misplaced mama

My births were normal, uneventful, simple, and straightforward. The first one was attended by a slightly hands-on and mystical yet rooted in the traditional modern and slightly medical midwife. The second birth was attended by more of a spirit of midwifery, a bright yet hazy light of people who seemed to be an embodiment of sage service. Both births were short in my mind, 10 hours and 6 hours, respectively. Both I look back lovingly on, not because they were simple and safe (which they were), but because they were my experienceces, ones I chose to enjoy.

And although I would not describe them as painful, there is no doubt in my head that birthing can be physically and emotionally painful. I don’t want to undermine pain, it’s purpose and it’s reality. I know that a broken tailbone does not feel good, and getting a gnarly tear like I did with my first baby is not pleasant. I know unwanted intervention can be excrutiatingly painful. I am sure that a baby coming out shoulder-first is bottom-line: Painful. With a capitol P. I know that when a woman is birthing in a situation where there is no comfort or support, no sense of safety or encouragement and her adrenalin and oxytocin are inhibited, the pain of labor can be and is real. But is the pain there to tell us something, warn of something, like a kink in the birthing system? Is it there asking us to change something so that the process can continue normally and more easily for the birther? Or is pain just there, just because our muscles are contracting (like in sex?) and we are passing a human through a small fleshy, nerve-ended opening.

“To speak to your topic of pain. I never would describe labor as painful. I would define pain as a signal that something is wrong and needs fixing etc. Labor isn’t like that. It is a bodily function demanding attention like sleepiness or hunger. Those are not pleasant feelings and labor isn’t either. I didn’t enjoy labor per se.” Chris commented to me on the past piece I wrote. I immediately was attached to what she said. (note: if labor is bodily function grouped with other unpleasant bodily functions and it is typical thought of as painful, ,what if we gave it a different kind of attention, like the kind of attention we give something we think positivly about and can also be difficult to acheive…like hard-core exercise or sex?)

The physicality of the muscles contracting and a small opening of your body stretching is a lot of work, but it’s a work that most bodies are made to work efficiently. It seems that the body would respond accordingly by creating hormones to allow birth to happen without the need for narcotics. I received a lot of replies that spoke of surroundings and care providers. There has been mention that when provided with safe and comfortable place, caring, gentle and supportive guidance, and the chance to freely explore the realms of birth in their own terms at their own pace, in their own (mental or physical) space, the pain becomes purposeful and perhaps even transcending the sensation of something hard and negative, and transforming itself into a positive, empowering experience. An experience that when looked back upon, can be seen as orgasmic? Or at least exhilarating?

I am looking for a study Iheard of somewhere…I can’t remember where. Don’t quote me on this but it went something like: 2 groups of women were part of a medical study. The first group of mother’s used spinal epidurals for pain relief in their vaginal births. The second group of mother’s had unmedicated vaginal births. Shortly after the birth, the first group was asked what their birth was like, pain-wise (I think it was a day after) and the majority agreed that is was easy, painless…some would even go so far as saying wonderful. When the second group was asked the day after birthing, the majority of the women claimed it to be hard and intense, painful and scary. Three months down the road the 2 groups were asked the same questions again. The first group, who had originally spoke of the ease of labor with epidurals, had did a turn around and the majority of women claimed to be struggling from the experience, having a hard time dealing with the pain of the birth, in general they looked back with negativity. The second group’s majority also changed sentiments and their response claimed that it was ‘the most wonderful and easy experience”. I heard this about 3 years ago and I honestly don’t even remember where I heard it…radio, book, on-line…I was pregnant at the time so my head was mush. I have searched and searched for this study on-line but can’t find it. If anyone knows of it, please let me know where I might find it.

The next time I sit down to right about this I am going to try to talk about an article written for Salon.com by Nina Sharpiro called “Give Me Drugs!” What’s so feminist about a painful childbirth?”

I am slightly taken back by Ms. Shapiro’s article. I am digesting it right now and have to sleep on my feelings. Tomorrow I won’t be so emotional about it. I saw the article as a backlash to the natural childbirth movement, calling it judgemental at best, and distructive at worst. I read an article by Jock Doubleday which was a response to another article regarding drugs and birth by Sharpiro. I didn’t completely take to heart his blunt response in which he told Shapiro to ’step outside her bubble of myths’. I hadn’t read that particular piece so I took his words with a grain of salt. Now after reading this Salon.com piece by Nina Sharpiro, I can see where Doublday was coming from. I have to say her piece is preachy, inaccurate and simply agrivating and worthy of criticism. Not because she totally bags on the ‘birth junkie’ and generalizes the movement which hopes to bring power and autonomy to woman through education, advocacy and support, but because her writing is so biased it makes my eyes hurt. Not to mention where there should be facts. there are holes so big I could fall threw them. Enough said. More later.

ps. if i keep getting the amazing and thoughtful, wonderful and important…appreciated reflections from readers on my notes, everyone will be credited with writing this article.

Trying to write more notes on this article but instead uploading photos. Thought I’d post a family shot. It’s the only one we have. Malibu Pier Halloweenish 2005

I am currently thinking about an article about the pain (or lack of?) in labor. It’s for ABN’s newsletter, Arizona Birth Connections which I proudly hold the title of Feature Editor (don’t ask me what that means…).

I decided that instead of the old black and white composition notebook I use to jot down messy and mostly illegible notes, I would use this forum to think through this article. This is probably one of the more important articles I will write regarding birth and I want it to be smooth, coherent, fair, poetic. I figure I could log on here for a bit everyday and write down some ideas (and perhaps even questions that you who have experienced labor or those awaiting your first contraction can help me work though) so it will be easier when I sit down to tackle the actual article. So bare with me. I am sloppy, lazy, and all over the place when I start to write it all out.

Pain in labor. We’re all told it hurts to have a baby. We grow up under the impression that it hurts so much yet it can’t be that bad since we all keep doing it. I remember being little and asking my mother (who vaginally birthed 7 kids) if it hurt to have a baby. She looked at me thoughtfully and replied that it was “hard work and it sure didn’t feel ‘good’”. I expressed to her how scared I was because when I grew up I wanted lots of babies. Her reply, I think, was: oh don’t worry, you can do it, its not that bad. there are drugs….” Her mother’s mother was a midwife in Austria and rural Pennsylvania and until my mother’s birth everyone in the family was born at home because of social status (working poor). When mom had her first four kids in the 1950’s it was unheard of to birth at home if you could afford to go to a hospital. It certainly was unheard of to birth without drugs at the hospital. Luckily her mother passed on some sage advise to her and told her to stay at home once labor started as long as possible. My mother labored her first two girls at home, got to the hospital, was stapped down, knocked out and when she awoke she had babies. Her second baby, a boy, came fast. She had no time for drugs…but she was still shaved and strapped down. Her fourth, a boy, was posterior and she labored long and hard drugless and then when it was time for him to come out, they drugged her up, took him and handed him to her hours later. Her last two where babies of the 1960s and I was born in the early 70’s. She said she barely remembers anything about our births. Come to find out she was given The Twilight Drug, a drug that basically takes NO pain away, causes the woman to hallucinate and then afterward messes with her memory—basically supresses any memory. As I grew up I always asked her to tell me about her births over and over. And the more I heard the stories the more I questioned whether ‘drugs’ actually take ‘pain’ away from labor. It didn’t sound like those drugs she spoke of really helped her. To me it sounded all the more painful to be gassed or injected. Stapped and shaved. Her most positive memories of labor where the moments she was at home, contracting and surging her babies closer to her.

Once I became sexually active I understood the meaning of pleasure and began to question how something so pleasurable could end up with such a ‘painful’ experience (labor). Was it true about that slutty Eve? Are we not suppose to enjoy sex, that delicious juicy apple from the tree of life? Did she doom us with her witchy ways so that we must be put through pain in childbirth? I don’t believe it. But have we heard the story (or translations of it) so many times we collectively and unconsciously programmed ourselves to think it? Childbirth hurts because we deserve it to hurt. Or does childbirth hurt because the pain is a journey in life to experience? Or does childbirth not really hurt at all yet we expect it to…so we create the pain?

With the birth of my first daughter the pain came and went. I can’t really explain what I did in the moments when I felt ecstatic and light, but I think I just stopped to enjoy what was going on…a baby…a real baby…what a celebration of love. So I would smile, feel sexy, breath down into the fibers of muscular soul and let loose. When I would think about how it felt, when I would think about what ‘could be’ scarry about birthing…the pain came and it came on hard and heavy. This birth was warrior-like. My path was to feel the pain and fear and learn to walk through it.

With the birth of my second daughter it was different. I had already done this once before and survived. And now I was in water. Throughout Sula’s whole pregnancy I concentrated on gentle, peaceful, graceful and easy. And that is what I got. I will have to get into this more later, I have yet to write her birthstory down because it is so special to me and I am still so utterly wordless for it’s beauty and gifts. Sula’s birth was more pleasure than pain. I really experienced a wild ride of ecstacy and rapture. I did. I am not saying I did not have to work towards that in each contraction, but almost every contraction I had ended in pleasure. I rode the water like I was a mermaid, Bill held me in his arms, my midwives moaned and ohhhed and ahhed with me and gently, ever so gently, I sat and breathed open my body and reached down for Sula to be born. Pain would be the LAST way I would describe her birth. Intense? Yes. Deep? Yes? Freeing? Yes. Orgasmic? Kinda. Do I crave to feel it again, just like that? Most definitely. Not a reason to have another child, but it says something. I want to feel labor again because it felt so good.

So am I different than 90% of the women who choose to have epidurals because it is too painful? No, not at all. Are my friends who enjoyed non-medicated births different? I doubt it. We just made different choices, internally and externally.

I like to tell my yoga students during class not to worry if they are not able to “do” a pose the way they envisioned or expected to. It’s not about getting to the asana, it’s about enjoying each moment on the way to the asana…and when you think you have reached into that asana…you will realize you will never be there, so keep enjoying each moment of the stretch, the pull, the breath, the inbalances…enjoy even the fear because by celebrating the fear and the pain…may be the way to feel the pleasure.

This is how I see labor, as well.

Whose to say the pain should hurt?

Can pain be pleasurable?

Does anyone know of or had an orgasmic birth? Or simply a pleasurable one?

Anyone out there with an experiences they want to share? I am specifically interested in those who have have medicated births as well as non-medicated and would like to hear how they compare.

Sula likes to nurse all the time. All the time. All the time. For hours and hours (literally hours) when it’s time to go to bed. My nipples feel like they have been rubbed against rocky concrete pavement. My nipples feel like they have been sanded with a hardwood floor sander. My nipples feel like they have been plunged. This just started happening. 3 weeks maybe. She has 2 teeth now. I guess that’s why. I dunno. Everytime I carry her in her Ergo or her sling…she must suckle, holding my nipple in her mouth like it’s a fine Cuban cigar, pulling it out and to then to side so she can have good view of everything around her. Bless her, bless her…but it’s startin to get old for scratchy nipple mama.

Sula likes to eat puffed millet and kamut. Well, she likes to play with it and pretend she is eating it. She also likes chunks of pears and bananas. Today she tried to eat her sister’s bagel. She grabbed it and I swear turned her little back to me and tried to hide that she had it while she started to munch. Well, I never…. ! She dispises baby food and I couldn’t blame her. Have you tried mushy peas? Eeeww.

Sula hangs out in Adho-Mukha-Svanasana (downward dog) Surya-Namaskara-Bhujangasana (cobra) and Surya Namaskara (plank). She is also into sitting zazen in virasana (hero pose).

She yells at her papa, her sister and her mama…and anyone else that appears to be stealing a moment of attention or taking away food. Tonight she yelled at our waiter in a total mafiaoso-style . Poor guy, he just came to take clear the plates.

She hits her head on something hard like 10 times a day. She doesn’t seem to see the ledges of tables, or window sills, chair legs or even the wood floor underneath her. I am starting to worry about that little brain in there.

When she nuurses she likes to beat the flesh of my boob like a drum. When she nurses she likes to do some of the yoga poses that I mentioned above.

She hates getting dressed. Arches her back and kicks her legs and pushes me away while she yells at me. Hates it. Screams. Cries. Until I bring her to the mirrow so she can see that I picked out something cute and styly. The she smiles with tears rolling down her cheeks.

She loves to just sit outside and listen to the birds in our yard. Still. It’s the only time she is still. And she stays very still to hear their songs.

Ecstacy and joy and mischeif. Thats what I see in her eyes when she catches a glimpse of her queen, her sister, Mia.

No matter what time she goes to bed…7pm or 10pm. She is up at 6am. Never later. Sometimes earlier. Sigh. At least she wakes up with a big smile, a little dance, loud laughs and lots of hugs.

She thinks it’s appropriate to throw a tantrum when she cannot have something…like food or a shiny knife or my glass of wine. Wonder where she learned that.

She says poo poo. I swear. She puffs her lips up and goes, ‘poo poo’…like she is puffing/blowing air out. She pooped all over the bathroom floor the other day and i kept saying “poo poo poo poo” kind like an owl would day “hoo hoo hoo hoo”. And now she does it all the time. Very cute. Very articulate.

She puked out a whole, green leaf from our orange tree. We were all in the bath and she started to gag. Mia looked worried. “Sula Bear, you okay?” And then out came the fountain of puke, spewing all over Mia and me—poor Mia was so distressed: “My sissy is throwing-up, my sissy is throwing up…get me out mama!!!” After cups of vomit she looked at me and then a small gag later brought up a 3 inch long green leaf. Whole. She smiled when it was all up. Little leaf eater. I guess that’s better than Mia at 9 months. She pooped out a while Ross Dress For Less Price Tag. Whole.

Bill says he heard her say Mama. He’s just trying make me feel good.

She is a warm ball of southwestern comfort every night when I crawl into bed next her. I spoon myself around her little breathing, sleeping self and try to taste the love I feel and store it in some sort of memory-bud.

She is growing so fast. Her hands and fingers and rounding and becoming that chubby little baby reaching for toddler hands and fingers. No more thin nails or daintiness. Her feet are little balls with pink toes all lines in a row. I eat her kness on a regular basis.

Her skin is olive, her hair is a coppery golden (okay, so she doesn’t have a lot, but what’s there is coppery golden). Her eyes are still changing from green to steele gray to earthen brown back to green again.

This is a great age.

Here is Mia, our local raindancer.

The desert sun is beginning to do it’s work. It’s heat is beginning to transform the earth into hard cement, the grass is browning, and the sidewalks around 1pm could very well burn your feet. Yet the breeze is still exsistant and the air has a brilliant chill in the morning when we go out to water the garden. But the sun is hot. Hot. I think it got into the 90’s this week. Yesterday while we were riding to the store, Mia had the back window is down with her hand reaching out, letting the wind tickle her fingers.

“The sun is too bright mama. Tooooo bright. Tooooo hot.”

“I know, Mia. It’s in the desert it gets hot now. It’s going to get hotter and hotter. But we can take it. We’re tough.”

“I have an ideer mama. Mia has a good ideer.”

I peak at her in the rear-view mirrow, waiting for her ideer. She looks at me with her mouth open wide and her eyes are amused and excited. SHe looks like even she can’t believe how smart her idea is.

“Let’s have another raindance! Another one, like with those little feathers and those sticks and the herbs and when Mia had a moon painted on her face. And thunderclaping. And jumping on the mountain. We love sun but Mia likes the rain, too. Can we dance for rain mama? Can we?”

A raindancing monster has been born. I think we’ll do another one this week. Perhaps we will get those nightly monsoons to cool things off this summer afterall. If you live in a hot dry, place, and you have kids and you want that rain to know it’s welcome whenever to cool things off a bit…balance things out…help keep those fires under control…then go outside in your yard and dance for the rain.

Please try and watch this. It’s over an hour long, but it’s a top quality documentary film about some lost facts around 9/11. I was really impressed by the filmmaker’s skills not to mention intrigued by the subject matter.

After you watch it, if you feel like it, start a discussion. I’d love to talk about this. Like minded or not.

I didn’t go to yoga again today. Instead I ate ice cream. A lot of it. Cow’s ice cream I might add.* We went to the Sugar Bowl in Old Town Scottsdale when I should have been practicing yoga and the girls should have been with my brother. Sugar Bowl is this ancient ice cream parlor, the extorior is pink and the interior is like the same as it was in the 50’s. It’s actually part quaint, part creepy. It’s a tourist trap so the owners don;t have to do much to maintain business. Looks like they rarely even clean the place. But the ice cream is damn good so who cares. I had peanut butter cup ice cream with chocolate fudge. Mia had pink peppermint ice cream. I ate all of mine and half of hers.

That’s not the beginning, but I am hoping that was the end of my sugar binge. Sugar is my drug. I am either on it or off it and when I am on it it’s never just a little bit. It’s like binge-o-rama with me. It’s like jonsing, craving, whole body take-over addiction. Mood swings and temper fits if I am coming down from it. It’s no fun, plus it does a number on my digestive track and wakes up the candid monster that lives within.

My friend Brooke had a great little easter idea. As a Spring tradition she grows real Easter grass with her son in a basket. Once the grass grows it’s a great place to hide treats for the little ones. So we got our basket, lined it with foil, filled it with soil and planted some wheat berries. The next day we had grass and it’s been growing like crazy ever since. I told Mia and that magic lives in that grass and that perhaps if she really wanted something, it might appear in her Easter grass. “I want chocolate”, she told me.

I know I should have started out with something better, like stickers or carrots, or some barettes. But I bought the chocolate covered eggs. Those Cadbury ones…milk chocolate* on the inside, a thin layer of crunchy coating on the outside. Simply divine. Your teeth gently crack open the coating and sink into relatively low quality yet delicious milk chocolate. Yum. So I hid the bag in my closet and a couple times a day I would hide a little egg in her Easter grass. She was tickled pink. I was beaming watching her search her grass, gently seperating the blades looking for the eggs. When she would find one her eyes would widen, her moth turned into a big O and she’d look at me, holding her egg, “Can I eat it, mama? Can Mia eat it?” So cute. I even lied to her.

“Mama, magic gives me eggs?”

“Well it’s your goddess magic. Ostara is a goddess inside your heart and she has a little friend or a firmiliar who is a bunny. I think it’s the bunny who brings us eggs. The egg is telling us all the hope their is for life”

I can’t believe I said it. I am like the anti-santa/not-lying-to-kids- nazi and here I was. Lying. But in my defense it all seemed to magical. We grew the grass, we blessed it. She asked for chocolate. It appeared. What else was a mother to do?

So this week I statred with a pound of those eggs. Mia found a total of 10 eggs in 6 days. Yet today the bag is empty.

The sick thing is I eat them in the morning. I crawl out of bed, stand right by my closet, grounding my feet in Mountain Pose, getting ready to do some morning breathing and a short Yin practice. And then I’ll think to myself, “Chocolate.” The hell with yoga. And by 6am I am sneaking into my closet, quietly digging m hand into the crinkly plastic target bag, soming out with a handful of my own special crack.

The other night I woke up around 2am. I couldn’t sleep (gee could it be all the sugar?). I got my latest The Sun mag out, a glass of water….and a big handful of chocolate eggs. Yuck. Just thinking about it makes my teeth hurt.

And it doesn’t stop there.

Usually I eat my yogurt in the morning with nothing real sweet. Plain yogurt, walnuts, maybe a handful of blueberries or banana and some sunflower seeds. This week I had to have it sweeter. Huge spoonfuls of raw, sweet honey. When I have coffee, I have it black. Not this week. Sugar in it.

White bread. I bought white flat bread at Trader Joes this week. The only bread we ever have in our house is like dark as night spelt flour bread. White flour. Had to have it. Had to have it turn into sugar inside.

At dinnertime I craved sugar, so every meal I made revolved around sweetness. Indonesian noodles with creamy sunflowerseed butter and coconut milk. Chinese beans with tons of Hoison sauce and honey added to that. It’s like I couldn’t get enough. Old Hot Tamale candy that I found at the bottom of my purse from the last time I went to the movies (around 3 months ago) went straight to my mouth. Didn’t even want water…only wanted juice or beer all week long. Everything I put in my mouth was either sugared or dipped into something sugary. I could’t stop.

Until now. I am drinking my last sweet thing–licoricec tea with honey and rice milk. Tomorrow I am on a total and utter sugar fast. As I type my leg is seriously bouncing in that addict-type way, shaking up and and down at the mere thought of detox. I hope that I can get out of bed and be a good mama. Somethings got to give. Mia catches on to me quickly. Today I watched her get the big jug of maple syrup out of the fridge and pour a bowl of it for herself. She obviously was on the same vibe as me.

Besides eating lots of protein, does anybody have any good sugar-rid systems or food combos that help the craving? it’s that serious with me. I can feel my body screaming at me for more. Oh I thank god I never got heavy into drugs. I would be doomed.

*Sula has shown severe reactions to cow dairy that she received through my breast milk. I cut out all cow dairy. Today I had a relapse. She threw up a 1/2 days worth of milk in the bath tonight. A large dried leaf came up with the puke, so I am not sure if it was the dairy or he leaf. I’ll have to wait and see if she breaks out in hives. If not, she may be growing out of it. Which would be a relief. But I do think that I won’t go back to cow again. Unless it’s an occasionaly ice cream treat.

*She didn’t seem to react to the pound of milk chocolate I ate all week…so perhaps she really is outgrowing it!

In no particular order….

1. Look At All The Love That We Found *A Tribute To Sublime, Various Artists

Jack Johnson starts the mix out with a sweet little tune of Badfish and Boss DJ…one the best pieces I have heard from Jack. Not a huge fan of his…but we love his interpretation of Bradley’s songs. G Love twists and beats a heavy version of Greatest Hits. Mia especially loves Micheal Franti and Spearhead sharing the mike on What I Got. And her mama likes it better than the original (I know, blasphemy) because it is much CLEANER (guess that’s the difference between a dope user and a ganja user). I am not one to censor music in my house, unless it is truly violent and degrading, which I rarely find anyway. Growing up at my house I was surrounded by much older siblings who were hard-core rockers in the 70’s and 80’s. Before I could walk I was learning how to put a needle on a record. I fell asleep as a babe to my big sisters blaring The Stones and The Who. Tom Petty. The Sex Pistols. Bruce Springsteen. Black Sabbath. The Grateful Dead. The Velvet Underground. My mother never censored music (or books… I read The Catcher In The Rye and The Hotel New Hampshire by the age of 10) . I am so thankful for that freedom. Although she often complained under her breath about the “noise” (her idea of music is the elevator station on the AM dial…she calls it ‘heaven music’) my mother never once told us not to listen. She just let it happen and expected us all to play instruments at some point in our lives. I owe my parents for loving music, encouraging music and allowing us to turn up the volume. I hope to be the same way. Right now I just play a variety of music for Mia and she tells me what she likes. So far she’s into ost everything…except over-produced rap and sadly she is not into the Beatles. I try and try and she always asks for something else when I play them. Regardless, Sublime has a pretty intense lyrical quality and Mia picks up the words to songs almost by the second listen…so Micheal Franti’s version of her favorite Sublime track is a welcome.

1. Demon Days *Gorillaz

Mia’s good pal Seamus brought this CD over for her and she is constantly asking to listen to it. Just now, in the car on the way home from her dance class we listened to track 2 about 5 times. She especially likes it in the morning when she is rocking her tinkerbell underwear and cowgirl boots, her hair all matted and wild while I am making her walnut banana pancakes or mush with honey. She puts on a morning yoga/dance show for me and I tell ya, it’s better than a cup o strong Cuban coffee to start your day with, folks. Track 2—Last Living Souls—her fave, is pretty popular on the radio. She is a bit of a top 40 pop girl at heart, I think

1. Now *Bhagavan Das

Mia is pretty familiar with Sanskrit singing. I am not sure when she realized it was a different language than our primary one. Being in utero while I owned a yoga studio, she heard kirtan and mantras everyday. The other day while listening to Now, Mia asked me what Bhagavan Das was singing. The song that was playing was Ode To Ganesha, which mixes Sanskrit and English. I told her he was singing about a little boy with an elephant head whose name was Ganesha and that when we sing to Ganesha we can move big rocks that block our path. She liked that. Now she asks to hear the “elephant song that rocks move.” This CD was produced by the one and only Mike D from the Beastie Boys. Kalimba meets keyboards. Tabla meets turntables. Bhagavan Das sings from the inner most cave of his center. You can hear the sound awaken in the root and rise all the way up to the crown.

1. Original Dubplate Special from General Smiley.

We had General Smiley over the other night to record two dubplates in her papa’s studio. He recorded over the riddems “Diseases” and “Real Rock”. Both of which were rhythms from Smiley’s hits, Diseases (the rhythm, which was produced by the Junjo Lawes, got its name from Smiley’s song title) and Nice Up The Dance. Smiley moved to Phoenix last year from L.A. Somehow this great reggae musician ended up in our small studio and we got him to sing for us. He loved Mia and Mia loved him. She was mesmerized by his outrageously large blue tam on top of his head, stuffed with a lifetime of dreadlocks. She stood outside the studio door and listened to each and every take (and in between she came and sat with me and tried to watched a Poo DVD, but was infatuated, asking questions about Smiley’s song and hair and also making nice with Smiley’s lovely wife, Francine, who was at our house as well). When Smiley was done he came out and sang to her a bit, trying to get her to giggle and open up…she was acting rather shy, or should I say coy. He began saying in his deepest, smoothest patois, “take a smile, Rosie, take a smile.” She fell in love with him. Blowing him kisses. Dancing for him. And now she can’t get enough of her General Smiley Dubplate Specials. Someday soon they will be heard on dance floors everywhere.

1. Collaborations *Sinead O’Connor

Sinead combines her flawless voice with modern dub producers like Asian Dub Foundations, Jah Wobble, Bomb the Bass and Ghostland. There is also a fabulous track with the Afro Celt Sound System, dub meets Celtic sounds…electric. Mia loves the track Vampire with Bomb the Bass. Is it okay that my child sings, “Vampire, you feed on the life of the pure heart, vampire, you suck the life of goodness, yes.” Sinead is so spiritually and politically driven and her songs mirror her heart and her blood. I can only hope that her amazing energy and golden-goddess-like voice transfuse into my daughters soul…and eventually she will understand the importance of creative expression for the transfer of angst.

1. Yellowman Mega Mix by Great Stone Sound System

Mia’s papa just finished an oh-so-very-danceable mix of Yellowman. Anyone want a copy? Let me know. I think it’s only like 1/2 hour long, but 1/2 hour of dancing to Yellowman in your space will shake off the blues and the butt. As soon as we get in the car Mia speaks loud and clear: I want Yellowman, Mama. Yellowman, pleeeeease.”

1. Champion DJ’s *From Studio One

In Jamaican music, a DJ is not the one playing the records. A DJ is the singer/or MC. Either they are singing with a band or they are deejaying with the selecta (the person working the turntables/soundsystem). This is a compilation of Studio One bouncy, toasty, roots/lovers dancehall songs. They remind me of a life I haven’t yet lived— in my straw house a few feet away from a trail that leads me to the salt-white sand and blue topaz waters. This music playing, the waves flapping, the sea rolling through the air while we cook up some fish, crack open some fruit, and eat and laugh and dancec in our bathing suits and sun hats. Mia likes Love Bump from Lone Ranger best on this record.

1. Teach Me Italian *by “teach me…Tapes, inc”

For a glimmer of a moment there was talk about perhaps moving to Italy. Outside Milan. A dream coming true?. William was working for some Italian architects and a job possibility was there. If we pursued it we’d still be poor trying to survive in a very expensive metropolis, renting a small place, knowing only bits of job-site Italian. In the end we decided it would be best to pursue this venture at another time, a time where we’d have a bit more leverage, experience and cash. Actually, I didn’t really decide that. My husband did (i still have not forgiven him completely).I had already applied for duo citizenship as all my grandparents had been born in the Old Country. I had already starting getting passports for my kids. I was buying Italian CD’s to learn the language. This one in particular is a great kids CD. It has versions of old favorites and new world ditties. It combines Italian and English and it comes with a coloring book that is in Italian, relating objects and situations with words. We love it. We listen to it every couple days. I love it when Mia sings Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes en Italiano.

1. Dub Gone Crazy, The Evolution of Dub at King Tubby’s 1975-1979 *From Blood and Fire

Our dub records are sacred. Dub has been said to be the once and future music revolution. Dub music is what we played for our children immediately following their births. Dub is like church in a song. When Mia wakes up from her naps all grumpy, shaky and confused, we lay down on the studio floor and play dub music, specifically this record these past days, and let the sounds vibrate our blood. She loves the track Peace And Love In The Dub and Exalted Dub. King Tubby’s “discovery”* of dub music was a key that unlocked some ancient healing sound. Cypriano, our partner in music said it best: “Dub is the only music I’ve experienced with frequencies that parallel the natural frequencies of the human body“. All music is sacred, but this music comes from the heavens, the seas and the winds. It is so precise (like the late great Tubby) yet echoed and layered, dripping and oozing.

1. It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll) *AC/DC

It’s not an album, just a song, but Mia has gone buck wild for it. She heard it on School of Rock (the movie) like 5 months ago just started singing CONSTANTLY. She puts a pretend mike under her mouth and begins the sound and by the time she gets to the words rock n roll, she has her fist in the air, hair tossing headbanging. It’s true, I tell her: it is a long way to the top when you wanna rock and roll. But she’ll find out.

*King Tubby sort of discovered dub music by accident. He was playing around with the version (the b side of the record…the instrumental) side of a record when he took the backing track outs, faded vocals in, stripped it down to the bass…pulled some knobs on the effects…and waaa-laaa…the granddaughter of reggae music was born. It’s basically songs that already existed, but re-layered/re-constructed/re-engineered in ways where it becomes nonlinear and expansive. It’s mystical, magical, moody and mysterious.

Peace. Music makes the world.