Viva la absolute beginnings,

This whole year, I haven't been eagerly anticipating anything else but this (although waiting for the night of the Living End gig came a close second I daresay). When peopel asked me what I was looking forward to, it was probably this.

So I wish a very Zeroth birthday to my new niece, April Rose Le. She graced the world with her presence this morning at 8.30 and so far, she seems to be a very healthy and beautiful baby even though she was born a couple of weeks premature. My parents got to see her this morning and said that she looked very bright, alert and of course cute.

Last thing we want is an ugly baby anyway.

The sister called the home phone this morning, asking where mum was. I picked up and told her that mum was out and it was only then when my sister gave the news to me: "Yeh, I sorta gave birth this morning." I dunno, there was this flat casualness in the way she said it, as if "yeh, I just ducked down to the shops to buy milk" or "yeh I left your socks on the chair." And how do you "sorta" give birth. Now, I'm not sitting here, thinking I know everything about the female anatomy (because I don't, I am a male) but I'm pretty sure you can't just "sorta" give birth to a live human being. But I suppose this isn't the whole point of the situation anyway.

Thinking about April just makes me feel excited inside. I noticed recently (and by recently, I mean the last five years of my life) that I have this sort of compressed emotional state - I never feel deep sadness nor deep excitement. But honestly and truly, there definitely is some excitement about this new existence. Within the timeframe that isn't defined by absolute values such as seconds, minutes or hours (although you physicists might pick out that time is actually relative instead of absolute but shutup) but rather defined as moments, we have this being.. this existence. And while April's current lifespan is still shorter than the duration it takes to recharge a lithium battery, you can't help but understand the future that her life holds for her.

Or how unfortunate it could be if I over-influence her life with "Tan-ness".

That's what I see as the beautiful thing about babies and youth. The metaphoric and shamefully poetic road ahead of them is still only just developing, and the complicated forks in the road haven't even developed yet. So much can happen and so many things can influence the course of life. I haven't even seen April yet and she's already instilled a vast amount of hope inside of me... an amount that no person or instructional motivational DVD can duplicate.

                                                             Tan.N