JOURNAL, Tuesday, Nov. 13th.

O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger child than me?
(“The Wind”, Robert Louis Stevenson,)


I sometimes wonder if it’s possible to be living a relatively normal life with multiple personality disorder – operating in several of the personalities simultaneously but without ill effect.

I don’t actually think that I’m nearly that far gone but I’ve often had the experience of feeling that there are several Starlas. As I sat in Jean’s office this afternoon, I felt that I was watching as another Starla read the neatly typed, well organized letter to Claire, describing the early years of their sisterhood. She was Starla, the Protector: she is the face that interacts with the world to let them know that I’m okay and all is well.

She keeps me from revealing too much.

I watch her and appreciate how she takes care of the details of life for me. She does not confide in me, what she thinks is best for me; she just takes care of me. She is the one who absorbs life’s blows with quiet dignity.

But now she allows me to write, in the darkness of the night, in my room with only the tiny halogen lamp to define the circle of what I can see of this world. This is now Starla the Observer – She will allow me to remember Claire’s birth.

Birth – Sex – Death. Life’s ultimate moments of intensity, intimacy, vulnerability.

Only under the most extraordinary circumstances would we encourage a child to be present at a death.

We would arrest someone who allowed a child to witness the sex act.

So what would possess any rational being to have a sensitive eight year old present at a birth – any birth – but especially this birth, from the mother she has loved and known to be so fragile, so unpredictable?

Starla is alone.

There are many people who have come to be there for the birth. Each has brought their own gift: music, incense, essential oils, herbal teas, pure beeswax candles, a tiny white shawl/scarf from the Dalai Lama himself.

Starla is alone because she chooses to be alone. She makes herself small in a corner of the living room in a nest of pillows: one pillow – her favourite – rippling silk covering the front and midnight blue velvet on the back, she holds to her chest securing it to herself with arms double wrapped over it as her hands reach around almost to her back.

She has been watching as the midwife gives her mother a back rub between contractions -- still gentle waves of undulating intensity. Starla wishes that the midwife would come and rub her back too, cramped from sitting crouched all day, with those strong knowing fingers that have massaged away so many fears and strains.

They have told Starla that the baby is coming. She has never seen a newborn; she has no idea how big it will be, but judging by the enormity of her mother’s stomach, she can’t begin to imagine how the baby will come out without a knife – or rivers of blood.

She waits, she listens to the sounds of the visitors come like the wise men, only arriving a little earlier – to witness the birth.


She hears soft murmurs as Bill rubs her mother’s bare stomach with his musician’s fingers. He coos to her, whispering words that no one else can hear.

Starla looks down the street through the patio door. She sees a squirrel on the end of a branch where he is perched. He looks up then runs to safety in the interior of the tree as the wind whips the branches into a frenzy of movement, then dies down to let them sway gently into stillness again.

Starla wants to leave, to be in another room, another place, anywhere. But she would have to pass by her mother, now rocking with more intensity, burying her face in Bill’s hands. His whispers become more urgent.

The growing sounds melt into each other. Coming more swiftly, they build layer upon layer and make Starla bury her own face into the pillows.

Slapping of branches against the deck.
Building rhythm of drums.

Low, pleading moans.
The lid of a garbage can crashes down the street, smashing to a halt against a fence.
Voices, more voices – do they notice her mother rocking on the floor?

The greyness of the day is overtaken by darkness.
A flurry – water, towels, a cry.
A tree branch cracks – violent – hangs limp by its last resilient strand of bark.
Someone near the kitchen backs into a table, a tray crashes to the floor.
Panting, straining, crying.

Then, focus – even the wind is still – the friends hush, hold their breath;
A long low throaty drone that comes from the depths of the earth;
Bill whispers into her ear: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Eruption – piercing, wailing, cheering.


Starla buries her face in her hands and sobs with relief that it’s over. For one brief moment, curiosity overtakes her and she steals a glance towards the futon. Her mother looks dead: eyes closed, wet, beaten, lifeless – has she pushed her own life out too? Is she dead?

The mother raises her hand very slowly, to brush a sweat soaked strand of hair from her face, then opens her eyes to look around. Bill gazes at her beaming. His arms crooked and tilted towards her, he places something on her bare stomach – still huge. Why is her stomach still so big? Is the baby still in there? Isn’t it over yet?

The friends are in a circle around the futon. The midwife is busy with her work. The squirrels are still clinging to the tree to keep from falling in the wind.

Starla gets up and goes into her room.

After a while, Bill comes to see Starla; he is holding the baby. It doesn’t look human, more like the ducks that hang upside down in the store windows of Chinatown: red, scrawny, hairless.

He wants Starla to hold it. She is frightened. Is this where her mom’s life is, now that she is nearly dead on the futon? Is this creature worthy?

She will not hold it but touches its face: gummy, misshapen. She strokes the tiny hand, clutched into a fist. Bill says it’s okay to kiss it.

Later on as Starla makes her way to the bathroom to pee, she sees the basket of blood soaked towels by the door. She throws up on the bathroom floor. She gets a rag from under the sink to clean up her mess. She sits on the cold ceramic floor for a long time, resting her cheek on the cool smoothness of the tub.

She stays there in the bathroom; she can’t pass the bloody towels again – they hold her prisoner.


Copyright 2003