Unpacking

I've been slowly going through the several boxes of belongings I packed up from my parents house in Alaska a year and a half ago. That was a hard trip-- I was already dealing with some depression, and I grieved hard for the house that I grew up in, that my dad grew up in, that my grandma designed. It's a beautiful house with wood floors (and walls in some areas) a slate entry way and fireplace, wide windows looking out at the row of mountains across the Gastineau Channel. My grandma tucked neat little nooks everywhere-- a laundry chute, a dumbwaiter for wood, "magic doors" where you press the walls and they click open to reveal closets. I spent about four days throwing away mounds of crap from my younger years, and packing up the stuff that I couldn't let go of or decide on.

My parents sent the boxes back to me last winter when they put the house on the market, and I've finally started sorting through things, with the deadline of el bambino as a prompt to get me motivated.

I've found funny things, like Cinderella cds and cassette tapes with the Bangles recorded off the radio. And things that break my heart, like the letter to me from my Godmother on the day my brother was born. Today I was going through a box that had cards I'd saved, and I came across several from my dad. When I first moved away from home to Seattle (to become a grunge star) my dad sent me a card every week. I was always touched by this, but today, with this little guy on the way, it made me cry-- knowing how much my parents love me, how selflessly, and how we will undoubtedly love this little guy the same way. How in some way I think a parent's love for a child must be somewhat unrequited-- I love my parents fiercely, but I imagine there is something different about caring for someone when they're helpless and new, about knowing you are fracturing off a piece of yourself who you hope will make the world a little better, that a child can't understand, perhaps until they become a parent themselves.

On a somewhat lighter note, my prenatal yoga teacher brought in a book on names last week. It's not about the origins of names for babies, but rather something about the energetic vibration of the letters in the name. I didn't read the entire description for Max, but it did say "intelligent and stubborn." Sounds about right. And then, "as likely to be found on the dean's list as on the FBI's most wanted list"!

Anybody have a good back-up name for us?!?