Moving Back Home

I've been meaning to write for a while. By a while I mean months, of course, or even a year if I mean a juicy posting that's actually conveying what I'm doing. As you may have noted early last fall, I was a little behind because I was just too busy trying to get done everything I needed to get done before the baby came, which was a bit early anyways.


When I finally got back to New Mexico early last week, moving into my house a few days later, I started gearing up to write a post about everything that's different in the house. I got a little extra boost of motivation when the Pollinatrix told me that Owen had posted about me again, and some were wondering what had happened to me.

What did happen to me? I took off for California last fall fully intending to come back a few months later to tie up some odds and ends in the house so I could give birth here in February. But then the baby came three months early and we spent two and a half months at Stanford Children's hospital as she slowly but surely grew to five pounds. Neither I nor the house were in a place for us to move back here, so we went to live with my sister and her husband in Northern California. Though initially we were intending to stay quite some time, I visited Taos in June and couldn't stay away much longer. So, we flew back to the west coast, packed up everything, and drove out to live on the beautiful mesa.

I must confess, not only do I not write on my blog anymore, but I don't write at all. Maybe three pages in the past year, plus a few letters that I've written to a friend. Though intending to write this blog post about the house, I feel like I have to describe what this year has been like to convey what life, and my house, and living in my house are like today.

Last summer, spent out here working on the interior of my house, was the beginning of the hardest (and most beautiful) year of my life. That difficulty has more or less wrapped itself up (I hope). The stress of trying to finish a house so that you can have a baby in it (and a place to live with the baby), while feeling so physically ill, becoming a complete emotional mess, and feeling abandoned by almost everyone in your life, including the father of your child, was jarring. I'm grateful for the incredible friends and family who I do and did have and who have been immense supports.

As often happens, at the point of ultimate exhaustion without an iota of energy left, I went into labor. I didn't even know you could go into labor at 26 weeks, which is perhaps why I thought I had just eaten too much Tapatio for twelve hours of contractions. Four days on an anti-contraction med magnesium (makes you hot and thirsty but also retain water so you can barely drink any, plus it constipates you) and I gave birth to an itty-bitty girl that weighed 2lbs 1 oz (1lb 13oz at her smallest), who lived in an incubator and got fed sugar water. I got to hold her almost from the beginning, tucked into my shirt, and also watched her get poked and tested and forget to breathe and slowly grow into the sweet, spunky, curious girl that she is. Meanwhile, I lived in my car for the first three weeks, and then got a room in the Ronald McDonald House (if you've ever heard of them but not known what they do they're amazing—they provide inexpensive/free rooms and much more for families with children in the hospital). I pumped eight times a day (which is more or less your whole day), so that I could establish a milk supply for her and eventually begin to nurse her. And I worried about her constantly. And then, one day, we got released. I got to put her in her car seat and drive away.

And from there I went to my sister's and began to recuperate. And watch my father die of prostate cancer. And let my heart heal. And start to relearn how to breath. And move home. And step back into my former life with a new me and a new baby. And maybe start writing again.

So here I am, in the house. I have a brand spanking new Sundanzer DC fridge, hot water in my shower, beautiful but not hooked up kitchen and bathroom sinks, a dining room table, curtains, a not quite hooked up woodstove, chickens, a closet for my clothes, a bamboo ceiling and, coming soon, a meditation perch and some decent stairs. And, of course, my monkey Xiomara Nightingale.

I hope that this is the start of a good thing and you will be hearing more from me soon.