One month today

It's been one month today that we've been in the Level 2 Nursery at St. Mike's... we arrived on May 4. I find it hard to gather my thoughts on this.  I cope simply by taking everything day by day, and that means when a day passes, I let it go, and I try not to project into the future. That was the strategy I used when the crisis began in Turks and Caicos.
I understood perfectly well the gravity of the situation, but instinctively planted myself in the moment, each moment as it arose, not into the past (regret and self-recriminations: I should/n't have done such and such,) and not into the future (fear: what will happen if...)
My place is here, now. And that's where I am every day, at St. Michael's hospital, in downtown Toronto, with my son Amon Soleil Day Corrin, who grows every day, who amazes me with his strength, who makes me laugh, who fills me with wonder and hope and inspiration. 
He is awake more often than ever now, and that gives me the sweetest joy of holding him and watching his little face as he becomes more aware of the world around him.  He reminds me to stay present in every moment... babies are living proof of the Buddhist teachings of impermanence and non attachment. In the span of 30 seconds, Amon has a thousand faces.  He is surprised, ancient, mischievous, innocent, wistful. Suddenly he is inconsolable, which passes into rage and then, he is asleep. Emotions and states of mind pass if we let them.  I believe at 41 days old, he is in a state of elevated consciousness, which, I, at 41 years old, am trying to get back to.  I practice yoga and meditate to learn to remember what he already knows.  Let it pass; observe and let it go.


When I was in the hospital in TCI waiting to learn whether I'd have to deliver our baby that day, so unexpectedly, and so early, before I knew if Amon was a boy or a girl, he was my teacher and my friend.  As my blood pressure soared, and my liver and kidneys were beginning to shut down, he was there, boldly kicking, swishing around, and performing all of the shenanigans that had made me laugh and keep things in perspective before I found myself in this unbelievable situation. He was inside of me then and I believe he gifted me in the worst moment of my life, with the remembrance and the wisdom of the unborn and the newborn: inhabit only this very moment, no other time, and no other place, right now. His innate practice of letting it pass, helped me let it all pass as it happened.


As the mother enters into giving birth, she and the baby exist in a mysterious interstitial space between life and death. It can go either way.  Worry passed through my mind all the time when I was pregnant.  I tried to do all the right things, vitamins, organic food, exercise, 8 glasses of water.  I realized, though he was completely dependant on me, and it was my responsibility to care for him entirely, he had a will to life that was all his own. Life has a way of living.  Amon was my co-conspirator in coming to life. 
Right up to the moment the anesthesiologist put the needle in my back for the epidural, I felt him kicking, reminding me that he had life, and I had life too. My energy was focused on staying with it and staying in it.  And that's where we are right now, today... we're in life.
We are in a hospital in a busy city. We have been here for a month. We've seen many babies reach the milestones, and leave the hospital for home. Just as the moods and expressions pass over Amon's little face, we are passing through.