain. "Tough love" I believe it's called. More like callus pragmatism. I know that if I begin to wince with empathy at her pain now, its likely to be a slippery slope and I'll never stop crying until I'm dead.

Lu is a "beautiful baby" in her doctor's words. "They're not all like that, you know," he admits. Do all parents get that, or are there exceptions in which the doctor comes into the room and throws up his hands in disgust?

"You want me to work on that?"

"Gadzooks, that's one heinous child you've made"

But they would still say congratulations upon their exit. And so they should. Our pediatrician is renown for his excellence in care. He also speaks faster than a tobacco auctioneer on speed. Felicity is a nurse, used to hyper-intelligent physicians who use shorthand for English. She understood him perfectly. I thought he was Greek at first. It took me a good thirty seconds to realize that he was speaking in a New England dialect, but also starting more sentences than his mouth could comfortably hold. I began to imagine the exam room as a kind of stage for doctors. They should have a warm up act precede them:

"Ladies and gentlemen, and you there, little girl. Hold on to your ears. You're about to see the greatest doctor in the city; he talks fast, he moves slow, he makes jokes that take a second to get. He's not Greek! You'll love him, (except you, little girl,) heeeeeerrre's Dr. Blah!" In bursts the wry ham.

I have utmost respect for good doctors. I, who am squeamish beyond the pale, could not handle the trauma of dealing with sick people, much less children. When I performed as a clown at Children's Hospital, we began in the terminal ward. Thank god I was only wearing a plastic clown nose, otherwise my makeup would have run down my face. Simultaneously staring into death through the eyes of life was harrowing. But the spirit of a child is buoyant and only knows what it is given. These kids ranged in age from 4 to 18. They were all dying and they knew it, in whatever degree of abstraction they were capable. And they did all they could to retreat into any shred of normalcy available. Humor was a saving grace. They all laughed when I made prat falls, or bumped into nurses, or simply made faces from behind the bed. It was like the most fabulous torture I could imagine.

One child, perhaps nine or ten years old, lay in an isolation room. He could only watch me through the glass separating his fragility from the invisible hoard of spores and germs floating all around me outside. I had to keep ducking out of sight to wipe my eyes, but each time I came back to the glass his face shined with a grin that defied the death seeping in. I sat in my car for an hour sobbing before I was able to drive away.

Now I am a parent and I am terrified for my child. But that is not what I will give her. I will give her my courage, my humor, perhaps my knowledge, or at least the admittance of my lack thereof. Someday I might admit to her my fear of our awful fragility, our human condition. But that will not be until she can openly admit and witness that terrible beauty for herself. Until then, we build a mighty fortress with the little things.

Happy New Life!

Tallulah stayed up to ring in the new year. No one told her it was a new year, or that one rang it. She simply decided to avoid sleep. Not cranky, just blinky.

Blinky is a new state of consciousness in which she is calmly observant, taking in the world through her big, slate blue eyes, blinking long and slow blinks. It is beyond adorable. It might be a punishable offense in cute starved corners of the globe.

My mother Carol is here. Her friends in North Carolina have decided that instead of being called "Grandma" or "Granny" she'd be known as "Kiki". I didn't know what to make of that. I was a bit uncomfortable with it at first. The name conjured up memories of Elton John duets and (for some strange reason,) fat old ladies in loud mu mus. Yet, after her arrival last night watching her say "Kiki's here" to her granddaughter, I think it has a wonderful and calming ring to it. I can't wait to hear Lula say that word for the first time.

There are a lot of wonderings going on at Five Happiness these days. Bold speculation may be a more accurate term. Who is this creature going to be? Will she rock climb, or knit, or dirt bike, or surf, or program, or invest, or spend, or study, or all the above? The most important question is "Will she pay our medical bills after we are infirm?"

•

I had a miraculous ringing in of the new year. Much to be thankful for. My friends, soaking in a hot tub with me, took turns telling me what they most loved about me. It was a generous, heartfelt, vulnerable moment that left me thankful that I can surround myself with wonderful people, talented and happy, satisfied and intelligent, silly and contemplative, who not only carry a high self esteem, but also fortify others with the same optimistic bricks and mortar. We have such a plethora of possibilities in our peers. Alliterate that!

For now, I am most thankful for my family. All of them. Certainly not too numerous to mention, but I will save the naming for another time. They know who they are. And to them I wish a Happy New Life. Today is the first day of the rest of it.

-B

I Am Human

These are easy days. I enjoy the comforts of my home, my wife, my child. We stay in bed until we're rested and we eat when we're hungry. We are taking our cues from Lula who follows her needs like a compass.

But I feel limited in my abilities and aptitudes in this sphere. I can't feed my daughter but indirectly through Felice. I can clean, I can change diapers, but I know this isn't my core competency, to use a cliché phrase. I am best on a edge of a building, preparing to descend it's face, cleaning the windows in a meditative flow. I am best out in the world making children laugh, adults face beauty in spite of themselves. I am best listening to middle school students try to express themselves through poetry and movement. Until Tallulah is old enough to interact, I fear I'll feel inadequate and useless. My solution is to work, work, work. And sleep, sleep, sleep.

This is a common complaint among new fathers, I think. Feeling out of the loop, relegated to observation, hand waiting, feeling cooped. True to our nature we feel left out, without a role. But this is not about us, needy and wanting. This is about giving life and freedom to those who mean more to us than anything.

We have had our fun. Our running around, carefree. This is a new season. We do the furrowing, and the sowing, not just the reaping. I come of age as my girl comes into life.

I created a movie montage of photos from the pertinent points in Tallulah's and our lives. It begins in Spain, as did Lu. It follows the snowiest day of the year, and also the shortest. It documents birth, family, and joy.

I also wrote a song for my daughter, First Splash. It accompanies the video. Please enjoy.

All the Best from Five Happiness,

Bradley, Felicity, Tallulah, Marvin & Iggy

Tallulah Speaks

[Peering over edge of crib. Looking left, right, ensuring parents are fast asleep before delivering monologue]

Tallulah: Well, hello there. We have to be quiet. My folks are still sleeping, and they have bat-like radar for sensing if I even breathe funny. Which, I must admit, I do quite often. I like to snort, several times in a row as though I were one of those funny ladies being interviewed by Jessica on Murder She Wrote. "No, of course I didn't murder them in their sleep. (snort, snort snort,) I'm just a baby!"

This has been an unusual entrance for me. I was expecting the ticker tape parade the troops get after conquering some huge obstacle or foe. Well, that birth canal was HELL, let me tell you. And Mom didn't even let me pack a bag. It was just hanging out upside down sucking my thumb...or was that my toe? And then my waterbed just went "Floooey" and I ended up spelunking through her pelvis like Bear Grills in some bloody survival show. Luckily my rope held my weight and I made it through unscathed, though I was a shoe in for the youngest member of the Coneheads movie. Thank God for Doctors Without Cold Hands! I am prepared to give my college fund to these forward thinking physicians.

Dr. O'Neal caught me with Johnny Bench's catcher's mitt and tossed me on mom's belly before I had time to put my helmet on. Luckily she crowned me with a nifty knitted number, though the pink was a bit presumptuous. I prefer a mauve, thank you. My auntie Ali Bosie knows what I'm spittin'. Word to my Treestump.

But everyone was crying. Dad, (big wimp,) the doula, (just misty eyed,) Mom, (actually she was just in shock from my quick evac. I think she expected me to ask before leaving the house.) So all I could do was sit there looking around, waiting for the champagne and confetti. WTF people? It's been nine months. As if you didn't have time to prepare! Whatever. I'm so over it. Give me a tit.

So, here we are: I'm doing my best to get what's coming to me. That colostrum crap took way too much work to get. I had to claw my way through the nipple to get to the top shelf. But Mom's giving it up in a big way. I can eat whenever I want. All I gotta do is open my mouth, stick my tongue out a bit, and SLAM, I'm on the nipple. Areola firmly planted in the kisser. Mom makes some funny faces when I do, and I haven't learned the vocabulary she uses to express her joy at my buffet. Something about "Turrett's Syndrome... " I dunno.


Ooooohhh, I think I'll poop. This'll be a gas! Then, when Dad comes to swaddle and change that paper towel he calls a diaper, I'll pull a Chuck Norris and kick him in the chin, or grab Mom's glasses and toss them behind the changing table! Yeeeeaaah! This is livin!

Oh no. I think they're about to wake up. Oh, wait. No, they're just snuggling. Puh-leeze. I guess it's time to demand some attention. Let's watch Heroes, or better yet, that DVD of Akira Dad just ripped. That scene with the melting teddy bears is boss! I love the crotch rockets! I hope Mom doesn't sell her SV 650. I think that should be the start of my inheritance.

[Yawn] Hmmmm. I really can't seem to keep my eyes open. I might just... [Falls asleep standing up. Dad cracks open one eye.]

First Days

We spent almost 48 hours in the hospital after Tallulah's birth. Felicity had previously tested positive for Strep B, so she required an antibiotic IV in the birthing suite. Unfortunately, her quick labor did not allow the necessary four hours the drugs needed to be effective. No emergencies, but the physicians wanted to watch over Lula to ensure no infections were present.

This simply meant we stayed in a full-care, catered hotel room whose location was in a hospital. The ridiculous amounts of snow outside further encouraged us to stay and order in. Despite an uncomfortable "sleeper" couch, (awful and misleading name,) we were cozy and all was well. Our only problem was poop. Or, lack thereof.

The meconium, the tar-like first stool lining a newborns gastric tract, had yet to appear. Twenty-four hours came and went. Then thirty-six. No poo. Normally, I'd be fine with an absence of baby crap, but this was beginning to worry us. By the middle of the third day of our stay, our pediatrician called in a surgeon to scope the poop, as it were. She arrived, calmly applied KY to the end of a Q-tip, and, well, did what surgeons do: poke around.

The term "Hershey's geyser" comes to mind. Yet for all the reactions I've had to other people's children, and their doting over waste products, I was somehow elated. Nor have I yet run in the opposite direction of my child's cries, as I've done with other banshee-babies. I remain a mystery to myself. As Whitman wrote, "I contradict myself. Very well. I contradict myself. I am vast. I contain multitudes."

We left the hospital on the 23rd of December, elated and ready to show the world our perfect, pooping child. Then, we discovered that we knew very little about what our little girl could do. I can just imagine her saying to herself, "What do I have to do to get these people to look in my diaper?" or "Can't you distinguish cries for hunger from the need to burp? Get with it!". Well, I can now.

Our super-doula Anna, came by today. She, like us does not celebrate Christmas, and so we had a nice little meeting discussing the finer points of breast feeding, swaddling, and the safest way to shake your baby. Yes, I said "shake the baby." (I enjoy crafting words into sentences which make some blanch if taken in the wrong context. ) All these calming techniques were miracles to new parents just learning how to cope with behaviors we certainly displayed as infants ourselves.

Armed with this info, Felicity, even in her tired state, feels so much more confident with our girl's feeding schedule. I have a penchant for swaddling. "Back in the swaddle, again..." I sing to my daughter as she becomes a human burrito. "Prepare the Korova Bomb Squad" I call to Felice when Lula exhibits rooting behavior.

The names have begun, in earnest: Lula Cady, Lu-Berry, Chicken (?), Chirping Biscuit (her Indian name, as she chirps when satisfied,) and Tallulah Butterdonkey, as in "Tallulah's great, but her donkey..!" This might require a longer explanation than normal attention or interest demands, as do, I suppose, most family maxims and nicknames.

We are, on this Christmas, full to overflowing with pride, love, and joy. These are gifts I wish upon all our friends and readers of this blog during the holidays. May you all find moments which are filled with all three.

Jubilantly,

Bradley, Felicity, & Tallulah

In Which Team Pants Click Castanets

Flamenco!

Our hosts, after guiding us through the maze of Granada's street for sumptuous meals, more great drinks and more delicious food, brought us to a tavern in the upper hills frequented by local gypsies. We entered a narrow, white walled, darkly lit cavern with a small stage at the end and were taken to a small table near the front of the room and ordered mas tinto de verana. The crowd's electric buzz created a palpable fission echoing our day's wonder and magic.

A few minutes later, the flamenco guitarist and cantor glided through the crowd to the stage followed by three young dancers in full regalia. They calmly took their seats traditionally placed around the edge of the stage. The guitarist begins to strum with a measured fervor. Someone else claps, beginning the pulse so characteristic of the form. As the beat and music took over the hall one of the dancers, as though vaguely possessed by the rhythmic strain, her face pained with a look of sorrow or lost love, began to slowly stomp and spin her body, flaring the scalloped folds of her long dress. Her eyes opened. She stared into the body of the crowd like she was taunting a slave or teasing a suitor. Her glance, as she danced, occasionally dropped to the floor. Then with a laughing smile, looked up with just her eyes. So dark. So sensual.

We all felt the passion of the dance, the notion of placating tourists for cheap dance dollars now gone from our heads. These people were there to perform something they felt was a part of their souls. They threw their bodies into the dance, the music, the song. The tempo would abruptly rise with the command of the dancer's footfalls, speeding to a crazy rapid blur, and then slow to a beautiful and dulcet pulse. When the dancer sped to the final climax of her dance, all whirring and clacking contrasted with the svelte gyrations of a passion, her triumphant pose seemed more statuesque than any actor I've witnessed. A real source of passion somewhere in these hills, I mused to myself.

Three more dancers, each lovelier than the last, took their turns turning and carving the floorboards of the stage with their heeled shoes. Enchanting and haunting, their eyes might occasionally meet ours and chills would blossom like goose flesh.

A brief pause before the next dancers took the stage. This time we would witness bailaores, male flamenco dancers, who's abilities put all others to shame. He finished his extraordinary dancing with a flare and finish that was soaked in a gentle and graceful humor borne from serious competence. Flawless.

We left the evening singing down the streets, my fingers working the beautiful castanets I purchased from a gypsy outside. Percussing and laughing a staccato, we all danced our own personal flamencos on our way back home.

In Which Team Pants Kick Ass and Take Names

Upon waking in our pension, the alley below comes into aural focus like a distant television set left on overnight on the Noisy Malaga Street channel. The Andalusian sky; a crystal azul mocked by solitary clouds who defy the expanse of sun-filled sky. The day is ours. We've left Holland behind. The snow, the wet cold, and the mistakes. Oh yes, we made mistakes in Holland. I am a savvy traveler, made all the more so by loosing my wife for forty-five minutes during a snow storm. But I digress...

The autobus North to Granada passes between the small mountains which separate the town from the Mediterranean. Some hills are covered with scrub. Scruffy Brillo pads bereft of greenery, balding like middle aged Greek man in a brash sun. Occasionally we see the ordered olive rows, but I wonder where the grass grows? There is none. The scenery looks like California, and then I remember the spaghetti westerns filmed here, and I say, "ah." "This land was designed by Hollywood executives and producers to appear Old West, without the fuss of paying union wages!"

Arriving in Granada appears much like arriving in Mexico: cheap buildings with advertising written in that machismo font that gives me hives. Until descending into the valley, one might believe it all looked like that. The Franco-inspired, near communist grandeur reflected in the monumental fountains and architecture suggests otherwise. It only hints at a regime's belief that all this ancient city served to highlight their impunity and divine right. But the ancient withstood the brief shadow of dictators as easily as the reigns of caliphs and catholic demagogues. Here are the baths fed by aquaducts still in use, built over one thousand years ago. Here, a catholic church is easily recognized as Muslim in style, bells replacing the muezzin's voice in the arched windows of the tower. Each most likely built on the backs of the poor or enslaved.

Our host's house is magical. Shaped like a U with an open courtyard in the middle, the stairs bring you upwards to a rooftop patio under the gaze of the Alahambra. Upon arriving, we quaff mas tinto des verana (i've butchered the spelling in favor of phonetics) and I get a lesson in slicing Iberian ham. It's placed in a convenient stand and shaved to produce paper thin, succulent slices. These hams are curred three thousand meters above sea level in the dry air of the sierra nevadas. The rare air produces rare flavors and savory "tops" to beverages.

The drinking continues until one in the morning. We weave the streets taking in pubs and tapas, bars and wines, savoring the different scenes as we eat and drink our way through the night.

We sleep like dogs.