46 Passion

In her book Stop the Insanity, Susan Powter said, “I’m not angry, damn it! I’m passionate.” Boy do I resemble that remark about an assortment of things: religion, home birth, home school, doctors, immunizations, stay-at-home moms, flying…

Anger is a waste of time, but passion is life! It means we care enough to have an opinion, a passionate opinion. Sometimes passion isn't important: should we eat at Outback or Olive Garden? Either will produce the same end result. But there are things that matter a lot, like having a doctor misdiagnose your illness as bronchitis when you have pneumonia, which is why I have a passionate distrust of doctors.

You can’t fake passion. Passion is involuntary. It causes the heart to race and the palms to sweat to talk about your passion. It dominates your being for the moment. It means something matters so much that it excites you! Passion is the heart revealed.

47 The Smell of a New Baby

A week after my first baby was born, a friend came to visit and held her. When I got her back, I could smell my friend's perfume on her. Now let me say that there are things relative to being a woman that you don't have to be taught or told to do. For instance, when it's time to push, it's involuntary. You can't imagine it, yet there you go, grunting that baby out into the world. Your connection to your baby's smell is just as primal, and when she picks up the scent of Chanel no. 5 from a stranger, your instinct is to chase off the intruder. Now that is not what I did, but I did hear a low, growl-like rumble in my throat. The friend never knew, but that experience stays with me.

My daughter just had a baby, and he had that sweet, new baby smell. I fell in love with him and adored his sweet disposition... and enjoyed that smell and velvety skin. I stayed two weeks after he was born to help out. If she smelled a foreigner on her baby, she never complained. Maybe I smell right.