pussyfooting.

Sometimes the only place to start is from here. OK, it's the only place to start from, really, and the only place to arrive. But here is a tricky thing. And I’m utterly (let’s not say hopelessly) ill-prepared for it. If I tapped into my zen, I’d see that being where you are requires zero preparation. But oh dear friends, I’m not quite there yet.

{eva by malota}

Yet there’s no escaping; here I am. A long continent away from where I was only three weeks ago. Back “home” so to speak, some may even say back to where I started. But I’ve never been here before. Navigating the state of 37 weeks pregnant with my husband, who’s definitely never been here before either. Refiguring how to live in the States, while suddenly--so it seems to me now--becoming mother.

This week we’ll pack a bag for the hospital and wash some baby clothes. We’ll buy me a robe and an open-fronted nursing shirt or two. We’ll install baby’s car seat, and buy a cute mirror so we can see him in the rearview. We’ll take another birthing class at the birthing center. I’ll get my first-ever acupuncture in hopes that it will calm me: help me to arrive. To tell you the truth, it calms me just to write this down. One of blogging's more peaceful moments, and something I've been missing.

But what wakes me up at odd hours aside from constant peeing? Is what to do about the nest. We've been living with my auntie, convinced that we would have our own place set up before baby belted his first hello. When we left Patagonia, I couldn’t really start thinking about what we would do for housing upon arrival to California. First, we had to vacate our lives there, say our nos vemos, hasta prontos. Planning beyond that was just flying pigs to me. 

Now that we’re here, of course I want to nest. I want to figure out diapers and decorate space, unpack the baby items given us in Patagonia. To start our home together.  At the same time, I just don’t know if I have it in me to get everything we need for the baby and to shop for a bed for us, bookshelves, a dresser. Not to mention choosing an arbitrary location before we have jobs. And physically move the few boxes I have (which I can’t really help with) and decorate (which I might obsess over). And remember to breathe relaxingly for this natural birth thing? Be a mom to another human being, when I’m finding it difficult to even mother myself. 

{photo by dan;o)el}

Um, yeah, I know I can do this. But I could use a pep talk or a funny story. Something about a time when you jumped into the deep end only half able to swim... and survived.