Day: December 19, 2006

Acclimation

L’s been getting used to so many new things. The most obvious are the temperature changes she endures — a far cry from the constant warmth in which she spent her first nine months. Hunger is another novelty for her. She doesn’t like it one bit, and tends to get infuriated if not satiated.

Light is another.

The first times she really opened her eyes (about fourteen hours after she was born) was in total darkness. Slowly she’s been daring to open her eyes in brighter and brighter light.

And finally, after a bath, this:

Beauty

More at our Flickr slide show

Three Days Old

Covered in cheese, she came into the world in a mix of blood, water, and mystery. That is to say, she is elemental, and sublime.

She poops dark chocolate, chokes herself with spit, and shivers violently when she’s cold, which doesn’t take much.

Her cry when she’s hungry is different than her cry when she’s mad, which is different from her cry when she’s cold.

Her language is rich with grunts, squeaks, moans, trills, howls, and a thousand thousand variations of all those things.

She wakes easily and falls asleep easily.

It often takes little to get her crying, and sometimes even less to get her to stop. But crying stretches her lungs and provides definitive proof that she is still breathing.

She smells of pinkness and warmth and contentedness, a fragrance more stunning than the most expensive perfumes. Her face is more perfect than anything Vermeer conceived and her cry makes Bach seem juvenile. Her eyes, still mostly closed, offer mystery and promise when a slit appears and a flash of iris shows itself.

She is most content when bundled tightly and free movement only makes her feel lost and cold. A tight swaddle stops crying instantly, and a loosening of her protective wraps brings a screech.

She is as light as a bundle of rags and heavier than all the world.

A gift, a responsibility, a privilege, a promise, a thesaurus of all the warm and wondrous words in all languages.