DO THE PREPOSTEROUS THING

I just observed my daughter as she went through labor and finally the birth of her little baby girl.

Which by the way seems preposterous from an observor point of view.

You are doing what?  Through that tiny opening?   And how long is it going to take?  How much effort?  How much pain?  As if I had never done it myself.

But even my daughter, on day three after the birth began to forget what she had gone through beginning to think it was by magic that the baby was here in this world.

We need to remember that labor.  If not our own, then the stories of women we know who have gone through birthing labor.

Remember that the act of creation is one of passion.

Remember that you have to gestate--wait and prepare and wait and prepare and wait some more.

Remember that you have made a profound committment to the end result--through birth pangs, through

true travail, through wanting to quit, through the real feel of what commitment is.

Remember you didn't do it alone--there was a partner-- whether medical or intimate.

Remember  that by staying the course you brought a new person into the world.

So please remember:

You are strong.

You can create

You can commit

You can take the pain

You can persever  to push through

You can produce your precious idea, painting, business

Don't forget the lessons of labor.

Translate that strength, that focus, that determination, that preparedness to your own life.

Do the preposterous thing.