The Bloody Brilliant Birthing Process, then broken into mobile status messages

23 June, the year of our Lord 2010. It's also the year of the Johannesburg World Cup (and having you felt like a golden goal). A few days after your birth, our country will inagurate our 15th President. In your coming-into-this-world we are compelled to believe not only in the hope of our country's progress, but in a grand gesture of hope, in a re-affirmation of life in general. Even if I grew up reading some Schopenhauer, a lot of people nowadays, myself included, are concentrating on what's workable and positive.

These are very interesting times, I.

Aside from the plethora of new technology, we've also empowered women, we've somehow quelled racism, and we've elevated our environmental consciousness. There's a lot of good music, good books, good places to go to and good goddamn beer. There's alot of posts: post-rock instrumental and postmodernism, post-colonialism, post-event parties, post-fight interviews, Facebook wall posts. There's always a new gadget here and there that has made the world a global village. Somehow we've also built these invisible bridges that allowed us to observe each other microscopically. We've created virtual spaces and a proximity that make us love one another just a little bit more intensely.

And there's a lot of nostalgia to come back to what once has been. Postcards, old architecture, revival music, bound pages yellowed with age, anything that would bring back or make us cling to that fine mesh of authenticity and a wonderful memory.

There's still a lot of povery to alleviate, and there's still lot of violence, hunger, ignorance, cruelty and basically just a lot of sick bastards out there.

But obviously, anak, when you were born your parents were on a high. Fortunately for you, unlike the hippies of the Sixties or Seventies we aren't drugged (anesthesia excluded) or hallucinating and giving you names like Dust, Dharma or Dream. Not that those names are bad.

We are lucid. When you first sniffed the air today, you've also opened a door to a new perception (to borrow from Jim Morrison).

From here on out, our lives are going to take a pivotal turn. And one day, (to borrow from your mother's favorite Chilean poet), you'll make your own way - deciphering that fire.

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Sunny, golden, luminous and enlightening as a good novel's ending. It's your last day in the womb. See you in a bit!
June 23 at 7:56am

Admitted to the birthing room and still all-smiles, but will not be too posh to push today.
June 23 at 9:56am

Labor's official. Dilated at 5cm.
June 23 at 10:30am

J. is wearing an oversized scrub suit and listening to the baby's heartbeat on the live monitor.
June 23 at 11:13am

It's going to be bloody brilliant!
June 23 at 11:29am

Still laboring. D.'s been managing powerful contractions so well. Man, I'm married to a very strong woman.
June 23 at 3:53pm

Very shortly now, a miracle's going to happen.
June 23 at 4:42pm

I., 7.87 lbs strong, arrived shortly before sunset on 23 June, 2010. Hello World.