I pedaled my humble green bike furiously through the rainy back streets of Berkeley and Oakland, grateful that the route home had by now grown familiar with my daily ride to and from work. Had I not ridden that way every day for the last several months, I very well might have gotten lost, as I am prone to do, which is why I hope you inherited your mother's sense of direction and not my tendency to walk or drive off towards nowhere in particular.
But I wouldn't get lost this day and finally wheeled in behind our apartment building to the backdoor where our neighbor Tony keeps all his plants congregated and over-watered.
After riding through the downpour, I felt like his jade plant must feel when he stands five feet away with garden hose and spray nozzle and firehoses the foliage.
I expected to find your mother inside, cast onto the couch in utter misery with the onset of labor, with your Oma and Aunt Charlotte fanning her and feeding her chipped ice. I don't know why chipped ice came to mind. This was my first run at childbirth. Putting my key in the lock, I braced myself for a war zone inside, for blood sweat and tears like I had never known.
Instead, I nearly clobbered your mom (and you, come to think of it) with the door on my way in as she was passing through the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the bedroom. My memory is foggy regarding whether it was a laundry basket, a broom, a mop, or some other implement of domestic destruction that she had in her hands. Whatever it was, I startled her slightly, but then she quickly recovered and said, smiling,
"Oh! Hey, you're home," which startled me in return. I was expecting banshee-like screaming or lioness-like roaring. I wondered briefly if I'd received a prank call, if this was the wrong house, or had I missed the big event? No, it was just that confounding peace in her that and you and me both will spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out.
