Crawling Toward the Big Day

Hip, hip. January 22, 2008
Originally uploaded by sharonNYC.

On the day I was born, my mother gave a mighty push and I shot into the world so suddenly that there was a sound like a cork. So the story goes.

This was a hospital birth, but there was a midwife waiting to catch me. She was a bit surprised, and she fumbled my tiny body and caught my by my left leg en route to the floor.

That leg, specifically that hip joint, has never been right. The foot turns out when I walk. I have to sit zazen just so; it's as if some ligament there is loose, or missing. That hip makes a loud "clunk" when I raise and lower my leg from a seated position.

Two days ago I went on a massive urban-foraging expedition and came back with an astouding amount of groceries and Goodwill finds. In my condition, a dress that fits is a great blessing; one from Norm Thompson in soft charcoal wool for $7 is a gift. In the throes of my excellent second-hand karma that day, I lugged too much. And then I went for groceries. The little wheeled cart was instrumental in their transportation. But lifting it up the stairs was a bit much.

By evening, my hip hurt.

It hurt the next day too. I went for a walk to try to work out the knots, but I only succeeded in circling the block in record 15 minutes. I went to a play in the evening, wearing the Norm Thompson dress.

Today I realized: I've been wanting to do more walking meditation, and now that's the only kind of walking there is. My hips do not cooperate. There is a baby head wedged above my pubic bone, which may be contributing to the general pelvic instability. I should have spent the second half of the day the way I spent the first: in bed. But we went all over town looking for a baby dresser/changing table, me shuffling like an infirm old lady.

One thing from those years of wearing the kungfu outfit and the supershort nun hair: I don't mind being looked at in public. Pregnant women are a spectacle, even when they can walk.

Sometimes I cry out in pain. And tonight I was sad that I could not make dinner and move pots and pans out of the way in preparation for tomorrow's grand installation-of-kitchen-gas-line. But for the most part, this is just what is. It's something to be curious about; something that will be over soon. In month, I'll be absorbed in the care of someone else's tiny body. Temporary pain, temporary tiny body: temporary, temporal, tenuous.

Long ago, Dr Ou said, "There is no body, only energy," with the force of truth in her voice. Long ago, a baby burst forth; what happened that day was the seed for now. There's no way to know for sure how the events of one birth shape a future life. We are only here, in the middle of it all, for the time we have.

I will now proceed to bed. I will do so crawling all fours, because that makes the most sense.