Just Before The — Birth Again- Japan- Pregnant- U...

Japan has a word for this feeling: Ma (間). It’s the space between things. The pause between the inhale and the exhale. The silence between two notes of music. Right now, my entire body is Ma .

Soon, there will be chaos. There will be the midnight taxi ride to the hospital. There will be the sterile smell of the delivery room. There will be the primal roar that surprises even me. But just for this moment, there is silence.

But this time? Just before the birth again, there is no sprint. Just before the birth again- Japan- Pregnant- U...

This is the Ma . The sacred pause.

My firstborn, a toddler with gravity-defying hair and a love for onigiri , is napping in the next room. He has no idea that his world is about to split in two. I look at his small hand, curled around a plastic shinkansen toy, and I feel the guilt already. The quiet, universal guilt of the mother who dares to love another child. Japan has a word for this feeling: Ma (間)

— A very pregnant mother in Tokyo.

Just Before the Birth Again: A Pause in Japan, Heavy with Waiting The silence between two notes of music

The world has become very small.