Past Due

This moment is all there is. Every other day or so, there is a rush of hormones: muscles contract in involuntary readiness; a great love rises and runs high; an inner ache banishes sleep. The cliff's edge is approached.

And then something draws back. It is not yet time. Mundane matters fill the day.

There is only one way for this to end, however. One day the boundary will not hold.

Perhaps this slow approach is good. The gate is opening slowly and gradually over days, so that when birth comes, it will be more gentle.

Over the past couple of weeks, something has happened. Some very specific regrets and fears have melted away. Old shame has dissolved. A gentle death of some attachments to a past time; a gentle death 0f some old life.

In this in-between time, there are many lasts. The last time I will have dinner and a long conversation with K. The last tutoring with M while still unencumbered by maternal concerns. The last weekend, and then really the last weekend, of quiet togetherness with my husband.

Some old life--once mine--is already dying. And some new life is actually already here. The baby becomes a person only when it emerges. But already it relates and fidgets, sleeps and gets excited. It likes eating, especially after a while without food. At the first mouthful, the baby wiggles with great energy. I don't know who this person is behind the skin veil, but I have no doubt that they are wholly there, dreaming their way toward the day when their genuine personhood is officially recognized by the US government. For today, this little one has no papers and no number. But he (or she) is more real than the remembered self that once lived my life.

I look at all the little clothes, at the baby bed, and the birthing pool, and my own roiling belly, and I am so excited. So worried, so happy, and so calm. Karma comes due. Waiting to dive over the cliff's edge is like this.