The day I was born, slipping wide eyed and shocked into this world, I was pissed as all babies are. I was pissed to be pulled so rudely from the red velvet room of my mother's body and tired from the endless smashing journey of the birth canal and I squawked and I squarreled my rage and disapproval. Fortunately, though undeserving as I was so freshly made, I was born to a woman whose face was so beautiful that peace overtook me and I quickly found this world to my liking. My mother's face was my first sunrise.
I learned that day that though there will be pain and I will be bewildered and often angry, I could expect to find marvelous surprises that would soften the sharp of life outside. Smoked mullet was a revelation. A lemon wedge would blow my mind. A fondness for breasts would never leave me. A brother is a genius thing. There are books.
And so we are the same today as we are the day we are born, only not babies and therefore not as cute. Not babies and not as cute, but Mama stays the same. Her face, her arms, the tightly packed packages of her calves, her heartbeat, her life-giving bosoms. She turns and her smile is still the sun.
This crazy mad life, what a wonder I exist! I am an accident of bone! I am the only me there is! How absurd! How grand! All this and dancing too! and lace and cakes and slime and Edgar Degas who loved the ballerinas! All this created for me simply because my mother loves me so.