Isn’t it so nice now that the days are longer? It is 6:30pm and the sun is still going strong. It has also snowed today leaving perhaps the last blanket of snow until much later this year. We know how it works in Toronto. Winter is the clingiest of seasons.

I’ve learned this year that sometimes we don’t always know the kind of medicine we need. I went to Brazil thinking that it would revive my excitement for art and music and people. Instead, I made an art out of sitting back and taking it in with a slight detachment from the people around me. I went from Recreio to Rio proper. I was renting a room in a large house that was steps away from a jazz bar. I had a balcony with a hammock and when I took my bottle of wine and book out for a nice swing, live jazz leaked out onto the streets. My heart. My favourite part of the trip.

Before I left for Brazil my Mother predicted that my sister would have her baby before I returned. It was a statement that was meant to dissuade me from going on the trip. A last-ditch effort. A tug at the heart. What she didn’t realize was that the jokes were on her. I was having all kinds of irrational feelings about becoming an Aunt. Running off to Brazil was just one kind of senseless coping mechanism. I think it had something to do with these seemingly invisible forces thrusting me into a higher level of adulthood.

On my way back from Brazil, I narrowly missed my connecting flight out of New York. I had a feeling it would happen as I was going through the seven layers of hell/ TSA BECAUSE IT’S NOT LIKE I HAVE A FLIGHT TO CATCH. I’m pretty sure that I was one hurdle away from having to solve a riddle given to me by a troll at some bridge. I felt incredibly at peace with missing my flight until I was told that I missed the closing of the gate. BY TWO MINUTES. And the news that followed…a 5-hour wait until my flight. I was coming off of a 10-hour redeye and losing the promise of a bed in the near future was a punch in the gut.

And then a text message from my father: my sister had just gone into labour. Suddenly, more than anything I wanted to be there for her, but I was stuck in an airport.

I am not one to take my time in places like airports. I confess that I don’t have much patience for people who stand on escalators. However, when you have 5 hours to kill, you stand on moving sidewalks and get your nails done. I did this all while listening to Chopin’s Nocturnes. It was like a soundtrack to a Sophia Coppolla film and I was Bill Murray. Tired, displaced, stuck in another country. I went to a restaurant where I sipped green tea and thought about the things I wanted to change in my life now that I am becoming an elder. I wrote those things down in another type of journal.

I was lucky to get back in time to be with my sister while she was in labour. It’s an experience like no other. There is a kind of electricity in the air while you wait in anticipation for life to arrive.

Anders was born at 12:52am on March 14th.

He is a little ball of light. He is a scrapper. He moves his little fists like the tiniest boxer. He is the best baby in the world and he listens intently to the music I play him. Sometimes he sounds like a little piglet, snorting in an effort to breathe. Sometimes he sounds like a stovetop kettle. Sometimes his face clouds over like he is about to start wailing and then just like that, it relaxes back into the most peaceful sleep. I may have been a little detached lately but getting to spend time with him has really been something.

I didn’t anticipate being moved in this way by the events of this past month. In truth, I imagined that things would unfold in a completely different way. It seems that by some strange alchemy of distance, time, perspective and forced-five-hour captivity, things have shifted and fallen rightly into their place. I have been moved.

30 Minute Playlist: PPL