Oregon is ablaze with color. Having emerged from the long, erratic drear of winter, (which for those of you who haven't had the privelege is a schizophrenic season involving long, merciless stretches of gray into which are peppered the odd days or even weeks of full-on spring) spring has sprung without apology and the crowd is loving it. Mother Nature seems to have returned from therapy and her personality is once again distinct and integrated, (well, mostly). The very bright side of this is that all those dormant, inconspicuous trees and shrubberies that line the house and streets ever-so-politely in the winter have blown open into stunning displays of multichromatic wonderment. Sometimes riding my bike home from work, I feel as though I've taken a turn into some kind of Eden. The quaint houses all around have suddenly been bombarded with colors and smells the likes of which would shame even Willy Wonka. Meanwhile, our sweet little blue house around the corner is swelling with firey orange irises, brilliant red tulips, purple rhododendrons and wispy lavender wisteria blossoms. Much to our delight, our landlord has invested a certain share of his own soul in the property, the results of which can be clearly seen in the onset of warm weather. Meanwhile, just beyond the petal-carpeted walkway up to our door, Isaiah continues to grow and delight us with the stars in his eyes and the angelic patter of his laughter.

He has recently managed to roll from his stomach to his back. I hear that this means soon he will be here-there-and-everywhere on two-to-four feet. Luckily this quadrapedal (yes, that's geek for crawling) development is not expected to take shape until we've landed on foreign soil, meaning that we won't have to reinvent our whole house to babyproof the place. We can start from scratch.

Since the average preschool teacher income doesn't quite supplement the 'bread' that i keep hearing i'm supposed to win, Gaibi and i have initiated a new enterprise. Utilizing old magazines, scraps of wrapping paper, grocery bags, junk mail and other things, we make greeting cards and sell them at Eugene's 'Saturday Market', a weekly affair in which food, craft and produce vendors gather to pedal their wares. Its really a quintessentially hippie event, complete with music stage and of course scores of independent acts strumming and juggling on every corner. Across the street hippies and punks gather for a huge drum circle that often lasts for the duration of the 6+ hour market. Our first day of sale was the day before Mother's day. I set out with a shoebox full of cards, a hand-made sign and a little blanket on which to display our creations. We made fifty bucks and i met a lot of interesting people.

Last weekend however, i baked in the hot sun for 8 hours and came away with about 6 bucks after paying mandatory market fees. Home -made stationery can be a tough sell on a blisteringly hot day that doesn't precede a major holiday. Such is the market, however. One must learn to cultivate equanimity toward this fact.

So we continue to produce and solicit these things and i have a faint belief that it might be the first step in the direction of actually getting paid for something we truly love to do. Its not a starship, but its Enterprise and i think i like it.

There is magic in the air.

Ever since Gaibi and I got together, it seems there have been these benevolent forces behind the scenes, pulling the strings and making it all cohere in ways that defy explanation.

Lets begin with the present. Our new roommate, Jan, moved in about one and a half months ago from down the street where she was living with former partner and their mutual daughter, Jayda. When Jan split with her partner what she wanted most was to be near her daughter. Our house is about 65 feet from the door of where she was previously living, and it just so happened that our roommate, Emily, was moving out to go work on an organic farm in northern California. Well Jan's new partner, Ernie, recently found out that his roommate had been criminally unfair to him as regards rent payments and essentially had to move out of his house without warning. Luckily we have the space for him to sleep until he can secure a new place to live, and he gives us free firewood and another male in the environment (Isaiah's gender is not pronounced enough to count yet). Furthermore, while our other roommate, Jenny, went away for a single month to do a yoga teacher training in upstate New York, it just so happened that Gaibi's sister Katrina needed to kill a month on a budget while waiting to leave for a gardening internship in Alaska (I know, they have garden's in Alaska? The summer there gets 22 hours of daylight at its peak, can you imagine the possibilities!?) So, with the exodus of two of our roommates, we were able to be of great service to three people who truly needed the space.

Today Isaiah is seven weeks old and we find ourselves rifling through the pictures and anecdotes for evidence that the time has really passed. These days he's not so much the larynx-centric milk-fiend that he initially was on the nights that i would come home from work. Each day those precious little windows through which my authentic son shines in between frequent feedings are open for ever-so-little more time, affording opportunities for gazing and adoration that bring into stunning clarity the true value of life.

What many people don't appreciate, I think, is the loneliness of fatherhood. Here is this wonderful little being, 9 months in the making for whom you have been waiting and pining with bated breath, only to find out that as a non-breasted being that your ability to satisfy him is shockingly small. As the father, your job is more akin to that of a producer in a recording studio. The mother is like the musicians, actually contributing all of her creative energies to the project of sustaining an infant. Meanwhile, the producer's job is to provide the optimum environment in which the music of life will be made. I come bearing juices and teas for Mama, cooking up grand feasts full of color to insure optimum breast milk and changing CDs upon request. For those slivers of time where Isaiah is not merely awake but present and even happy, I hold/bounce/rock/cha-cha around with him until hunger hits him like a bullet from the inside and he launches into full-shriek, demanding milk with all the patience of a Cuban dictator.

Meanwhile by day, I reprise my role as Teacher Derek in a cute little non-profit daycare around the corner that has been there since 67'. However, the stakes are up in this episode as I have been promoted to 'lead teacher' position. This effectively means that in addition to taking responsibility for the life of a brand new child, I have also managed to take on 19 more 2 to 4 year olds - and their families. It also means that I dress in button-up shirts, enforce more rules in a week than i would prefer to in a lifetime and still come home shaking sand out of my shoes and putting stain-stick on my marker-flecked wardrobe. The days are long, often bordering on 'excruciating', but nothing replenishes a weary heart like having a strawberry-blondie of about 3 feet drop a crumpled dandelion into your hand. "That's for your baby," she explains with an irresistible twinkle.

Ah, where to begin?

About a month and a half ago, Gaibi started having little crampy things starting at about 3am one night, which continued into the next day. It didn't interfere with much, we made some breakfast and watched a movie or two. When they came she just scrunched her eyebrows and got quiet. The crampies persisted throughout the day and by nightfall she was doubled over on the bed, having more transcendent experiences with pain. Laborland, they call it. Well let me be the first to tell you, Laborland is real! Where does a woman go during those contractions? I wish the answer could be Baskin-Robbins but from what I could glean it wasn't quite 32 flavors.

But we should expect nothing less of Mother Nature. She is fair. You want a human? How about nine particularly and colorfully uncomfortable months (give or take) which crescendo into the experience which i must begin another paragraph to describe:

Imagine sitting with a bottle of juice that has a little bendy straw in it and watching your significant other get their hips pried open but the unruly tools of an invisible god. Every contraction truly seemed as though some force was (and indeed it was!) pulling Gaibi's hips apart and slowly opening the door for Isaiah's grand entrance. We dragged the big trough into the house and started filling it up. Family and neighbors were called to come over with big pots so that we could boil water to add to the tub because someone seems to have accidentally put the hot water heater for a house full of hamsters in our house. Inside it was buzzing with people carrying big pots of boiling water and sinks running, a blazing fire in the stove, Gaibi enduring torture at the hands of the birth goddess, me sort of managing the event and fetching comfort stuff, it was delicious chaos. It was clear that something outside of and beyond Gaibi had taken over our house, and you could feel it in every inch of the place the moment you stepped through the door. Soon it was 2am.

3am. 4am. Lots of pain. Few interruptions save for our midwife who would come in with her assistant regularly, just to verbally check in and provide a calm voice. Throughout the night we could hear our midwives chopping wood in our backyard to feed the fire in our drafty, wood-floored living room. Sometimes the tub would begin to cool and someone would come in with our saucepan, scooping cool water out and refilling it with boiling water. Each time this happened, Gaibi's body would visibly decompress a bit. Sadly, this relief would prove a hindrance in the end.

Not long into labor Gaibi declared her sympathy for those who opt for epidurals. 13 odd hours later and i'm sort of dazed from sitting tub-side and walking throughout the house while she slowly and painful morphed into proper form.

it was about 9 am she started pushing.

this went on, moving from tub to bed to bathroom, upstairs and back a few times, around the couch, so on. it was apparent that the huge tub of warm water, however wonderful, was just too much so and actually slowed the process down. finally we were on the bed and it was everything you might think. it feels like Heaven's brass section are playing and there's lots of intensity from her screaming to my probably-by-then-very-desperate-and-emotionally-unstable-sounding consolations, to the midwife's calm, zenlike approach.

i don't know, it was a blur, but all of a sudden this happened.

the midwife said something like, "ok, GET YOUR HANDS READY, GET THEM HERE, NOW NOWW!!!" and all of a sudden there was this warm, meaty kind of little thing all flopping around in my hands and snorting like a pig, which i kind of clumsily escorted up onto Gaibi's chest and it began shrieking its virgin shrieks, which to a parent are truly heavens trombones. the next little while is a bit beyond the grasp of the English language, though i quote my midwife in saying that, "those first few hours and days with your baby are like the glue of your family, setting." it was true. here was this entire organism who had been sneakily hiding away and growing itself a body in my wife's torso, full of personality and wisdom. for the first thirty minutes, while mom had to have different procedures taken care of, Isaiah sat with me, silent. He wasn't asleep and he wasn't dazed. He was just perfectly present and beatifically quiet.

The Love is profound and awesome. Everyone was right, there is no way you can describe it. The earth and stars revolve around your baby's heart. When he cries, the skies fall. When he smiles, the whole world smiles. When he sleeps you merely sit and adore him, more enthralling than any movie. He looks like you and its weird. This is where babies come from. Now i understand.

He continues to grow and change daily, always to our delight. More on that next time.

Lovies

d and the family

The final countdown has begun.

Judging from the large measurements many of us were convinced that this baby was going to be making an early arrival. We were filled with some naive hope that perhaps Gaibi would have the 'perfect' pregnancy after all. As of about a week ago it had been relatively smooth sailing. No major swelling. No sore feet. Not too much water retension. This is to say nothing of the litany of other things that can create a little piece of hell for very expectant mothers.

Well that naive sparkle has worn off and here we are in the very unsparkly world of the verge of human birth. Enter: fat, aching feet and swollen ankles. Small, frequent feedings and even more frequent bathroom trips. An aching back and stretch marks along the hips. Feelings of restlessness coupled with utter exhaustion and need for naps.

The sweet little novelty in Gaibi's stomach has evolved into a very large, very substantial mass that very unapologetically takes up most of the available room in her body cavity and doesn't pay rent. It demands food and exhibits little in the way of patience. As the due dates creeps near we find ourselves wondering if our child will make a timely entrance or keep gaining weight and enjoying the free room service until nature evicts it. (On an interesting side note, did you know that birth is the first independent 'action' that the baby makes? Apparently it secretes a certain hormone or chemical when the time is right to let the mother's body know that its time to take a trip to 'laborland')

The tub, a huge plastic monstrosity originally intended for large farm animals, still sits in our driveway. It had to be moved from its original location in the yard due to a large and unusual snowstorm that swept through here last week.

During my unemployment I've managed to maintain my masculine identity by way of the huge stack of wood in our back yard. Due to electricity costs, we've been attempting to heat our house almost entirely with the wood burning stove. This means that on a typical morning I, (Dad) go out and chop wood to start up a fire while Gaibi (Mama) starts something for breakfast. It usually takes a few hours to heat up the house that way but with the smell of the burning cedar and look of the flames licking the cold, dark house in the morning it proves well worthwhile.

For the rest of the day we try to keep a fairly low profile, taking long walks, looking for work for me and making last minute preparations for the baby. We stocked up on juice and have reviewed the chapter in our baby book on 'how to be a good labor supporter'. Every now and then we'll make some art work and fantasize about selling it but inevitably end up giving it away. The weather in Eugene is fickle and incosistent. The other night it was snowing with lightning and thunder. A few days later it went from dreary downpour to beatific sunshine about 10 times over. Some days are frosty and clear, others are lukewarm and drizzly.

So far the job search has proven slow and underwhelming, leaving me trawling the notably dry Oregon market for something that falls under the category of 'socially-responsible-yet-economically-viable'. It seems that in this country you find either uninspired public programs trying to manage the incredible mass of children dumped into its system or well-meaning private initiatives, juicing their employees for every last drop while trying to cull enough funding from their wealthy-family patrons to stay afloat. Truly, there is very little middle ground.

At least not in Eugene.

Ok, the house is getting cold. The fire has been out for a few hours and the wood floors are starting to chill. Better get to bed. Goodnight.

I quit my job today. I have been getting less than the amount i was quoted when i signed the contract since the day i began. I brought this to the attention to the administration, who told me they would take care of it. Well, they didn't. Nor did they tell me that they didn't, until two paychecks later when my pay stub revealed it.

So, i went in today and told them that i didn't want to work for them anymore and handed them a copy of the Oregon state law which stated that i am entitled to a full reimbursement of all that money they never gave me. Ha ha. Teacher Derek is worth more than that. Some people.

So we're not rolling in the dough but we've got a little leftover to eat with until i find another teaching job around here (which is not terribly hard, apparently they don't pay teachers well in this country leading to a high turnover rate. Can you believe that? They might as well take all that money and use it to blow other people up and make hell on earth forever! Oh wait, have you seen the news?)

I haven't been on the computer much lately. In fact I have been able to effectively keep my distance from most complicated, electronic devices. Lately i've tried to expose myself to those most sophisticated and extraordinary of all inventions: human beings. I have this sneaking suspicion that all these 'lesser creations' (i.e. computers, TVs, games, iTouches) are secretly mutating us inside, erasing any memory we once had of what is truly important.

In the experience of creating a human being, i have found yet new vistas of amazement at the miracle of life. What is this profound intelligence that slowly unfurls itself, 50% me and 50% her yet entirely its own and alone once the umbilical cord is severed? Where is this dreamy little angel coming to us from and perhaps, where has it been? Also delightfully weird is the fact that its growing in the belly of the love of my life and can be awfully insistent at times. A scene comes to mind: we are out on the town, casually strolling down the street. Everyone is laughing and making merry. Suddenly, i notice Gaibi looking somewhat disinterested. She quietly mentions something about being hungry and the clock is set. When this happens i pray to God that a restaurant or pizza vendor or 7/11 might be somewhere near. If food evades us for long enough, the baby takes over. Gaibi starts breathing heavily, getting waves of nausea and punishment pains. Pushing the limit will frequently bring tears, frustration and more psycho-physical anguish. Lets just say that we've finally learned to pack relief snacks in case this little alien in her stomach should lose patience on the road.

Otherwise, however, she is by all measurements still 'perfect' (to quote our midwife). There is a huge plastic tub sitting out in our front yard. When Gaibi goes into labor, we're going to drag it inside the house, fill it up with hot water and toy boats and eventually Gaibi and our newborn, swimming its way into the world.

Ok so there won't be any toy boats.

So here I sit on the couch with a very pregnant and beautiful woman by my side and seasoned logs of cedar blazing in the wood stove. The house smells warm and earthy, like my Grandmother's used to smell. Right now there is great peace, but something is stirring down there. Soon there will be fireworks. Soon there will be THREE.

(Anyone looking for a detailed account of my experience driving across the country this summer can let me know personally, for the sake of sweet time i'm not going to finish that story online at the moment unless an overwhelming response comes battering down my door in the next week or so.)

I walk past a door at work and see a little redhead squatting, squeezing out a mighty, serpentine turd that swims in the mini-toilet beneath his chunky, 3-year old legs.

"I'm taking a poop!" he informs me, fists clenched.

Sometimes i wonder how the hell i got into it again...Just four short months away from the dirty, unglamorous and often scandalous world of human service and here i goddam am again. Its a place called "Unity School", a sweet little non-profit daycare in the northern corner of town where the kids spend half the day outside (rain or shine) and often visit the raised organic gardens to learn about caring for and working with the earth. In which case, their humble garden teacher is none other than yours truly. By morning i am 'Teacher Derek, garden teacher' by afternoon 'grasshopper'. The grasshopper is a sign of age. In this case, most every one of the 19 or so odd children in our room (save one or two other teachers) is three years old. Yeah, that's the one that comes just after the 'terrible twos'.
However, day after day i am floored by how articulate and thoughtful these little angels can be. I think its a myth that children are simple. I think that children are complex and insightful and aware beyond our understanding. They have their sixth sense intact. They know how you feel almost before you do and they react accordingly. With really little kids this is doubly true. This is why the task of the early childhood educator is among the most demanding in all education. Toddlers and young children learn primarily through imitation. If you listen, little children never ask what you are thinking. Their first question is always, "What are you doing?" For this reason, the childhood educator, in speech and deed, must make every effort to be a 'perfect' example for his/her children.

Enough on that. i work in a pre-school/kindergarten/after-school care facility and i love it.
in other news there is still a child in Gaibi's belly. We know because its really huge and gets in the way when she tries to ride her bike and things. Pregnancy is a mysterious and wonderful thing. Everyone should have to go through at least one side of it, whether or not they want kids. I think it just provides a little much needed perspective on the value of human life. What a tragedy it is to think that for every person who wastes their life on drugs or alcohol or the corrupt war we're fighting in Iraq right now, a mother had to bear them for at least 9 months through a journey fraught with dangers and risks at every turn. However, i myself feel very lucky to be with Gaibi through this as there is just something about a pregnant woman that glows unlike any substance in universe. When this woman is the love of your life, you have to wear sunglasses. Gaibi looks like she's stealing a watermelon when we go to the supermarket and we can see big kicks and punches when i play my guitar to her stomach at night. The midwife continues to say that Gaibi and the baby's health signs are 'perfect' and we don't have a car so riding her bike all-over town is certainly good prenatal exercise. I'll probably be taking a class with her soon which hopefully won't require me to simulate a man-birth or do any watercolor pictures of the womb.

And beyond that, life rolls on. We've had lots of guests, good and bad times, but things are finally starting to settle into some kind of jangled routine here in the house its truly beginning to feel like a home (the wood burning stove doesn't hurt. i watch it like television.)

Prayers to all of you shining people who persist in reading this.

-d

Greetings one and all. Rather than pick up on the road trip (which will be done eventually) i thought i'd bring you all up to speed on more current events. Namely, life in Eugene and all that comes with it.


Let's begin with the house.

Driving north out of the center of the city (a mini-tropolis roughly the size of Muncie ) is River Rd., a major road in Eugene that is used as a reference point for an entire area the lies just to the west of the city proper. If you drive about a mile out of the city on River Rd. and make just two left turns in the right places you will arrive at Tatum Ln., a quaint little dead-end road full of nice but small houses filled with families, artists, teachers, musicians and other like-minded persons. Two houses from the end (which, it has now occurred to me, is two houses from the beginning as well) sits our house, 144 Tatum Ln.

As you can see, the walls are lined with windows, allowing for maximum natural light exposure. For those of us seasonal affective types, this is a plus. All around the house are gardens of Babylonian proportion: crawling wisteria trees over the porch, a grafted pear and apple tree in the front yard which grow 2 and 3 varieties of the fruit each. As if this were not enough, the back yard holds a creeping, trellised kiwi tree. That's right, i said KI-WI. I had never seen a kiwi tree before i walked into what is now my back yard. We will eat fresh kiwi fruits in December.

The inside of the house is no less appealing. For starters, we have a bright yellow kitchen.

Pictured here is the breakfast nook which includes a shot of the back hallway. We live in a box of crayons, as you can see. Our kitchen is spacious and full of windows, consistent with the rest of the place. A contractor i know once told me that the kitchen is the heart of the home. Considering this, our household is in exceptional cardiovascular health. With three ladies (one pregnant) and myself, the house is commonly filled with the smells of garlic and onions frying or fresh bread baking. In the area there is lots of access to fresh, local produce at affordable costs. Consequently, we eat pretty well.

Here we have the wood burning stove in the living room.

The walls are full of little nooks and cutouts like these. Since these pictures were taken, the living room has welcomed the arrival of furniture but in the meantime we were happy to fill the space under the stairs with pillows and use it as a sort of couch. Up the stairs is a very cool attic bedroom and loft space. In case you missed the nuances, i kind of like the place.

Things with Gaibi and baby continue to go wonderfully. She is growing steadily along and celebrating her 23rd week today (1 week til 6 months!) You can see that she is radiant as ever. I have also had the privilege of welcoming my family-to-be into my life.

This is Gaibi's sister, Vangie (short for Evangeline), with our niece and nephew, Miriel and Akira. We lived in her yard in a tent while looking for this house. She has furnished us with at least half of what we have in the house. She and her partner, Mo, live two and a half blocks away with their exceedingly bright and charming children. Vangie also found this house for us. We owe her lots of flowers.

This is the short story on our living situation with a few little extras thrown in. Amazingly, we have been able to get here with remarkably little money. Its amazing how many blessings and generous gifts we have received in coming into this space. Each day continues to surprise us with abundance and good fortune. Check back shortly for a more detailed explanation.