The Last Word On Nothing

At 1:11 AM on Monday the 23^rd, I woke up in my hotel room to the sound of my cell phone beeping softly.

It had been a rough couple days. I was in Los Cabos, Mexico waiting for a weather window to take a research vessel out to a series of islands off the coast. The whole team was ready but nature had not been cooperating. Two successive tropical storms, Rick and Sandra, had caused havoc with our departure time. For the last four days we had waffled every few hours between “wait” and “GO!”

To make matters worse, I was running out of time. My wife was pregnant with our first child and her due date was about two weeks off.  Our doctor had assured us (as best as any doctor can) that the baby was going to be either on time or late. But if we didn’t leave soon, I would be cutting it too close to get back in time.

So when I heard the phone early on my second night in Cabo, I figured it was the photographer giving an update on the storm. Instead, I saw a message from my friend Meghan back in Mexico City.

“Tranquillo. Your wife is fine and the contractions haven’t started but it is best that you wake up!” There were a bunch of other short texts attempting to wake me up. Still groggy, I scrolled down a bit to this one.

“I’m actually realizing these texts might be the first thing you see so I’m just gonna explain that Liz’s water broke and she is fine (very very relaxed) and the contractions have not started as of the sending of this message however she would like to talk to you as your son is preparing for his grand arrival.”

That got my attention. Suddenly I was wide awake and racing about the room. My wife’s water had broken but the contractions hadn’t started. An unusual sequence that often portends a tough birth process. I called my wife, bought a 7AM ticket and packed up my fins.

By 5 in the morning I was on the street, searching for a taxi. The lady who ran my hotel was apparently a deep sleeper and ignored my frantic pounding on her door. So I chucked the keys in my room and wandered into the empty lamplit streets. After a frantic 2 minutes or so I realized there were zero taxis in the town. Eventually, I gave up and did the next best thing: I bribed a cop to take me to the airport. By the time I got to Mexico City I learned that my wife was at the hospital and everyone was waiting for me.

Driving across Mexico City in the best circumstances takes 20 minutes but in midday traffic, it can be hours. In a huff, I leapt into the first cab I saw, much to the amusement of the other cabbies. My driver told me to relax and asked where I was going.

“Lomas Women’s Hospital. NOW.” His eyes got big and we started down the highway as I explained my situation to him. Once he understood, he quietly slipped a DVD in the player and it began playing the theme song from James Bond. He looked at me very seriously and said in English, “Okay, now you know who I am.” I wasn’t really sure but I could only assume he meant some kind of Mexican James Bond.

Thus began the craziest ride across town that I have ever taken. I’m an aggressive driver but 007 wove in and out of traffic, threading needles that no one in their right mind would go near. In stop-and-go traffic, the guy was averaging a steady 25 miles an hour. We got to the hospital in 40 minutes with my stomach in my throat and my spleen wrapped around my kidneys.

Now, I don’t know how many of you have watched a human being come out of another human being before, but there is no way to explain how odd it is. It’s a little like arriving at theater and finding out that you are actually in the play. First they toss you in a set of scrubs that read “Soy Papa” on the back and then they throw you onstage. Everyone seems to know their lines and the blocking except you. There you are in a pool of light, everyone following some bizarre script and the main character is center stage, screaming, huffing and giving one hell of a performance.

And then there’s you – sounding more like a third string shortstop for the Cubs sitting the bench. “C’mon, you got this. Doing great. Keep your eye on the ball. Watch for the curve.”

Finally the baby came out. You expect to get this perfect little thing – blonde, handsome, a sort of Luke Skywalker of babies. But what comes out is more like Yoda, minus the ears.

And there he is. It’s as if for nine months your closest friends have been talking about this guy you need to meet. Call him Jerry. Hey, have you met Jerry? Jerry’s amazing, you are gonna love him. You’ll be working a lot with Jerry over the next few years, you lucky dog. He is awesome. Oh man, I can’t wait for you to meet Jerry! You are going to be best friends, like, as soon as you see him.

And then one day at the water cooler some dude comes up and says, “Hi, I’m Jerry, you must be Erik.” And proceeds to ignore you. You feel like you should recognize him or that there should be some clap of thunder or something. But he just fills his cup and looks off into space.

As Cassie alluded to on Monday, becoming a parent is a bizarre thing – strange, unexpected and yet totally normal. Somehow alien and pedestrian at the same time. For the father, it’s even more so because it’s not clear how you are supposed to connect with this tiny larva of a person.

For years, I’ve been covering global fishery collapse and the oceans, telling people it’s important that we leave the environment for the next generation better than we found it. That our kids deserve to have the same oceans we do. Now I’ve met the next generation – supposedly the reason I’ve been reading endless streams of papers and hanging out in tiny fishing villages from here to China. And I have no idea what to say to him.

Hey Jerry. How’s it going? Um. You wanna spend the rest of your life hanging out or something?

Photo Credit: Many thanks to the very talented Meghan Dhaliwal.