Marcelo Francisco Min Chavez was born 9:23PM EST on October 13, 2020 at Mount Sinai West in New York City. How to think/feel about the fact that from his grandparents’ generation to his, we’ve gone from almost no photos of early childhood to a sinuous stream whose source is the exact recorded time of his birth? And the C-section—a word often passed so casually in conversation—casts a dull, deep pain, ineradicable from palimpsest memory. The fatigue-addled body’s minding gives less and less to reflection and revision. In fits and starts spirit inertia, like the baby’s own growth. His oddly paced, inchoate breath-rhythms and animal noises guide me through strange terrain.