Do you believe in magic? Yeah.
Believe in the magic in a young girl's soul
Believe in the magic of rock 'n' roll
Believe in the magic that can set you free
Ohhhh, talkin' bout magic....
Believe in the magic of rock 'n' roll
Believe in the magic that can set you free
Ohhhh, talkin' bout magic....
To answer Lovin' Spoonfuls' question, yes, I do believe there is power in music to set one's soul free, so to speak, and it isn't limited to rock 'n' roll or the soul of a young girl, for that matter. What Lovin' Spoonful is singing about is the magic that is part of ordinary, everyday lives, not the magic of Webster's dictionary. And, when push comes to shove, isn't that the only kind that really matters?
I would like to tell you a story of how magic has affected my life. It begins shortly after my ex-wife, Jan, and I were married in 1972--six weeks after, to be precise. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I was working in the front yard of our home in Detroit. It was a warm day for late November. Jan came out of the house, obviously upset. She was bleeding rather heavily from her vagina. She had talked to her gynecologist, who recommended taking her to Brent, a private hospital, immediately.
What happened thereafter must be weighed in consideration of the fact that it was two months before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade. It was less than a mile to Brent but for Jan it was as if she had stepped through a portal to hell. I did not witness any of the events I am about to describe. I only learned of them from Jan.
Within an hour of my leaving her off at the hospital, the orderlies were transferring her from the gurney to the examination table and dropped her on the floor. To add insult to injury, their main concern was for the well-being of the fetus; Jan was first-runner-up.
By this time, she had passed tissue as well as blood and was convinced that the fetus was not healthy. Nevertheless, she was instructed to lie perfectly still in the hospital bed. The doctor prescribed a sedative to calm her down but she only pretended to swallow the pill. When the nursing staff had left her room, she got out of bed and did push ups on the floor, hoping to abort, which, eventually, she did. The staff was none the wiser.
About a year later, Jan was pregnant again. As before, at about six weeks gestation, she began to bleed. That pregnancy also resulted in a miscarriage. Tests disclosed that Jan had a bifurcated uterus--a membrane separated it into two parts. That didn't leave enough space for the fetus to develop normally. The doctor's recommendation was surgery to remove the membrane. The odds of success were 50/50. We decided to go ahead with the procedure. Two weeks before the surgery was to happen, we learned that Jan was pregnant again, despite her being on the pill. We decided to take a wait-and-see approach to the fetus' development.
This is where the magic began. Not only did the fetus go to term but developed into a 9-pound, 5-ounce baby girl, Laura. The delivery was not exactly "normal", however. Yes, we had taken the "natural childbirth" and Lamaze classes but there is no way to plan or prepare for an umbilical cord that is wrapped around the baby's neck. The obstetrician decided to induce birth early and use forceps. We had chosen a hospital, Hutzel Women's Hospital in Detroit, that allowed the father to be present for the birth. I had planned for it but had not a clue as to the role I was about to play.
The birthing table, upon which Jan lay, was massive. I think it was made of marble or something equally heavy. The doctor was at one end, his forceps clamped on the baby's head, a nurse was lying across Jan's abdomen and I was holding onto the other end of the table. Nevertheless, the doctor was dragging the table with its cargo of three human adults across the delivery room floor by our daughter's neck while Jan pushed as hard as she could. (Incidentally, my wife was about 5'8" and 160 pounds.) I was afraid that our baby was going to be born in installments. But, no, she came out in one piece, her head a little flattened on the sides, slightly jaundiced, hoppin' mad, and gorgeous to both her parents.
On my first visit to mother and daughter in the hospital, I donned the required gown. You know the type--they cover the front of you completely and tie in the back. Laura had been in an incubator for her jaundice. The nurse brought her in and handed her to Jan in the bed for feeding. After Laura had nursed for a while, Jan asked if I would like to hold her. I said "yes", even though I had little-to-no experience with holding a live baby, especially one so small. After holding Laura to my shoulder for a few minutes, I handed her back to Jan.
As I was leaving, I removed the gown. There, near the shoulder of the dress shirt I wore to work, was a pea-sized spot of meconium, a baby's first bowel movement. True, it's sterile and has no particular smell, but I knew that I had been branded. My daughter had found an "outlet" for her anger at having to undergo such a rigorous birth and I knew she would have the upper hand for as long as we both lived.
On the night of Laura's birth, as I drove home at about 5:00 AM, I turned on the car's radio to WDET-FM, the public and classical radio station at the time. The streets were empty and as I merged onto I-75 for the 10-minute ride home, the interior of the car was filled with the sounds of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Fourth Movement. In the last section of that movement, the massive choir of over a hundred mixed voices rises to sing "Ode to Joy" in concert with the musicians. You have only to hear it once to know that MAGIC is happening. Only a genius who could not hear the sound of his own voice could have composed such glorious sounds. My heart, already swollen with pride, nearly burst.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. But even better than Santa Claus, there is magic all around us all the time. It speaks to us only if we open our hearts to it and believe--believe that there is always light at the end of the tunnel, that we are given love in proportion to that which we give to others and that, above all, we must never lose faith either in ourselves or the blessed and precious world we have been given.
I see nothing particularly remarkable about the male role in this process. The job of the sperm is two-fold: a) engage in the singularly manly pursuit of trying to outrace the other 100-200 million sperm to the egg and b) equally as manly, be the first to penetrate the hard outer layer of the egg, thus reaching its nucleus where the sperm's genetic content merges with that of the egg. The life of the sperm thus reminds me of nothing more than of the leeches who attached themselves to the main character's nether regions in the movie, Stand by Me--neither ennobling nor romantic.
What transpires within the uterus of the woman, however, is simply one magic trick after another. Nine months is longer than most men remain faithful. It's uncomfortable enough that most men wouldn't endure it unless they were being paid tens of thousands of dollars per month and on network television. Many of them are nowhere to be found when the nine months are up. Yet, they think they are entitled to make the rules as to whether the fetus must be allowed to go full-term. It's as if the leech had a nine-month, no-breech lease on your groin. All of a sudden, the "magic" is gone.]
© 26 August 2013
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