Two Months with Mercena

(Why am I naming days?)

10/15/14, Day 14,043 (Mercena Day 61): Two Months with Mercena

What’s amazing to me is how natural it all seems now.

In the early days, everything was so strange; not just the new life wailing in our home, but all the trappings that go with it–the diaper hose I installed into the toilet, the warmer for the wipes, the retro-robotic wheeze of the breast pump machine. All those tired days and bleary nights searching books and the Google to find answers to her Inscrutable Wails. And those sudden, jagged swells of overwhelming love…

Well, those haven’t changed much. She herself is still a wonder. Mercena West. But every day, she seems more and more like a person, a human that of course lives with us because she always has, a miracle, but an everyday one.

And she herself is doing well, not sleeping through the night yet, but sleeping for five-hour stretches more regularly now. She still gets fussy at the witching hour, but last night, she had the biggest smile while we were singing her lullaby. She’s figuring us out, too. She has bad days, like we all do, but she becomes more curious every day. Her activity mat, which she used to treat like a hot plate, is now her favorite place, as she swats at the Cow Mirror, the Motley Knight and her greatest foe that hangs above her, the Red Monkey.

And she talks! Boy, does she talk, seemingly a new sound introduced every day. Her Talking Spots are the Activity Mat and–would you believe this?–the Altar of Sacrifice. Yes, that’s right, the spot where she used to reflexively howl and fuss has become her favorite spot to babble and coo. How the whirligig of time brings in her favors, too…

Oh, and yesterday? Heather gave her a bath, and she didn’t fuss at all.

I wasn’t able to assist much with that bath because my back is still a snarl of argh. There’s always a base discomfort, but whenever I try to adjust a position the really startling agony jets up. However, I do seem to be getting better every day–only 10% to my mind, but the chiropractor assures me that’s pretty good for what I have (we take a cab to and fro, because I don’t really know how far I can walk). Sandra came to our rescue yesterday, and helped Heather with some shopping and laundry that more or less hit the reset button on our jostled lives. And I was feeling well enough to do some dishes and putter about…

I also worked another full day at TCG, and while I wish I could go in today, that seems like a mistake. I was also able to move a bunch of Flux stuff forward in the evening, and yes, I even found time to write late at night. There is a benefit, I guess, to not really being comfortable enough to sleep…

…and it’s become clear to me that in my little technique tally below, I need to add yoga. I’ve inherited a predisposition for back pain that will require I change my life and take better care of my slippery spine. However, I’ve had a heck of a time ever committing to a regular schedule of yoga.

So, I’m going to try something new. I’ve never had much luck with clearing my mind or simple mantras; the rainforest of thoughts buzzes too much for that. But I’ve had more luck with what I suppose is a kind of prayer-in-motion, if you can call an atheist’s guided thought a prayer. And, as I’ve found that sharing things here is a remarkably effective motivator, I’m going to share my daily prayer-in-motion here, although my motion today will certainly be quite minimal (if I can make it to the floor, the chiro has advised three very gentle stretches).

I’m also hoping that this daily-ish practice will help me think about my larger actions and how to make change possible. I believe that any change I want to see in the world must first be made within myself, and then ripple out through the other circles of my life.

For now, I’m playing with the following nine circles:

First circle: Me
Second circle: My first family (the family I was born into, Heather’s family and the family we’re making together)
Third circle: My second family (Flux and those friends I consider family)
Fourth circle: My local community (New York City)
Fifth circle: My community of searchers, creators and healers (artists, scientists, activists)
Sixth circle: My human community (humans, living or otherwise)
Seventh circle: The community of life (animals, plants, this precious blue rock circling round the sun)
Eighth circle: The universe (you know, like, what’s been happening since the big bang)
Ninth circle: The mystery (imagine this as a kind of poetic potpourri section)

For the moment, I’m working with either prayer (sending healing thoughts where they’re needed) 0r praise (sending gratitude for something that’s awesome).

While I’ll be sharing these here (if I really am able to commit to doing this on a regular basis), I will occasionally be poetically redacting things by riddling them past easy comprehension when someone’s privacy needs to be protected. I hope it to be equal parts sincere and silly, part to-do list and part poem.

So, here’s the first prayer-in-motion:

A prayer for my back to heal
And praise to Sandra for her help
Sling joe to sweet cherry anne for her pain
And remember those with no shelter from this rain;
Praise to the makers of Swarna-Sub 1
Solidarity with #FergusonOctober
For the great Spinosaurus, praise
And search-on for BICEP2’s gravitational waves;
And hey there, beautiful mystery.

Technique never stands still: it only advances or retreats…

Writing: 162 out of 211 days
Spanish: 134 out of 211 days
Music: 63 out of 117 days
Yoga: 1 out of 1 day

What small things did I do yesterday to help build the Honeycomb?
(And what does it mean to “Help build the honeycomb?”)

• Ate and cooked local, organic, vegetarian food, and used cloth diapers for Mercena;
• Asked Microsoft’s CEO to release their pay data to ensure equity and diversity in their hiring practices;
• Sent another petition to the EPA ion support of coal ash regulation;
• Asked NPR to remove pro-fracking ads from their broadcasts;
• Signed a petition to the Obama administration to end militarized, racially-biased policing against Black and brown communities.