"Antisceptic environments are not the best breeding grounds for warriors of the kingdom of Christ."--Roger S. Greenaway I sometimes have these idyllic mornings, Geoff brings me my Colombe French roast and I can stay in bed and sip it and admire the baby. Well, I was doing just this today after everyone had left for school when my WRTI classics in the morning reverie was interrupted by the sounds of a domestic argument across the street. Curses and outlandish accusations flew. The two women were seriously yelling. My impulse was to start fantasizing about a house in the suburbs, a house on a tree-lined street, a clean litterless street, where everyone had a driveway, where neighbors were more civilized or at least more discreet. Holding little Clara, I was tempted to sprial about what a shitty neighborhood we had picked, about how our pristine and perfect little daughter had to be raised with such ghetto sketchiness. I had to remind myself of this Greenaway article that I read. The article was about raising children in the city. How we do it to be intentional about God's love and ministry to a hurting city. I am confronted with how fast I run from hurting in the city, how I try to hand-knit the insulation between me and the poverty and the anger around me. I am definitely the mother-bird who has restrained herself from playground bullies and choked back the urge to throttle mean kids we encounter but I know something is right that we found a house here. I want to protect our kids but I also want them to be aware of racial inequality, poverty, and how God manages to fill the space with his presence. Something is right that we are coping with the injustices, even on a superficial level. I find that a rare SOMETIMES I am moved toward compassion for this neighborhood. "Safety and satisfaction are in and from the Lord, not from communities, comforts, or human devices, " says Greenaway. I read this and I know that where God wants me is where I am safe, or at least where I should be. And I know that in this way, slowly by slowly, God is at work softening my stony and frigid heart.
PHOTOS: Geoff and Clara play "mirror." Benici and his morning snuggle. Me and my homegirl. The Quinn-Camacho's made the cutiest cutie pie. It reminds me of the New Zealand movie, "The Price of Milk."

The first three days out there were the endorphins, feeling like I was on some transcendent plane, invincible and rooted birth mama. Then my energy plummeted and I heeded the midwife's advice to stay in bed, not even to descend the stairs for anything. Clara and I fell into the same schedule: long stretches of sleep, punctuated by ravenous eating. At this point, Geoff was still off work and he was Atlas, world balanced on his shoulders. Manny and Benici enjoyed Geoff's long days off, Dad the escort to birthday parties, the food coop, even church. Then this week, life went back to normal and all I can say is, "Pray for us." One on one, I can manage their requests but the boys' fighting and Clara's crying all unnerve me. When Benici was born I would say, "It's a juggling act. I'll just be very patient with myself." Now, I see that it is a three ring circus and I have to be patient with myself, with each of them, and utterly surrender to the reality that I have chosen this work and that this mothering is what I am called to do now. So I need to innovate a little and allow Manny to try and peel his own apple and trust Benici with the CD player. As for Clara Margot, a mom at school today told me that the baby and I are still wired to feel like we just can't be separated. It's true, she still feels like she's part of me, this total being but who feels like a second heart I grew that now exists independently. After not seeing her for a bit, I look at her and am filled with this thrill of all of our adventures together but also this comfort like she's a friend that I have always had and nothing ever fades between us. All this, and the girl's only two weeks old. Happy two weeks, Clara Margot, little baby.

Beatty Third Birth Awards Banquet


Anne Lamott said that after she gave birth she wanted to throw an awards banquet for her body. When I mentioned this to my brother Mike he said that he got images of spaghetti to feed the masses and St. Gregory's social hall. What I think of is the Nanao Sakkaki poem where he looks in the mirror and looks at his aged self with a lot of gentle forgiveness and humor. Besides the obvious parts, the MVP might go to my nose and lungs. I know that sounds strange but before Clara Margot's birth, I did not know how to breathe with my nose. From yoga, I learned how to breathe deeply like that for the whole hour. I feel like it was one of my most efficient strategies. Also, my hips win a nod for responding to Geoff Beatty's counter-pressure. After Benici's birth, I said that my body and I were friends again. After Clara Margot's I feel like we are Swift Boat buddies. I feel like I could go a marathon with her. My midwife told me just after she said I was 10cm dilated to just listen to my body. When I did, my bod did not let me down. She was assuring and determined like Maverick in Top Gun, "Stay on my wing. I'll take you all the way in."
There are countless other props and shout outs: to the Queen Lane Reservoir for a two hour stream of hot water, to Alice Maunz for pinch hitting as a dutiful doula and all-around Mary Poppins to my sons, to Meeshee Sanchez for holding my head for the third time and NOT laughing at me even once in labor, to Adri Legaspi for calling it the "most amazing but grossest thing I've ever seen," to Valley Birthplace midwives, Barbara and Lauren who had complete confidence in the nature and design of childbirth. Also Juan Sanchez for being on the scene, for oj for all and Clara's first bouquet of flowers. To my parents for arriving when they did and for staying on to parent us after the birth. To Manny and Benici, my spitfires, bouys to this ship. Of course, the most robust thanks to Geoffrey Beatty who threaded a garden hose through our upstairs windows, who held me up for two hours with the shower spraying him in the face while calmly and rationally calling our midwives 5 times in 45 minutes. For making this life with me, leading us all through adventures with unbelievable kindness and brilliance. For giving our third birth everything he had and for giving me the daughter I have always wanted.

I didn't want too much time to pass before I told about this daughter of ours. Last Wednesday night, with a precipitous and mighty entrance, Candelaria Margot was born. I am still reeling from her birth, so strange and so amazing; life at home as usual and then this baby girl thundering through my body in under 4 hours. The details: She weighed 8lbs. 6 oz. and was 20 inches tall, our smallest baby at birth. On the Filipino/Caucasian Spectrum, she definitely leans toward the tropical hula girl side rather than the hardy Nordic chick. She has little sounds, halfway between squeaks and actual vocal notes. They're very soft and sound sort of bird-like. Her favorite hangouts are: nursing at the breast, sleeping on Geoff's chest (fave T's are the super soft Mickey Mouse T and the Confucian saying T), and watching her brothers bustle in and out of the room with masks or trains. When I laid eyes on her, I had this recognition like, "Yeah, I know you." The Psalm says, " You knit me in my mother's womb. . . " I saw her and I thought, "This is was being knit inside me all along." I am blown away and won over by this little baby.

When given sick orders to stay in and rest all day, what books I take to bed with are usually written by Anne Lamott, among others. What even made it even more "Desert Island Disc-y" was that I had a double eye infection which limited the amount of reading that was comfortable for my vision. So, I had two books with me besides the Bible, Traveling Mercies and Spilling Open by Sabrina Ward Harrison, the last one is slightly embarassing to admit. (One not-so-gentle old friend refers to a period in my life where my advice could not be trusted bc I was reading SARK. SARK writes the forward to "Spilling Open.") Anyway, my trusted friend Anne Lamott is to me what C.S. Lewis is to Tim Keller, someone whose words are deep in your veins. I feel like I could confidently dialogue in her voice about things I never heard her speak of. (My Boston pastor who also read her reminded me numerous times that she wasn't even on board with the Trinity. Pas du tout.) But anyway, the passage that was my bouy that day was about how AL wanted so badly to visit a dying friend. It seemed that everything was conspirining against this car trip to see her friend, cars breaking, viruses being caught. Distraught, she shares this with an acquaintance who happens to work for the Dalai Lama who gently explains that when alot of things seem to go wrong at once, it is often because something big is trying to get itself born. And in order for it to get born perfectly, there need to be distractions so it can make its own way. And so, being overdue for this baby, something I know is trying to get born, I am trying to weather the distractions, the preschool virus-cloud, the undone house-chores, the unsewn (but cute brother blue bird) costumes in the closet, and just SURRENDER. Anyway, AL did get to go visit her friend, it was her childhood friend's mother who was dying and she did get to see her. It seemed to be a day that distractions could not touch and it just seemed holy. She and her friend got to pray and breathe with her mother and bathe her and just gently love her as she passed into death. I hope this for our birth, a holy space, gently loving someone as she passes into the next part.