Eyes Wide Open

So Joey flopped into this world with a skid and a splash just three months ago. His mother, heroic, raw, beautiful, reached down and pulled him along the last few inches of his journey. Then he simply lay there on her belly, eyes wide open, looking into mine. It was whacky how damn present he looked.

My mind had been in tilt-a-whirl gear for 48 hours or so. My body had been packing food, making phone calls, laying the groundwork for a few days at the hospital. My mind flitting from thing to thing like butterflies on crack. "The Democratic Convention's in three days; we need yogurt; is there time for a walk?; Obama; WHERE's my daughter?; Why isn't there a real cure for Athlete's Foot? Obama?--that kind of thing.

Then--and it really seemed this sudden--he's skin-to-skin with his mother, who is laughing or crying or both--and gazing at me, holding me so--what?--still, with his eyes. It's an ancient look--so deep and open and tender and watery and alive, like I could fall inside him. Like I already have. For a few seconds or a minute or a year we stare back and forth. I'm aware of blue-gloved hands moving about, sighs of accomplishment/relief, my wife's pure--yes, it's laughter. But I'm locked on those eyes, so round and soggy. So damn new and so damn old all at once--a direct line to God maybe, if I could just figure out what number to dial.

We can busy ourselves with all sorts of madness and chaos. There are monster trucks and piano lessons and baking contests and raucous parties, chores and workouts, shoulds and coulds, honor, defiance, church, malfeasance, drugs and one or two other things in this world. Then seven pounds of protoplasm flops onto the planet with a skid and a splash and you--I--finally see that it all comes down to a single word: love.

I'm fully aware that all I want to do is love him up. And I'm fully aware that--my two-year-old daughter notwithstanding--I have no idea how.