In an attempt to ease the tension of a stressful day, I met up with a friend of mine in midtown for tea. It was rather for the pleasure of her company, using the tea as our medium – her personality in itself is soothing, balancing.
Of course, midtown is the last place I would voluntarily find myself in after a hectic day. The streets are vibrating with colliding energy – there is haughtiness, insecurity, hunger, confusion. It’s hard to find the joy buried in all that.
We spent most of the remaining daylight tucked into a corner of Macy’s, catching up with a (stunning) high school acquaintance we found behind the MAC counter. Her hair, in a classy and swirling bob, was a dim, bleached white cascading into deep cerulean blue. The triggering recognition was because of that badass hair alone; in high school she was always an amazing palette of styles. She had a unique, delicate ball piercing in her lower lip, which took nothing away from the soft and sensual image that radiated around her in waves. It was quite a pleasant reunion. She is such an aesthetic success.
As the counter got busy, we made our way to a subtle (expensive!) teahouse on this popular strip a few blocks over. Fully relaxed into our conversation, I get a message from my homegirl Maria – and guess what bitches – MistressMom was going into labor! Riley H. R. was born 30 minutes after her water broke. Un-freaking-believable. The universe carried his birth over swimmingly.
I only pondered briefly about what it meant to have someone in my “actual” realm of existence give birth to a real live baby. I mean I have friends who are parents, shit I have friends who are grandparents. I have friends who were pregnant one day and a mommy the next. I have friends who are fathers to 6 kids with different women, who are mothers to 3 kids with different fathers, and who have established 2.5 with their doting husbands. But none of them were one reach over, none had the quietly-distributed title of Extended Family. It was slightly jarring at first, but I’ve come to know her belly and the story behind it, so Riley’s coming into society was already well in way. Welcome to the family, handsome.
