Sparkle

Wow. I guess there are a lot of thoughts about babies whirring through a lot of heads out there! Thanks to everyone for their comments and emails - and mom, if you're reading this, you're allowed to comment, too! (My mother called me and said she was sorely tempted to put in her two cents to that last post, though I'm not sure if it was to veto superhero baby names, or to say, "The time is now!" She's been very patient with daughters not giving her grandchildren, but I think her patience is wearing thin. Thank you to my brother, anyway, for giving her a granddaughter ten years ago and buying Emily and me some time! - Just kidding, mom.)

My gloom & doom outlook for the future of the planet gets me down sometimes and I begin to feel about having children the way I feel about buying purebred puppies rather than rescuing dogs from the pound: that we should do our best by the dogs & people already in the world and not make more. I don't really mean we shouldn't "make" new people. I do wonder at what will become of the massive population explosion, though, and the taboo against talking about limiting population growth, (which apparently violates our sacred human right to have children whether we can care for them or not). But after reading some of the comments to my last post, the hopefulness got to me a little. I DO want to believe future generations can be better than us, that future administrations will reverse the current one. I DO want to believe there's hope. I don't believe it, but I WANT to. And I know my pessimism won't prevent me from at least trying to have children. Not in the hopes of birthing the savior of the environment (though that would be neat) but just in the hopes of making a person or two and getting to know them and experiencing the fullness of life in that way, and to have a family that will grow up around Jim and I as we get old.

(Speaking of us getting old, Jim wondered aloud today if he'd ever be known as "crazy old man Di Bartolo" by the neighborhood kids o' the future. Ha! I wonder what kind of an old woman I'll be, too. Here's a quote off a wall of a B&B in Southern Arizona where we saw bobcats, bears, and lots of hummingbirds a few years ago: "I want to be an outrageous old woman who never gets called "old lady." I want to get leaner and meaner, sharp-edged and earth-colored, until I fade away from pure joy." - by unknown. Isn't that great?)

Also, here's a poem-ish thing I wrote about "Life", which I find endlessly delightful and astonishing in all its costumes, from a biological perspective, more than a spiritual one. I mean, this world is SO COOL!

Every moment
Life finds herself somewhere new,
hidden in an acorn or a plain brown egg,
and she's delighted every time.
Every moment she's dreaming,
unfurling herself like a fiddlehead, reaching.
She's a busybody, a dervish,
A wily matchmaker without whom
Tortoises might never meet in the desert,
or moth find moth by moonlight.
Life arranges miracles every moment
with no more fanfare than a knitter
clicking her needles together.
She's a weaver, a gardener,
and I am one nest and one garden,
Where Life might grow, a little bird, a flower,
a miracle of my own.

(As for the little doll, Sparkle, pictured above, this was my crafty Christmas project this year - I always feel the need to make some new kind of thing at the holidays. It's how Laini's Ladies was born, and maybe I'll figure out a way for Sparkle and her little sisters and brothers to make their way out into the world someday, too.)
All the best! Thanks for reading.