No be scared

Tanyth Berkeley's Girls

The fact of the matter is that I am now five months pregnant. Today, I was quickly trying to stuff a banana down my gullet in the middle of class and I felt like I had to explain to the students my bizarre behavior. When I told them I was pregnant, they broke into applause and quite embarrassed me. It was not a reaction I expected, and I felt oddly cheered by the event. The 20 yr-olds never do cease to amaze me: whether it is the extent to which they can make a truly disgustingly graphic music video to Ty Digg's Get Nasty (and I'll leave that to your imagination) or whether they can empathetically find something positive to say about even the worst student work in the class. This is my daily life in any case, and I better find reward with the company I keep.

The other thing I spent some time trying to do today was hear my baby's heartbeat. Though it meant listening to about a half hour of my stomach gurgling, I did finally manage to hear that slow, under-water pulse with the store-bought stethoscope. I can't seem to manage turning any pages of the baby books stacked by the bedside, but listening to this heartbeat is something I can get behind.

All this to say that I am starting to look pregnant to people other than myself. Or at least to the woman at the dry cleaners who asked me if it was my first baby and then promptly told me not to be scared. She had four herself, so she should know. "Babies are so cute! No be scared!" I decided to take her advice to heart. Let's hope it will be that easy.

The world–even on the subway–can be a magical place. It's a matter of perspective.  It's a matter of seeing.

Tanyth Berkeley likes the special ones. She likes the pale ones, the large headed types, the big bodies and the long giraffe necks. She likes the Robert Crumb shapes and the vampire faces, the glowing white skin and the men-in-dresses with womanly laces. She likes the eyes set back in the skull or the shoulders holding up those big heads that are smashed in like a pretty pumpkin in certain places. Her specialty is the awkward, the rare flower, the big cheek boned and special feminine shells and large sizes and different races.