With Roby’s arrival I’ve observed a shift I can’t quite name: it almost feels like I’ve travelled in time. Not forward, but sideways and backwards, I live now in Roby’s past, a prequel to her’s, the main story. Everything I do is in the context of her, and in support of her.

Maybe that’s just the over rationalization of parenthood by a person, me, who’s read far too much science fiction, and maybe I’m actually very clever and on to something.

Rationalized or not, birth is a portal to another place. I’d say it can’t be understood by those who haven’t walked through it, but it’s more than understanding. It’s a kind of embodyment, and if that’s true for me as a man, I can’t even imagine the transformation on Abby’s part, and I bore witness to it.  

Bozo