Starlight from the Coming Through

23 June 09

It isn't so much a shortage of time that prevents you from writing when you have a newborn, but a shortage of discipline. You go all soft over the little monkey flower and there isn't much hard left in you to get going in the dark early morning – to say nothing of turning away from the cooing cuteness by day light. But if any writing is to be done it has to be at the crack of dawn, the hour of peace before the world avalanches down on you. Still have only a little inspiration for fiction. Am in a state of the "present", a very enhanced present, and fiction, with its escape-doors into fantasy, doesn't appeal to me now. I've a feeling like being on the cusp of a wave and the sheer uprolling wall below me will take all the attention and agility I've got to get down it; a feeling of impending greatness, not mine, but the great hair-raising joyride of life itself. What that means for writing or my next writing project I don’t know and don't want to worry too much over.

Still, am frustrated over carpentry, my inability to find purposeful work outside of the trades, my lack of vision beyond the quotidian. Of course writing is a vision beyond pounding nails. But writing, mine anyhow, doesn't pay the bills. And that whole working class fiction of bettering your family's standing through a life of wage-slavehood doesn't sit well with me. The trades: as in, trade in your life. The trades as craft, sure, I get that. It's why I like building. But trades as social step-ladder? First of all, I don't want to step up anywhere. And secondly, job security, pensions, company health insurance, union cohesion, all of that is going fast, and throw in illegal workers undercutting wages – the whole damn ladder has turned into a slippery slide. Makes Russell Bank's Continental Drift look like a world of Fifties progress and prosperity by comparison.

But the other night . . . that look an infant gives you, when in the middle of the blackness after a long inconsolable bawl, they go suddenly quiet and gaze into your eyes – that searching and fearful, yet serene and reassuring look as they calm and concentrate their souls upon yours, eyes blue by the starlight of the window. They know something, still know it from before, still feel the connection from the other side – their eyes still damp with starlight from the coming through. And they look into you seeking that same connection, the understanding that they're going to be all right, that they've made it across and arrived in loving arms, in the company of souls whom they've known for a very long time now and are getting to know again. And sometimes in the middle of the night, it's them telling you all that, reminding you of where you've been together and where you're going; her sweet tired smile telling you not to worry too much, telling you it's going to be all right.

The Wintry Seas of Summer

16 June 09

Low, dismal clouds this morning. Going on weeks now of the old SF summer doldrums. The length of the coast trundled over with clouds by a sustained trough; t-storms radiating across the west and northwest. A few afternoons of the sky breaking pink and pale gold and towering as a Kauai’an sunset. I think of Kauai of course, being where Ada was conceived. Three years of the fertility computer working like a charm, then just because we're on our honeymoon and the world is as gorgeous and perfect as can be the thing decides to take a week off. The other theory being that no hurdle was going to hold back the little charging spirit, not with such a grand entry before her, those sunsets spilling over Hanalei Bay and gilding the hotel room and sparkling our whiskey-ginger drinks and gold-dusting Anna's dark eyes.

Ada and Anna in the bedroom now, cooing and talking. Fixed them scrambled eggs and toast and tea before prying myself over here to sit and peck away about the weather. The view from my writing room like that of the cabin of a boat, looking west at the dark-clumped trees and rooftops of the far ridge awash in the morning grey. A winter feeling of hunkering in, especially now with Ada. It's a kind of floating world we're living in, up here on Bernal Hill, drifting above the sea and the city and whatever it was we called our lives below.

But in another week I'll be back swinging a hammer, and it'll hurt pretty bad to think back on this. Somehow I thought that during these two weeks I'd get some research done on the novel. A ridiculous expectation and I've dumped it out the window with all the others except the one about loafing around the house with family. But really, I'm pathetic when it comes to any kind of research. If a door needs hanging I'll jump to it and have it done by the hour. But ask me to dig up an agent on line and I'll tangle myself in the web faster than a fly could do and with more struggle. I'm just no good at it. I might as well go at the keyboards with hammer and cat's paw, for all the good it does.

Tomorrow is Anna's 33rd birthday. Bought her a summer dress from Nisa and today will truck over to Flora Grub to buy a lemon tree for her. Sunshine for my sunshine; sunshine dreamed of or drooping from a leafy branch, in spite of the leaden skies.

Honeymoon Child Born on the Full Moon

13 June 09

This letter, sent out on the occasion of our daughter's birth, was the inspiration for Sawing Wood.

Dear Friends and Family,

Wow, this is wonderful. Ada Bell Guiotto is here, born at 19:53 hours on Sunday eve the 7th of June, a full moon rising above the tufted clouds of San Francisco; all eight pounds of her, lanky, dark hair and big eyes and round cheeks and tiny flower mouth, so cute and sweet it hurts to look at her. Was a rough go at start, as the little rabbit was stuck posterior-wise for some 26 hours, until finally Anna accepted an epidural and things eased up enough for her to push la bambina forth over another two and a half hours. But all is gold and honey now. Anna is healing up and getting her color back and the sight of them lying together in bed is enough to make your eyes well up.

So things are very good. (And if you don't want to be drowned under by a wave of overly sentimental, poorly punctuated gushing, better spare yourself the soft stuff below and cut to the attached pictures. You've been forewarned; yet you're reading on.) But what strikes me is how natural all this feels. Everybody tells you how your life is going to be turned upside down by a first child, and maybe the shake up is pending, but right now all this feels as right and flowing as rain on a summer day, and no different from the other turns in my life, except that it's vastly better than all of them (and by this child and this birth I mean the continuation of my love for Anna and our life together, from that first moment we met at the book store, to these halcyon days around the house with Ada in our arms).

Perhaps the naturalness is aided by my taking a couple weeks away from carpentry and other ambitions. Nothing to do but drift about the house with my two dear ladies, taking naps, reading, gazing dumbfounded at my lovely girls, listening to records and getting all choked up looking into Ada Bell's eyes, napping some more, reading some more, falling deeper in love by the moment with my girls and sensing all the precious depth of humanity through them, another nap, a jolt of urge to clean the heck outa the kitchen and bath, then watering the plants on deck with Ada on one arm, her chirps and toy noises so impossibly cute as she gnaws on her paws and roves her long eyes up at you; or making lunch as Anna sleeps with baby, a little alone time listening to Monk on the radio with the good feeling of knowing they're nestled in the next room; or in the evenings enjoying visits and dinners with friends or mom coming by, a house call from the doctor Quock (no joke) who said the girl looks like a champ; our dear friends Jeff and Julie coming over with their sweet newborn boy Basil (conceived at our wedding in Sonoma and born just days before Ada!), all of us, perhaps after a little wine, thinking Ada smelled of vanilla and Basil of cinnamon; or at quieter times, sitting in the big arm chair with Ada and a Maugham novel and a cold beer arranged in lap, feeling content as a bird with the windows open and the sun warming the hardwood and the rattle of San Francisco and mocking birds in the air, observing how the little blossom has Anna's long eyes and maybe my nose (which Jeff joked was the cause of her getting caught in the birth canal), feeling damn happy, then feeling I've got to get everything in perfect order for her and my damn book published that we shouldn't have to worry about money and be able to live and travel and not have to sweat and swear to get through all the time, and then suddenly, bedazzled by little cooing Ada, none of those worries and nothing of the world matters one lick to me anymore, nothing but being with my girls is important and the rest of the world can slip far away for awhile for all I care; all the world except you dear friends, thinking of you and becoming excited to see you again and be together as the dear big family we are, new kids and new oldies alike, looking forward to that, looking forward to so many things yet not wanting any of this to pass, feeling all the ancient feelings of life and death and love and preciousness compressed into these serene days, feeling so glad and grateful I could sing, and sometimes do, tho it's better I leave that to the record player and the girls . . .

Love to you all,

David