llana barber, one of my dearest friends on the planet, had a baby. six days ago. on july 6th. in new orleans, where she’s living now. his name is cadence andres barber. he was three weeks over due. and nine pounds and five ounces and twenty-two inches long. he has raw almond colored skin and dark brown hair and hazel green eyes. and his father eric’s furrow of the brow and llana’s dimple in the chin. llana says he’s beautiful. and of course he is. the most beautiful baby that ever there was. i’m aching to meet him. i am so pulled. i feel as if the cells and molecules of my body will, of their own accord, come apart and fly, each one individually, as fast as light to llana’s doorstep, where they will all come together again and i’ll rematerialize there, where i belong, to bask in the miraculous baby-ness of cadence and the mama-ness of llana and the sweet new daddy-hood of eric. love, love, love, i have so much love for them.

the news came yesterday, in the early evening. i was sleeping. i had finally passed out, after being awake for something like thirty-six hours straight. going through this insane arduous process of putting together a cover letter and resume for this position that i would really love to get, but didn’t think i could possibly . . . this is what i wrote about it, yesterday:

my house smells like a catholic church. we have finally found an incense that i don’t seem to be allergic to. i am trying to write a cover letter which would somehow convince the good folks at mother jones magazine that with my pow, pizzazz, enthusiasm, and funky spunkiness that i’m qualified to be the administrative assistant to the editor in chief. how, oh how to explain that my lack of secretarial qualifications are due to the fact that i don’t customarily go after admin positions and that the reason i am so driven to have *this* admin position is because i am so qualified to be involved in some way or another in the workings of such a kick-ass bad-ass amazing progressive investigative news journal. and i can type. really really really really fast. and have an affinity with computers that borders on the inappropriate.

okay, okay! i just had another fun thought. i’m looking at my wild and crazy slip and slide of a resume and at the scraps of letter writing i have now put together and i thought, hmmm…. okay…. maybe they’ll look at my colorful resume and my passionate cover letter and say, you know, for this particular administrative position, we want someone with more administrative experience, but we want her anyway, definitely, decisively, and absolutely. this person would fit in brilliantly magnificently, marvelously with our mission in the world.

let me find or create some other position for this person. this person should have a weekly column. or this person should be an editor in training. well, what, goddammit? it’s good to dream. to be ambitious. to articulate my desires.

* * *

anyway, that was what i wrote towards the outset of the whole process. but at 4:00 yesterday morning, when i had been writing and writing and writing for hours, trying to figure out what to say to these people that i admire so tremendously and how to say it in a way that is both passionate and professional and dear, sweet kelly (from all the way in laos), angel that she is, is coaching me through it and editing and doing her magic work to calm the rising tsunami of panic in me, i was not feeling so optimistic. the more i looked at my words, the more they seemed like so much snot and vomit. i think that’s the way it is with these things. i was still working on all of it at 3 in the afternoon, having not slept at all that night, just fretted and fussed and worried and poked and rearranged and messed.

and i finally let it fly. tossed it off into the void, hoping they would catch it, and not daring to hope that they would call me back.

and my body trembled. i hadn’t eaten anything in something like sixteen hours. i was jittery. and hungry. and exhausted. i had just spent all of my energy resources on something which was most likely not even going to get me a pat on the head, an apple or a little gold star. though i had tried. i had put myself out there. i had asked for what i wanted. i had gone after it. which was something significant and worthwhile in itself. nevertheless, it seems like if you go without sleep for so long and write so much and edit and organize and reorganize, put your passion to paper and hem and haw and reach and offer yourself so completely—it seems like you ought to get something. a parting gift. a friendly smile. something.

i collapsed onto the bed. i slept like a dead woman.

until the phone rang. and andre put it to my ear. and the dearest voice began to speak. it was llana. she had had her baby. a beautiful, beautiful, perfect, precious sweet sleepy baby. who can lift up his head like he’s three weeks old. who just lays on his mama’s belly and drinks up her milk and sleeps. and has a very very serious look to him. like his father. and a rather complicated birth that reminded me of mine. but it was llana, my dear friend telling me about this. not my mother. but my sister-woman-friend. who i love. no one so close to me has ever had a baby. no one like a beloved friend. (and i've never been so close to being an aunt!)

and my joy was boundless. i just wanted to call up everybody i know and tell them that all the fingers and toes are there. that there’s all this dark brown hair. that there’s a cadence in the world. that i love him.

and that was worth all of it, of course. the lack of sleep. the writing. the throwing my heart into the ether unsure if anyone would catch it or care. i know that they’re not really related. the ridiculously difficult self-supplication of a more than likely futile job application process and llana having a baby and calling me to let me know. but it was the antidote to any down i could have conjured up. it was the solace to any sadness. it was rejuvenation. and everything about joy in life.

i know that this is true.

i was feeling pretty down before i started writing all of this right now. and thinking about little cadence. and now my feet are swinging. and my heart is soft again and open. i’m full of the rapture of life again. and so grateful.

so grateful to be celebrating life.