I was late; didn’t want to arrive on an even-numbered day. Better the 17th or 19th of April.
Juliet, my grandmother, asked Eunice her daughter to schedule my birth around her League of Women Voters meeting. "I'll take care of Scott, if you can arrange it." That's Scott, my hyper two-year-old brother. "I have to speak in Akron."
So Eunice packed for the hospital as if for PanAm. I was “induced” from her anesthetized body, a body she was never comfortable wearing, pulled out wet and wiggling into the florescent lights of the delivery room, held by my heels like a baby bat. My psyche's marked by celestial forces scrambling to congeal in the wee hours of the 16th, Neptune in my sun sign, spiritual but unmoored. I have my mother's black hair, my grandmother's spirit of travel, but neither of their discipline.
Juliet, my grandmother, asked Eunice her daughter to schedule my birth around her League of Women Voters meeting. "I'll take care of Scott, if you can arrange it." That's Scott, my hyper two-year-old brother. "I have to speak in Akron."
So Eunice packed for the hospital as if for PanAm. I was “induced” from her anesthetized body, a body she was never comfortable wearing, pulled out wet and wiggling into the florescent lights of the delivery room, held by my heels like a baby bat. My psyche's marked by celestial forces scrambling to congeal in the wee hours of the 16th, Neptune in my sun sign, spiritual but unmoored. I have my mother's black hair, my grandmother's spirit of travel, but neither of their discipline.
Four maternal generations, right to left. My great (maiden) Aunt May, grandmother Juliet Blanchard, mother Eunice, and me Kathryn Aileen Poethig. At Pine Knot, the family cabin on Archibald Lake, Wisconsin.
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