embracing uncertainty

today at 9:30 am, my little sister gave birth to a perfect, pink baby girl. she gave my niece a boy's name, which, actually, is a beautiful name for a girl. she opted for a natural birth, without painkillers. she did not know the sex of her child beforehand. she is not married to the father.
i love her strength and unconventionality! i love that the whole time that she carried the baby, she knew that, when the time came for her to deliver, she would not get an epidural but instead will bear down and feel every pain. i love that she didn't want to know the sex of the baby. it would have been convenient to know, so that she could decorate the child's room, buy it appropriate clothes, and give it a name. but instead, she chose to preserve the surprise of the birth moment (a once-in-a-lifetime moment) and the honesty of her elation when the doctor announces the sex of the baby. i loved getting the phone call today telling me "it's a girl!" and i wouldn't want it any other way.
i also love that my sister isn't married to the father of her daughter. my niece was created out of the semi-casual, semi-serious sex that sometimes occurs between friends, which is, in actuality, based on genuine mutual affection. i love that, instead of rushing to the alter to marry the father, my sister decided instead to focus her energy on the baby. i admire her courage in defying the convention and doing what she felt was the right thing for her. it took guts to stand by her decision not to get married, with the knowledge that it meant that she might be raising her daughter alone.
i suppose that what i admire about my sister and her choices is that it took integrity, self-confidence, and poise to make those unconventional decisions. it is scary to embrace uncertainty, yet my sister did it with joy and purpose. and in the end, i view her particular experience as somehow more meaningful than more conventional pregnancy and delivery experiences. and to be honest, i am almost positive that i would not be able to do it like she did. and so i admire her all the more.

my new anti-protest state of mind

the silkbox stands for the metaphor of the natural, raw, rough-around-the-edges beauty that i want to see in everyday objects and in people. i picture a plain empty wooden box lined with raspberry colored watered silk. the box is an object manufactured by humans and machines operated by humans, yet it is also made out of natural materials, things that used to be alive, or that were created by a living thing. this is how i want to live my life. i want to create a point of view for myself that makes this corporate world in which i live bearable to me. i want to be able to look at my life as a composition of organic beautiful materials, or else i don't think i will make it through.
this idea started with my decision to boycott starbucks. i know, it is a trite and pretentious concept. but i loathe the thought of contributing to a company that is making all of us the same. starbucks are all over the world, making even the most foreign places familiar places for americans to visit. i protest that! i protest the globalization of america! i protest MTV and the popmusic business! i protest the academy awards for failing to truly reflect the genius of american filmmakers! i protest reality television! i protest staples and borders and target and subway!

that said, i also understand that (1) i must live in this world (2) protesting starbucks is completely pointless and (3) i regularly happily accept the conveniences of having familiar brands at my fingertips when i go grocery shopping (READ: Claussen pickles) and to the mall (READ: Benefit Cosmetics). in fact, my very favorite objects in the whole world, books, are manufactured in bulk by corporate entities. and i don't want to give up reading.
so instead of being an angry crazy person who cannot function in the real world, i have decided to, first, boycott starbucks. ha! second, though, i want to try and approach the world with a different eye. an eye toward acknowledging the natural, the spiritual, in everyone and everything. so i hope that this blog, which really is just an outlet for my own reflections, will aid me in my quest to find a voice, an outlook, a place, where i fit.