outer space and a new baby boy.

I swear lately it feels like I am in outer space. The temperatures have finally broken, but for a while there it was like sun-walking. I do realize it was hot across the continent, but inland NC heat is like walking from air conditioning (if you are so lucky)into one of those heavy, prickly, kind of bendable electric blankets - it's on you, under you, all around you and down your throat. I actually gasped for air when I turned on my car and the AC tried to gust through, then drove to the post office where the thermometer read 107 degrees. This is something other-worldly. I haven't written much or edited much of anything in months, which also makes me feel stagnant and shriveled like a raisin (ironically created by the beating down of the sun), though I have been voraciously devouring literature since the spring. I believe writing and reading literature are two sides of the same coin, and hopefully all of this reading is in some way informing me and forming my writing mentality, style and the purposes I hope to achieve. Something needs to tip me, though, back to the actual craft. However, where I am, in this ocean of stories, also contributes to the outer-space feeling because I am beginning to have trouble distinguishing reality from fiction, especially when I keep falling asleep reading. That makes everything exceptionally weird.

My dear friend just gave birth to her son three months early in pretty desperate circumstances, and I keep feeling like I'm there, with her, in Richmond, even though I'm here. Imagining her in the hospital being rushed around by doctors and nurses, her emergency c-section, her new baby son feels very strange. This can't be real, can it? I suppose it can. I keep dreaming and praying for him, for them, but it seems so out of this world. She is the kind of person who keeps calm and sails on. Her unflappability has always disarmed me because it is so different from the way I am, and I think that's why we are such good friends. When she found out her son would be born with some physical abnormalities a month and a half ago, she took it in stride, practically talking through the implications of having a child with some special needs who might undergo several surgeries in the first few years of his life. She mourned some of her expectations, but had this brilliant attitude, thankful for his life. And then, when she was put on a week of bed rest, followed by a week in the hospital where Tucker was ultimately born, she just maintained that steady faithfulness. Here now I can imagine her peering through the glass windows into NICU to watch his fingers open and close, his little head under the small beanie. It's out of this world.

As time goes by there seem to be an increasing number of circumstances that blind side us and I'm more and more cognizant of the imperfection of this world. HOWever, I also think I am (we are) developing a greater love for life. There is more to fight for, and that perspective, the vigor it fosters, is something to be thankful for.