Release Me

     I just watched the American Masters: Pearl Jam Twenty special on PBS and it really brought the pain of the 90's roaring back to me. It forced me to look back on the trajectory of my life and the escape from that pain. In the 90's, I was a struggling adolescent trying to come to terms with my father's death. I would sing 'Alive' with the ferocity of a young man trying with every false breath to gain some footing. The words didn't match up perfectly to my situation but they were pertinent enough. I wanted to recognize that I was in fact still alive, despite the shadow of despair that I wrapped around my fragile existence, like an impermeable cloak.
     During the live concert clip of 'Release' in the film, I recalled the desperate cries, into the abyss, of my teenage separation from all that my father represented. I had lost him. Eddie's voice singing "And I wait up in the dark, for you to speak to me." would haunt my young, muddled mind. I wanted a voice, my father's voice, to guide me...to admonish the self-pity and the self-mutilation that I chose to embrace. I fought for every ounce of life I lived, good or bad, trying to clutch, in my mental malaise, the root of some truth to pull me out of the earthen ditch I had dug. In that dirt coffin I had buried my motivation, my desire to engage in reality. I called for my father , and he never showed up. I screamed his name, I screamed at God and I rebelled against all the teachings past down by both of them. Those were dark times filled with actions for which I am only now beginning to forgive myself. I justified those actions through my angst and their absence. People can be foolish when grieving and I refused to accept the responsibility of owning my mind or my morals. I wanted a "release" from my anger, from my sadness and neither my father or THE father answered me.

Prelude: Lazy Anticipation

The curtains are open just enough to reveal the surrounding West Virginia hills. It is a new day, and a wet one at that. Muggs has stirred, walking over to check on Harriet, he has grown very protective of her in these last few months. I too wonder if she is going to get up but instead she rolls over towards the inside of the bed and my warmth. I smile, gazing out the window at the late summer rain, as my wife whispers, “ I’m putting the baby on you.” Lying in our bed lit by the morning light, Harriet presses up against me and I feel our unborn child kick against my bare skin. This is our favorite part of the day, the early cuddle session, and for the last nine months we’ve felt our daughter grow in the warmth of that early embrace.

    I lie there holding my wife in my arms, watching the dog as he watches the world outside our big bay window. I think about this world, the one baby Martha is being born into and I hope she understands, or at least senses, that the soft sighs of contentment and the easy proclamations of affection shared by her parents are but tiny representations of the love that has brought her into existence. You will be loved little Martha.

   As the rain falls, like it does so often in West Virginia, I think about your impending arrival. I try to remember all the instructions for labor that your mother has given me. She is brilliant, she is beautiful, she is tough and I don’t want to let her down. You will understand that soon enough, though I venture to guess that those very attributes are already becoming familiar to you, as they are part of your inheritance.  You will be here soon, little Martha, kicking us with your tiny feet, unrestrained by your mother’s womb, and I cannot wait to whisper my love to you, just as you’ve heard your mother and I whisper it to each other, every day for these nine months.