Born To Be

A baby girl we look forward to getting to know was born today. Not so very far from us. Her sister was staying with us last night while her parents remained in an induced, expectant state at the nearby hospital, one of the busiest in the land, with one of the most diverse and expanding populations, too. Our guest is two years older than our 8-year-old daughter, but they laughed in equal measure. I could hear them quite possibly far too long into the night, as they giggled and whispered and swapped stories like people with baskets of fruit, but it seemed churlish to ask them to be quiet. The excitement was a life-force, lucky, and our guest's mother was about to deliver. I had spent the latter part of the day with our son, a new camera, and a 150-page manual. It is the new camera I will be taking to war zone and I have never experienced apprehension so stilled by so few years. The companionship. The attention to detail. Our son was a shining revelation to me. Anything from attaching the supplied microphone and the lens hood with lens cover, to locating a scene on a tape with the remote commander, became like skating painlessly across what had until then felt like a vast and unfeeling lake. At some stage in the night I heard our guest talk in her sleep, something about flight. In the morning I could hear our guest declare that the baby had been born. At first I thought it was a reference to our daughter's Tamagotchi, but then came round. The baby, according to the text parked with pride in her phone, was born at 1:30am. It is a girl. The proud and beautiful father picked up our guest shortly before the school round. He looked well. Everyone was well. And the artist had looked after everyone with consummate love. Well done the mother in the hospital.