Family

A Little Dolphin Story

A mojo-filled birth

A day after she showed up out of the blue at my front door after not seeing her for two years I proposed marriage to my sweetheart on a hot Texas Friday evening in July of 1985 (the year of the flux capacitor). The twilight stars were twinkling, the crickets were making as much noise as they could, and we were standing on a little bridge that spanned a small duck pond.

She said, “Give me the weekend to think about it and I’ll give you my answer on Monday.”

It was so romantic, am I right?

So I had all weekend to sell myself; to convince her that marrying me would not be such a stupid idea. But I also had to be honest so I told her that if she married me she would end up moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico because moving to Santa Fe was the number one goal of my life at that time.

Santa Fe was my Mecca. I had visited there numerous times and it had become my very favorite city on all of Turtle Island. I had never felt so passionate about any place that I had ever been.

My honey had never been there so I spent a good deal of time that weekend — while we rested between love-making sessions — selling Santa Fe to her. It was not hard.

I told her that Santa Fe was the second oldest city in America and the oldest capital city. The city was founded in 1607, a full 169 years before America was even a country. It has the oldest church in the country, the oldest still-standing house, the oldest government, and the oldest apple tree in America. In addition to its long history it is a diverse cultural community; it is a world-renowned artist community and market, it has a world-class opera, plenty of live theatre, tons of museums, and more bookstores per capita than just about anywhere. Then there are all the incredible restaurants, gift shops, and the historic town plaza. There are also countless celebrities that live there.

And the nature! Santa Fe sits right on the line between desert and mountain forest at the base of the majestic Sangre de Cristo Mountains. In addition to fantastic vistas there were countless historic sites and National Forest surrounding the city.

Of course I had to appeal to her more personally. She was an actor — and had been since she was three years old. Like me, she is annoyed by the human need to assign gender to every single solitary thing on the planet. She hated being called an actress. She was not an actress! She was an actor!

So I told her that playwright/actor Sam Shepard lived with his actor girlfriend Jessica Lange in Santa Fe.

Her eyes lit up.

Sam Shepard was her very favorite playwright and actor in the whole world. She had read all his plays and had acted in a couple of his plays back in college.

“Think of it. If we move to Santa Fe you might just accidentally run into Sam Shepard.”

I think that cinched it. I sold her on Santa Fe. Of course I still had to sell her on me. I worked really hard at it.

Monday morning my sweetheart reached over to my side of the bed and gave me a kiss on the lips. My eyes slowly opened.

“Yes.”

My eyes popped fully open, “Yes?”

She smiled, “Yes, I will marry you. Sure. What the hell?”

An hour later we finally got out of bed, got dressed then took a cab into downtown Midland where we found a justice of the peace and quickly got married. We then returned to my apartment where I got ready to go to work.

A little over three months later, carrying everything we owned, we boarded a Greyhound bus for Santa Fe, New Mexico. We were so busy and so excited that we did not even realize that it was Halloween.

It was after dark when we finally arrived in Santa Fe. We got a room at the St. Francis Hotel then we went for a walk around the Plaza. Seeing hordes of costumed partiers milling about, we realized that it was Halloween. It seemed a little like Mardi Gras. We were so happy and so ecstatic. We had made it to Santa Fe.

And then it started snowing.

After the bus fare and the room for the night we had just a little over three hundred dollars left to our names. It was utterly imperative that we find jobs A.S.A.P.

For me that was no problem. I secured a management position in one of the many bookstores in less than two hours. It took my delightful bride two whole days to find a job. There wasn’t time to find and audition for a paying acting gig. She needed to start making money pronto. One where she would be making tips in addition to a salary would be ideal. Well, she found one and it was somewhat unusual.

She got a job at a food vending cart on the Plaza on the sidewalk in front of the New Mexico Museum of Art (just the next block over from where all the Native Americans sold their art on the sidewalk). She was soon spending her working hours selling hot dogs and churros to locals and tourists passing by. Being an extreme extrovert, she actually enjoyed the job immensely because she got to meet and interact with a lot of strangers every day.

When we were not working we were exploring and falling in love with the city of Santa Fe. The city’s nickname is, City Different. Seriously, it is different than any other city in America. Living there was like living in some ancient city in Europe. There was a very deep historic vibe happening that was amplified by the confluence of Spanish, Anglo, and Native American cultures.

We were also falling in love with each other (even more). Our time in Santa Fe was the most magical time in my life.

And then it happened…

One day a little over three months after we arrived, my darling honey britches was wiping down the churro cart on the Plaza when she suddenly looked up and standing there in front of the cart were Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange!

When I got home from work she told me all about it, “I couldn’t believe it. It was just like you said; that I might run into them being here. If I wasn’t working that cart today I may never have met Sam.”

“So what did you do?”

“Well, first thing, I remained as calm as I possibly could. I didn’t act like some crazy fan. I calmly took their order.”

“So what did they order?”

“Well, Jessica didn’t order anything. She’s quite pregnant, by the way. Sam just ordered a hot dog. Calmly, I prepared his hot dog and handed it to him then he handed me the money. I was looking deep into his face and his eyes as he handed over the cash. I saw him look up at me and notice the twin-mask thespian pin that I just happened to be wearing on the lapel of my coat today. Seeing that, he immediately knew that I was a fellow actor. He smiled at me and I smiled back.”

“Hey, I have a SAG card, too, just like Sam and Jessica. I am a fellow actor. I wasn’t about to act like some crazy screaming fan. I was very calm and pleasant but as they walked away my heart was beating so hard I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

She screamed, “I sold a hot dog to Sam Shepard! I sold a hot dog to Sam Shepard!” She fell into my arms and almost squeezed the breath out of me.

We were both so excited that we went to bed early that night — if you know what I mean.

Some time later, after meticulous calculations, we determined that it was on the night of the day she sold a hotdog to Sam Shepard that we became pregnant.

I was on the verge of turning 29 years old. I had managed to go through almost all of my twenties without bringing forth a child. Bringing forth a child was not even on my radar. I grew up in a family with four children. To me, that was way, way, way too many kids, especially in light of the overpopulation crisis. I grew up in a humongous family and I was emphatic about not putting any further humans through that heinous ordeal. To me at the time, any couple considering having more than one child was committing a grievous crime against humanity and the planet.

But when I found out that I was about to become a daddy everything inside me changed. I was quickly overcome with a newfound joy and ecstasy. I became a helicopter parent long before the child would ever be born.

With her tips, my lover bought a new spiral notebook. She decided to keep a journal of all of our predictions about our forthcoming child. On the blank pages she would draw a line down the center of the page. On the left side she would write all of her predictions and on the right side she would write all of my predictions. Seriously, being pregnant started getting really exciting.

The first question was what gender our child would be. We never had a sonogram and had no proof of the gender. But we didn’t need that. We both were utterly convinced that the child would be a girl. We already knew her. She had been our daughter in at least three previous lives.

Other basic questions followed. What color would her eyes be? We both picked blue (and we were both correct). What color would her hair be? My bride said auburn (that was the color of her hair). Both of my two younger sisters had blonde hair when they were kids (that turned darker as they grew up) so I said blonde. How tall would our baby be when full grown? My honey said that she would be an inch taller than her. I said that she would be four inches taller than her. Would she be shy or extroverted? Would she love animals? When she grew up would she be artistic? Would she be a writer like me or an actor like her mom? Would she be happy or sad? Would she be normal or famous? The questions and predictions continued and several pages of the spiral notebook were filled.

And then came a very important question; When would she be born? According to our doctor she was due on September 30th. Perhaps optimistic and eager to be done with the pregnancy a bit early, my wife predicted that she would be born on September 25th.

“When do you predict that she’ll be born?” she asked me.

My first impression is that she would be born late. Then suddenly, out of the blue, an image of the face of John Lennon flooded my noggin. What the…? Then I remembered that John Lennon was born in early October although I could not remember what day. So I said, “I predict that she’ll be born on John Lennon’s birthday.”

“When is that?”

“I’m not sure exactly but I know that it is after September 30th.”

So on my side of the page for the question, When would she be born? my wife wrote, ‘On John Lennon’s birthday.’ I figured we would look that up later but we quickly forgot all about it because we still had the most important question left to answer…

What would we name our baby?

We both agreed that we wanted to give her an extremely unique name — but not too whacky. It had to be a name no other child had. And it had to be short so that it could not be abbreviated or be conducive to a shortened nickname in any way. It had to be the most perfect name we could come up.

My honey quickly came up with a list of girls’ names most of which I really liked. But none of them were perfect. Before I could come up with any names I had to do some serious research.

This was before the internet and Google so I did my research at the library. I spent two months researching to find the perfect name. One day I was going through a book about Greek Mythology and I learned about something known as ‘The Naiads.’ They were mythological spirit beings — water nymphs or water sprites — who gave life to springs, pools, creeks, waterfalls, and ponds.

Since our daughter would be born an astrological water sign this seemed perfect. And since her mother was also a water sign it would be like our daughter would be giving life to her mother just as her mother was giving life to her. So I took off the ‘d’ and ‘s’ at the end of the word to reduce it to a singular name and there it was; the name, Naia. It was short, not easily abbreviated, and most importantly, quite unique.

I showed the name to my honey and she instantly loved it. It was agreed that we would name our little angel, Naia. Since we were positive that our baby would be a girl we never bothered coming up with any boys’ names.

September 25th came and went. September 30th came and went. We proceeded well into October but it seemed that our baby girl just didn’t want to come out. Finally, at nine days late, my wife’s water finally broke on the morning of October 9th. We had already gone to the hospital twice in the previous week due to misleading Braxton-Hicks contractions but now we were finally going for real. We arrived at St. Francis Hospital in a drenching downpour of rain (more water).

We spent the day at the hospital. It seemed like my honey’s labor lasted for centuries. Our nurse checked in on us every twenty minutes. At one point the dilation had increased and I thought it was time to go to the birthing room.

“Relax,” said the nurse. “It’s not time yet. Besides all the birthing rooms are full right now.”

“What? How can that be?”

“Relax. Today is the full moon. Every nurse in the world knows that during the full moon things get crazy in a hospital. But don’t worry. We have a back-up plan.”

I got pissed that other people were having babies while we were having one.

Eventually, the nurse came in again and decided it was time to go to a birthing room.

“Is there one available now?” I asked.

“No, but remember I said we have a back-up plan.”

As my newlywed was wheeled far down a hospital corridor we ended up in a birthing room that resembled a posh hotel suite. There was a nice couch, some fancy chairs, art on the walls, and a vase of fresh flowers.

The nurse explained, “This special deluxe birthing room is usually reserved for very rich people or celebrities.” As though reading my thoughts, she continued, “It costs three times as much as a regular birthing room but don’t worry. We won’t charge you any extra since it’s the only room left.”

“It sure is nice,” my wife said.

“Yeah it is. You know what? Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange had their baby in this very room not too long ago.”

My wife and I abruptly looked at each other with jaws dropped.

Eventually that evening the baby arrived. Surprise, surprise, it was a girl. Our baby Naia had finally come to rejoin us. It was a moment of utter bliss. My wife and I simultaneously looked at the clock on the wall at the time of birth. It was 6:30pm. Both the short hand and the long hand were pointing downward.

Some time later while my sweetheart was breast-feeding our baby for the first time I took a break. I had to. My back teeth were floating.

I went to the restroom and then went out on the third floor balcony of the hospital. This is where people went for a smoke break. I just needed some air.

Thankfully, the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared of clouds. While it had rained in the city it apparently had snowed up in the mountains. As the full moon rose over the mountain peaks it illuminated the first fresh snow covering of the season atop the mountains. The scene was breathtaking.

As I leaned on the balcony railing taking deep breaths I was overcome with the profound realization that I was now a daddy. It was the best feeling ever.

But all the weird little circumstances were far from over…

At home the next day I was greatly saddened to have to leave my two wonderful females behind in order to go to work. I had used up my two sick days on those two Braxton-Hicks days. I had to go.

Arriving at the bookstore I looked at the new release table at the front of the store and noticed that there were two new books on it. (I had a super assistant manager who took care of everything on my days off.) I quickly noticed that one of those two books was a brand new biography of John Lennon. I turned and headed for the table.

I picked up a copy of the new Lennon biography and skimmed through it. I came to glossary of all the important dates and events of his life. The very first entry was his date of birth. It was October 9th, 1940. Naia was born on John Lennon’s birthday just as I had predicted!

But I read further and saw that Lennon was born at 6:30pm! So not only did I correctly predict the day Naia would be born but I predicted it down to the exact minute she would be born! It was the most accurate psychic prediction I’ve ever made in my life!

Needless to say, I was a little freaked out.

I will now fast-forward twelve years. We were then living high up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I owned and ran my own bookstore and my darling wife had a part-time job plus she was a founding member of a professional acting company so she was acting again on a regular basis.

Our daughter Naia was twelve years old and very busy growing up. Ever since she was old enough to walk and talk and identify things we noticed that she had very intense obsession. Her mother and I had no idea where this obsession came from but now I am convinced that she came into this life with this passionately zealous obsession.

Naia was a dolphin freak!

If you had walked into her bedroom when she was twelve years old you would have thought that you just entered some kind of dolphin museum. There were pictures of dolphins on the walls and a dolphin calendar on the wall. There were dolphin statues everywhere. She had dolphin pillowcases and sheets on her bed. She had a few stuffed dolphin toys. She had dolphin ear rings, dolphin necklaces, and several dolphin pins which she was always pinning onto her clothes. When she was younger and colored a lot she was always drawing dolphins. She was not fully happy unless she was surrounded by images of dolphins.

Her mother and I were bewildered but very happy about our daughter’s dolphin obsession. There are plenty of less jubilant obsessions that she could have had. To help keep her happy we encouraged it. When it came time for gift-giving such as at Christmas or on birthdays it was easy for us because as long as the gift was dolphin-themed Naia was sure to love it.

Seriously, I have never seen any child so intensely obsessed with anything.

Then one day I was working in the back room of my bookstore. I was unloading a box that UPS had just delivered. It was filled with books special ordered by my customers. The box was on a chair and I was taking out the books and placing them on my work table.

I was observing the covers of each book as I took them out of the box. As I pulled one book out I saw that it was an Hawaiian/English dictionary. As I took the book out of the box it slipped out of my hand. I barely managed to catch it before it fell to the floor. As I caught it the book opened up and it opened up to the page where all the Hawaiian words that began with the letter ’N’ started.

And there it was! The very first Hawaiian word listed that began with the letter ’N’ was, ‘naia.’ I was shocked to learn that…

‘Naia’ is the Hawaiian word for dolphin!

Naia’s dolphin obsession suddenly made a tiny bit of sense. I thought that I had come up with her name after extensive research into Greek Mythology but I had no idea I was also giving her a name that meant dolphin.

We have all been taught that when we are born we are given our name by our parents and we have no say in the matter. I no longer believe that. I am now convinced that souls entering a new life and body have a name that they want to have.

Since babies in utero cannot speak, the problem is in communicating that name to the parents. I thought back to my wife’s pregnancy remembering I was always putting my face up against her giant belly as I whispered and spoke and sang to our baby. I was communicating with the baby but what I was not consciously aware of is that the baby was also communicating with me. She was telling me that she was a dolphin freak and she wanted a dolphin name.

Though I was not consciously aware of her psychic communication I apparently picked it up through my inner senses and subconscious where it slowly bubbled up to my noggin and led me in a very roundabout way to the name that she wanted — even though I was unaware of the true meaning of the name she wanted.

Back then I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with that name but that was just my ego puffing itself up. It was really my daughter who was psychically leading me to the name that she wanted. It was she who chose her own name. I was just the one she psychically led to find it.

My daughter chose her own name!

So I must say to all prospective parents thinking up names for their unborn children to go ahead and come up with a list of potential names that come from within your own noggin. But then shut the noggin off and get into a deep receptive state and listen for the name that your child wants. Don’t risk giving the child a name that they end up hating later in life. My daughter absolutely loves her name and continues to love it. Why wouldn’t she? She picked it!

Shut off the noggin and get into a deep meditative state of receivership and allow the name your baby wants to come to you. Surrender to the mojo.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. Thanks for reading.

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