Before children there I was—for 30 seconds—freefalling; I wasn’t sure whether I was grinning so hard…because of the adrenaline rush? Or because of the rush of ozone pressing against my cold cheeks? And there was crazy raging mad girl... girl taking chances in bars, girl in the city doing the walk of shame. The girl who took chances every day driving a red-striped Ford Festiva, a skateboard on wheels doing 80 on the 680 freeway.
And then I met my husband...on...Yahoo...Personals. He was the anti-cool guy. Frugal, safe, stable. And I fell in love. Normal guy meets fun-loving, chance-taking girl, marries her, and owns a home in the ‘burbs. I have worked at the same place for almost seven years. We have a mortgage and a three-year-old. And now all of a sudden there is so much more at stake. Now I am afraid of seemingly innocuous things. Afraid of vaccines (thanks, Jenny McCarthy!) and things made by Mattel and Fisher-Price. I am afraid of not taking my prenatal vitamin. Afraid of another hospital birth (that’s another story). I am reluctant to buy milk from Oregon or a cantaloupe from Chile. I try to eat local. And everything prepackaged is made from corn. Pretty much. Read The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Corn is grown by industrialized farming—which—throws fertilizer at it. What is fertilizer made of? Oil! And that is why, I believe, we are a nation at war. Our world is made of oil. If I eat an Oreo I am creating cause for war.
All I want is for my beautiful curly-headed hazel-eyed child to live in a safe world. Because her survival matters. Because the best sound I have ever heard (and I have heard beautiful sounds) an adolescent Audra McDonald singing pre-Tony awards in my school auditorium, church bells ringing, and the words “I love you.” I have never known such happiness as when my daughter’s giggles hit my eardrums like pebbles thrown on a lover’s window.
It could be the pregnancy hormones, but I tread ever so carefully. A child’s happiness is cause to reform and I will soon have two of my own. Life is all of a sudden, so important. Vital. Worth preservation.
