A Baby Story
On TLC they have this show called A Baby Story. There's also a show called A Wedding Story. I don't watch that one anymore... because it usually starts off with the story of an awesome proposal and two people totally in love and devoted to each other - two people - and that just sucks to watch.
The A Baby Story show is tough to handle too... because (I don't know if they're lying or not...) the men all want the baby too, and love their wives, and get a kick out of the prospect of fatherhood, etc. At least they put up a good front. But I like the stories of babies being born - on purpose - wanted - planned for - excited about - and loved, LOVED deeply before they even arrive.
And I watched two shows this morning... after not being able to sleep at all last night... cuz of this peculiar ache in my chest and pounding in my heart.
The first story was about the birth of Dominick Xavier Belanger -- or The Nucc, Nucci as he was called.
The father was a musician - a bass player in a band... the mother, a teacher, a poet. They got pregnant only 3 months after getting married... she was a little goofy, he was a little bit of a dork... but it was oh so cool. "Julian and Mary Lee were both down on love. Both had reached the thirty-year mark and neither had met that special someone, that is until they found each other. After getting married, their plan was to wait before starting a family. Fate had other plans!"
For the baby shower - it was a cabaret of performance pieces, performed by friends and family. Songs, dances, poems... and it finished off with a huge drum circle honoring this new life. I want that kind of life. Surrounded by artists, creators... who know how to welcome a baby into the world.
Cuz I've been to baby showers where the only way you can get a guy to be there and participate even a little... is to play a game where the first one to guzzle a beer down in a bottle - through a nipple and all - wins something. It's kinda funny, but it's kinda sick all at the same time. I've even hosted baby showers where that was a game... because I didn't know another kind of world existed, another kind of way was possible.
I want the kind of life, where the dad, looking at Nucci, says with all his heart, "This is what life is about."
And I want the kind of life where I'm not alone in the morning after a whole night of being alone, crying over a television show and a picture of a life like that is so different from mine.
Good gawd... I'm a little hormonal. Just cuz you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Just cuz I'm hormonal doesn't mean there's not any truth in how I feel. It's just a little exaggerated, a little magnified - but true, the essense is nothing but truth.
Oh, no, Fifi would be so disappointed - cuz I'm sad, again! What happened to the decision to have a smile in my day? I don't know. I really, really, don't know. But I don't like this feeling- and I have a choice - I can go back to sleep (if you call a fitful hour and a half of tossing and turning and pounding heart "sleep"), blow off my appointments and obligations and opportunities - or I can jump into life headfirst and see what happens. I can hold onto the fraction of a belief that says that this is how you get to where you're going - one step at a time. Even when it feels futile.
Or as Andy and Red said in The Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living or get busy dying." Goddam right.
I gotta go find me a drum circle.
The A Baby Story show is tough to handle too... because (I don't know if they're lying or not...) the men all want the baby too, and love their wives, and get a kick out of the prospect of fatherhood, etc. At least they put up a good front. But I like the stories of babies being born - on purpose - wanted - planned for - excited about - and loved, LOVED deeply before they even arrive.
And I watched two shows this morning... after not being able to sleep at all last night... cuz of this peculiar ache in my chest and pounding in my heart.
The first story was about the birth of Dominick Xavier Belanger -- or The Nucc, Nucci as he was called.
The father was a musician - a bass player in a band... the mother, a teacher, a poet. They got pregnant only 3 months after getting married... she was a little goofy, he was a little bit of a dork... but it was oh so cool. "Julian and Mary Lee were both down on love. Both had reached the thirty-year mark and neither had met that special someone, that is until they found each other. After getting married, their plan was to wait before starting a family. Fate had other plans!"
For the baby shower - it was a cabaret of performance pieces, performed by friends and family. Songs, dances, poems... and it finished off with a huge drum circle honoring this new life. I want that kind of life. Surrounded by artists, creators... who know how to welcome a baby into the world.
Cuz I've been to baby showers where the only way you can get a guy to be there and participate even a little... is to play a game where the first one to guzzle a beer down in a bottle - through a nipple and all - wins something. It's kinda funny, but it's kinda sick all at the same time. I've even hosted baby showers where that was a game... because I didn't know another kind of world existed, another kind of way was possible.
I want the kind of life, where the dad, looking at Nucci, says with all his heart, "This is what life is about."
And I want the kind of life where I'm not alone in the morning after a whole night of being alone, crying over a television show and a picture of a life like that is so different from mine.
Good gawd... I'm a little hormonal. Just cuz you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Just cuz I'm hormonal doesn't mean there's not any truth in how I feel. It's just a little exaggerated, a little magnified - but true, the essense is nothing but truth.
Oh, no, Fifi would be so disappointed - cuz I'm sad, again! What happened to the decision to have a smile in my day? I don't know. I really, really, don't know. But I don't like this feeling- and I have a choice - I can go back to sleep (if you call a fitful hour and a half of tossing and turning and pounding heart "sleep"), blow off my appointments and obligations and opportunities - or I can jump into life headfirst and see what happens. I can hold onto the fraction of a belief that says that this is how you get to where you're going - one step at a time. Even when it feels futile.
Or as Andy and Red said in The Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living or get busy dying." Goddam right.
I gotta go find me a drum circle.
Comments
BLA...us super-active thinkers and feelers refuse to step into those "common stereotypes" and believe that there's a better world out there when it comes to babies. This spring time seems more emotional than ever, for whatever individual reasons. Part of what I would like to believe is our refusal to live those steretypes but living in the harsh world of rare thinkers like us. I feel better that I'm not the only one watching marathons of Baby Story, with dripping tears and high hopes. Because if the Nucci Family can live that, so can we.