The Big One

On this day one year ago my son was born. Today I find myself nearly as speechless about the moment as I was then, which is why I think I'll just re-post the events as I documented them last year. I do think it's worth mentioning that the indescribable, uncontainable love I felt for Simeon the moment he was born has grown 365 fold.

Words Fail

4:56 a.m.
"Ryan! Wake up!" I sit straight up and look around the room for an intruder. "I think my water broke!," Sarah exclaimed. She wasn't lying. There was a pool of evidence right there on her side of the bed.

--

The car ride – 6:00 a.m.
Sarah's contractions have started in earnest. I don't know what I was thinking. Every time she began a contraction, I wanted to chat. That is when Sarah made the first of two rules – so far.

1. Do not ask me questions.
2. Do not tell jokes – I guess laughing makes contractions hurt extra bad
3. I'm still waiting for the third rule.

--

Hospital arrival – 6:30

I dropped Sarah off at the door with the bags, and a nice lady asks, "Are you okay, miss?"

"Oh, I'm just having a baby," Sarah replied calmly.

I swear, she's Wonder Woman.

--

We're in our room now.

It's so strange to me that you ask a woman in labor to do a bunch of admission and insurance paperwork. I suppose it has to be done.

We're playing some music from the birthing playlist. Among those on the list, "Between My Legs" by Rufus Wainwright and "Here Comes The Sun" by George Harrison.

--

A friend of mine texts me, "Go Horny (The Noel Boy's in utero name), it's your birthday." I show complete lack of judgement by reciting this to Sarah mid-contraction. Dammit, I already forgot rule number 2.

--

Sarah quickly squashed the music with lyrics. There goes my dream of the head coming out to the sounds of "Here Comes The Sun (Son)".

--

Sarah is a superstar! She's endured most of her contractions while sitting on a birthing ball and digging finger nail marks into a wooden chair arm.

--

She's moved to the bed, laying on her side and focused intently on a photo of Charley Young Beach in Maui, where we were married. I've never seen her so focused.

By the way, our doula, Brielle has been a total Godsend. I'm good at the motivational speeches, not so good with the breathing part. I lack focus!

--

11:15 a.m.
Doctor Hurry is in the house. Sarah's getting ready to push!

--

I've never seen Sarah like this. I'm turning white and tearing up, not because of witnessing birth, but seeing Sarah in so much pain (no epidural).

--

Dr. Hurry is doing an amazing job. She said to Sarah, "You were made to birth babies, it just took us a while to get you pregnant." I think Sarah tried to laugh, but this is serious business.

--

Dr. Hurry apologizes to Sarah for blocking her view of the mirror that shows the birth site, Sarah amidst furious pushing says sweetly, "oh, that's okay."

--
11:52 a.m.
40 minutes of pushing, and less than seven hours after Sarah's water broke, baby Simeon David Noel arrived. He wailed as soon as he came out, as did Sarah and I.

--
Words fail.

Catching up with the Joneses

Sarah, Simeon, and I spent the Thursday evening prior to July 4th driving south east to Sarah's hometown, Morehead, Kentucky. I like our visits; the weekend moves along at a pace a little slower than what we're accustomed to at home. I'm pretty sure I've turned more book pages, fit more puzzle pieces, and taken more accidental naps in the Lewis living room than just about anywhere else I've been. One of my other favorite time-passers in Morehead is listening to stories.

Sarah's family members are prolific storytellers. Dinner and after-dinner times are chock-full with stories. Almost as amusing as the stories themselves is the pre-story ritual of establishing who the primary character is and to whom they may or may not be related. The pre-story ritual goes something like this:

"You know the Jones boy?"

"Billy?"

"No, not Billy, his younger brother?"

"The one with the mole?"

"No, that's Johnny, the oldest..."

"Isn't he in jail?"

"He was in jail, but I thought I saw him mowing the Smith's lawn..."

It goes on and on like this. Sometimes we never actually get to the story, it's more of an exploration of someone else's family tree. I almost never know who Billy, Johnny or any of the Jones boys are, but that doesn't stop anyone from telling their story, and that's just fine by me.

Thursday night we were sitting on the back porch, sheltered overhead by the arbor and protected from mosquitoes by an army of tiki torches posted at every corner and nearly every point in between; Sarah's Dad finished telling some stories about a fellow named Alec (which is inexplicably pronounced "EE-lik"), when Sarah's mom, Jan, stepped up with my favorite story of the weekend.

Her story was about Doc Gray, a tractor mechanic and family friend, "who lives up Christy Creek." (He lives up a creek? I wonder if he's got a paddle.)

Jan was working at C. Roger Lewis Agency — the real estate office Sarah's Granddad established — when she heard Doc's voice in the reception area and decided to go greet him. Doc was standing there with a little boy and Jan queried, "Who's this, Doc — your grandson?"

"Yep."

"Well, what's your grandson's name?"

Doc cocked his head and stared blankly at Jan, "Well, I don't know. I reckon I always just call'em "Boy."

Simmetry

A month and about fifteen days ago, we took Simeon to the Indianapolis Museum of Art to have his picture made. Cliff Ritchey was the guy to make them, as far as we were concerned. Simple geometric shapes pepper the grounds of the IMA and it proved to be a nice little backdrop for our little Wonder. Hope you like them.

Yes. Yes I do.

I wouldn't have put this shirt on him if it wasn't true — and 100 percent organic cotton. H&M had a "Mommy Loves Me" shirt in the rack too, but there's only so much commercialism of the parent/child relationship I'm willing to force upon the little man. Ha.

That's all I have to share at the moment. I hope to post some more photos in the near future for all you pining family members, interested-enough onlookers, and accidental mouse-clickers.

these words are the bestest

Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of words. I like the way different letters relate to one another visually. I like word games. I like tinkering with words. I like the sound of words like "tinkering." I like just about everything about them. But, since my right hand was casted, I'm especially fond of a certain group of words — those that can be found on the left side of home row.

I decided to create a running list of these words. It's been fun. My friends Colin and Joe even chimed in that the longest word possible on the south side of the keyboard is: stewardesses. I had no idea. I also noticed that if you're going compose sentences on the left side, they'll all have to be exclamatory because the only punctuation on my new favorite side is an exclamation point. You can, however, vary the number of exclamation points for extra EMPHASIS (YOU ALSO HAVE THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON)!!!! 

Anyway, here's my running list. Feel free to add some of your own in the comments section. You can even put an exclamatory sentence together, if you feel like it.

tread creed raze axe

cave swerve trade trader

grave best bestest were

wad weeds crease grease

wart fart free as

test testes texas verve

swagger craze greatest raw

wax trade sax  vexes

dread gas crass west

vest zest Qatar stewardesses

rear exact dates rates

rat drat err tweed

dazed desert sexes fever

era dessert

Yeah. Let's end with dessert!!!!!!

Attention (photo)shoppers

A week ago, Wednesday, I took a tumble on my bicycle, and I have been left-handed ever since.  The transition from right-handedness to lefty hasn't been a smooth one. It seems that my left is connected to someone else's brain. I know, it surprised me too.

My friend, Colin rightly pointed out that I would likely feel sorry for myself and then feel sorry for feeling sorry for myself. It's difficult to stay down long when a broken hand is exceedingly minor compared with disabilities and circumstances that many in our global population deal with daily. When on this topic with my friend Josh, he added, "Yeah, you know you see those people on teevee that come home from Iraq missing an arm and a leg that are saying, 'oh I'm just so blessed...!'" (that's a lot of punctuation right there!!!). :) 

It was time for me to suck my over-sized bottom lip (it's not swollen, I was born that way) back into place and follow Monty Python's counsel and "always look at the bright side of life." (Song bomb alert!)

I thought back to grade (hey, you can type "grade" with only your left hand home row style) school when I was actually envious of  kids who had casts. I admit, it doesn't make sense. But, it was because they got to have everyone write, draw, scrawl and scribble all over it. It's like a Tattoo 2.0  — everyone gets to contribute to the body art. Cast signing is also great for those of us that just find thousands of needle pokes too high a price to pay for self-expression.

So, I have an idea I'd like to float by you:

• Save the image above (me and my cast) to your hard drive
• Open the image in a photo-editing software (Photoshop or whatever. Heck, I bet MS Paint would work)
• Write, draw, scrawl and scribble on the cast
  
• Save the image and email it to me: rydanoel@gmail.com
• I'll post it back to the blog (unless you'd just rather I didn't.)

I think this could be a fun little little exercise that could have us all feeling better.

Cycles and Seasons

 

Life's been cycling all over the place. Sarah's granddad, Arnold  (Arnie, for short. One character short, in fact) died about a week and a half ago; my own grandmother (grandma for short), Marian died early yesterday morning; Simeon is nearly 10 months old and is developing faster than a polaroid picture; and I could, and maybe I will, fill and entry or 10 about each of those precious marks on my timeline. But, the occasion I really want to mark in this entry is my 8th wedding anniversary to Sarah. 

If marriage is seasonal as most things are, I think this anniversary marks the end of the first season and the beginning of the next. That's worth celebrating if you ask me. If you've read any of my blog entries over the past year and a half, you know that I'm not perfect. And in spite of what I might have you believe, Sarah's not perfect either. But, when you combine me and my imperfections and Sarah and her imperfections, well, you have a perfect fit. And that's worth celebrating too. 

I love you deeply, Sarah. Thank you for loving me back.

Low Five

For the second time in as many years, I ran the Indianapolis Mini Marathon. It was much more fun than running 13.1 miles should be. The high points far outnumbered the low ones. Come to think of it, there really was just one low point. 

One of the coolest aspects of the race is the number of spectators who line the course with cowbells and full voice to encourage you to keep running, and running, and running. Often times they'll even personalize the encouragement by reading the name on your bib. They might say, "Go Ryan," "You can do it, Ryan," or "Don't die, Ryan." 

I was cruising along, feeling good at about mile 6. There was a stretch of spectators up ahead on the right side of the course who were particularly boisterous. I worked my way from the center of the course over to the right to be a recipient of their well-wishes and to thank them. As I approached, I saw an older man (60s or early 70s I'm guessing) passing out high-fives. I thought, "Hey, I'd like one of those." The man slapped hands with the runners in front of me one by one. I raised my hand in anticipation.

Whiff. 

The man put his hand down just as I ran by. He left me hanging in front of 30,000 people, 3 or 4 of which chuckled behind me. It was as if he looked at me and thought, "don't high five this guy, he has Swine Flu, I'm sure of it." Definitely the low point.

Fortunately for me, a square dancing troupe would be just around the corner to cheer me up.

Surprising combinations

Several years ago, my wife Sarah and I went to New York City to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. The trip was enchanted. We got to see a Matthew Barney exhibition at the Guggenheim, went to the Met, did Central Park, and got to see the Yankees and Red Sox play in Yankee Stadium. I also got to see Sarah's supreme navigational skills in action for the first time. But, the experience that left the most lasting impression was our dinner at John's Pizzeria. 

John's on 44th Street occupies an old church (complete with stained glass windows) and has two brick wood-fired ovens in opposing corners of the dining room. The pizza was amazing, the atmosphere was wonderful, but the most memorable part of the experience is what happened while we waited for our pizza. 

A group of young adults quietly gathered on the arced balcony overhead. Their director came half-way down the staircase and put his arms up. It's been said that music is the universal language, and I agree. I couldn't understand the words they were singing, but their collective voices spoke to me. I distinctly recall thinking, "This is what makes New York amazing. This is the kind of impromptu goodness you'd never get in..."

Last Saturday, Sarah and I took little Simeon out to the Oldfields Gardens on the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) to be kissed by the sun and let him explore the forest of grass. As we played and baited Simeon to crawl from here to there, I noticed a man walking off into a clearing north of the rose garden with what I thought to be a tripod. It wasn't a tripod at all. No, not a tripod at all.

Bagpipes!

This bagpiper found a spot with only trees within stone's throw, warmed up for a few measures, and then started playing — beautifully. I thought back to the musical experience in New York, and was equally surprised and delighted that similar impromptu goodness was happening right here in my fair city. 

Then I started thinking about how I never would have paired the serenity of the IMA gardens and bagpipes as a winning combination. When I shared my thought with Sarah, she said quite Sarah-ly, "Well, it's not exactly the kind of instrument you can practice in the house."

One proud art director

I rarely, if ever, mention my profession or talk shop on this forum. But, I'm particularly proud of this project I worked on for Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL) in collaboration with my Creative Director, Jenn Berry, copywriter, Colin Dullaghan and illustrator, Penelope Dullaghan.

IPL sponsors tons of worthy causes over the course of the year, and those sponsorships often come with ad space in programs and the like. As you might imagine, the ads are placed in a wide range of publications. We did ads that focused on causes in the following areas: The Arts, Diversity, Environment, Social Outreach, Sports and Education. While IPL is an energy provider, we wanted to focus on the worth-while causes that people use their energy on to make our community a better place. It's a bold thing for a company to focus on someone other than themselves.

I am really proud of our client for having the vision and willingness to do something completely different from the rest of the sponsorship ad landscape, and totally different from what you'd expect to see from an electric utility. I'm really proud of the writing that begged to be brought to life with some expressive typography. And I'm really proud of the illustrations themselves. Do yourself a favor and flip through the book below. Don't forget to zoom in and check out some of the subtle and beautiful details and textures. I think you'll like them.

As a project winds down, I'm typically eager to move on to the next thing. I'm more of a starter than finisher. But, I would have been happy to just keep producing these babies.