Sitars and Wood

And somehow from the ins and outs of synchronicity, the day before Livy’s birthday—November 30th—I somehow begin melding with The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood.” Again.

Year after year, sometime before the last day of November, returning to the ballad where John sings that he once had that girl but wait, no: she’s the one who had him. 2017, 2018 2019, 2020,....my space becoming the quiet solitude of an evening around the warmth of a fire and a girl who just landed in my life.

And I remember that day of holding Livy, 11/30/2000. Knowing in an instant that gathered into my arms was now the potential for every single bit of love and agony possible to have within one life. For before that minute, I’d even worried I wouldn’t love her as I did Julia; Julia born early, 5/17/1998, 7 weeks before her little body was ready then stuck a million times with needles and hooked to IVs in an isolette to the lullaby of “she might die; be blind, deaf; have disabilities” and yet before I left that Virginia hospital with that tiny being, I’d come around into the purest parts of myself so as to move the brittle mountain of vulnerability titled “should I even let myself love her lest she die?” Should I allow this love to expand knowing it will be over soon? Should I smell the ginger wisps of hair as I feed her and let the scent alter my chemistry? With Julia, I'd let the justified fear walk with me in a storm because that’s what people do; they stand guard over their potential devastation, trying to sweet talk it; hoping to bypass hardship by not loving; hoping birds will stay put if we just keep the door closed forever. But in that hospital with Julia, I'd come to pierce through justified fear and vulnerability to discover that Love can carry a passion that conquers the saddest parts of ourselves, and moves mountains then floats through sterile, hushed corridors like magic, with air under our feet like a fairy. Like a rainbow. Like an angel.

Julia was to love beyond what I knew love to be. Beyond romance, and words and platitudes, to love in a way where I couldn’t see what I’d even been before. Julia was a Now moment of revelation, she was the proof of God, she was my best self, my biggest heart. I couldn't see a “me” capable of being better.

But Life moves us into the more beautiful homes of ourselves. Sitting in rooms of rugs and warmth is the uncertainty of it all, ever pushing us to surrender to vulnerability in order to write melodies with sitars and wood.

And so on November 30th, 2000, Olivia Grace Plimpton was born at LDS Hospital. Three weeks early. My mom and 2 year old Julia at the hospital for the entire labor—Julia carrying her stuffed Cat in the Hat, me coloring with her through labor pains—and James rushing in from a business trip seconds before Livy’s birth. The hospital staff having told him to park in the loading zone and run upstairs or he’d miss it.

And I held her, my baby, my second girl, and like the song’s first line, she had me.

For of course, I loved her—them—in full knowledge at that point of the attempted deceit of my own heart. And in opening that door discovered that they were not mine but rather that I was theirs, left now to graciously sing "this bird has flown" from warm fire-lit rooms in this beautiful home of ourselves.