welcome to the batcave

Ripley is sleeping on my chest as I sit here typing this. I've got her wrapped to my chest in a sling-ama-jing that we got as a present for her birthday.
She's as content as a little tigermonkey soaking in a tub of honey custard.

For her, I'm an extension of her own consciousness, I AM her, my heartbeat and breathing vibrating against hers, the music and sensations of the world around her blends into the being that is all in all HER.

I think every person has a transformer inside, and the MOMENT this creature is in your arms...all systems activate - power up!
I feel like a gorilla. A bear... with gorilla hands. And mane of fire, like a lion.


Ripley is a little monkey. She loves playing. Her lips are starting to bend into the shape of a smile, her baby alien eyes contentedly taking in what's happening around her. She has a very happy bubble of love surrounding her, and she knows it. We dance with her, we sing to her, we beatbox, we bounce. Her little head sways side to side... she yawns...

She's got expressions passing on her face that seems like she fully knows the pain and extreme stress her mom had went through, like she carries full knowledge and emotional wisdom of the experience... i guess it takes a while to make her understand there's warmth and love and protection to go with all the suffering and freakiness. And her face and body are so automatic, raw and true in expressing all of the emotional complexity that she has to deal with. I just stare... raw energy flows out of me like blood from a shotgun wound. My only response can be to let the truest purest love flow straight out of our souls into hers.

("Kiss the girl" from the Little Mermaid is playing on the computer here. We are emotional fluffballs, it's the worst case of puppy love. It is a land of green ice-cream castles, gorilla-giant-bear-people, swings, twinkles in twilight and crystal rainbow willowtree magic firefly waterfountains jewelfishes happiness.)

We're already forgetting... seems like some passing horrordream of blood and screaming, bursting and moaning that is called LABOUR. The happy chemicals are kicking in. Rachel is healing slowly and surely. I know that there's a stronger bond now between me and her that I've ever known... anyone who has held someone's hand who is wrestling in an underworld of pain with death and life and all sorts of things... lying in exhausted stricken silence... while brave brave Dr Albert stitches and stitches and stitches, bloody soak cloths piling up on the table next to him... thank god for hospitals.

You'd think you'd need some sleep after all that...
This is the wake-up call of life. Gorilla-Bears on a mission. Dancing around the clock.

But there's plenty of times to take a little doze. Like sleeping in school... swimming forms of dreams start... then my one eye opens involuntarily, my ear reaches out from my slumber... her breathing... her groans, croaks, squeeks, sighs. A tiny body learning to cope with all the basic functions, digesting and poopoopoopooing round the clock with all the winds and hiccups that goes with it. I've got to go outside to stare at the trees in the night and breathe...