Talking to High Monks in the Snow, Linda Minatoya
This is the memoir of Japanese-American woman exploring where she "fits" within her two cultures. It is subtly written, with distilled, accurate observations about people's behaviors and cultural differences. The story deals with developing a sense of "home" and belonging, based on a definition of self, and how selfhood changes based on geographical location, culture, etc. The themes interest me personally, as I've been quite obsessed with how language shapes our sense of self, and in turn the role that culture plays in this process.
The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
Ripe with the vernacular of honey, and the underlying issues of racial and gender equality, this is one of the best books I've read in a while, and now ranks among my favorites. The imagery is stunning, the characters vivid and the language fluid. I couldn't put this book down. The beauty in each sentence, and the grace with which Monk Kind describes the emotional turbulence of a teenage girl who is seeking connections to her dead mother carried me urgently from one chapter to the next.
Wide awake
Last night Bean woke up around 2 a.m. I scooped him from his co-sleeper and snuggled him up against me, proffering a boob and assuming we'd all be back to sleep in no time. But five minutes later discovered he was WIDE AWAKE and blowing raspberries on my breast. I thought perhaps putting him in his crib--which is located on the other side of our tiny bedroom (i.e. a whole 1.5 feet away from our bed)---might make him settle down and realize that it was 2 a.m., but nooo, his chortling just got louder. It's amazing how during the day these noises evoke nothing but delight in me, but in the middle of the night, all I wanted to do was bury my head and sleep. Finally we decided to put the co-sleeper out in the living room; only to awaken twenty minutes later to a very sorrowful wail. Once again, I scooped him up and curled around him in bed, and this time he was ready for sleep. His sobs quickly subsiding; turning deep sighs of slumber,
Is he teething? I'm not sure, but the day after a night where sleep has been tattered like this one, seems fragile and tenuous. The sun was bright this morning, pouring in through the windows, and gathering in puddles on the floor. But as I write, I daydream of napping, knowing the minute I drift to sleep he will awaken from his nap to want mama, and to tug on fistfuls of my long brown hair.
Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
Dry, sarcastic humor, sometimes overdone (especially the part about drug use and 'art as life'). This is a memoir that deals with cultural and sexual labels. Written in a series of vignettes about different groups of people & ideas in different geographical locations, Sedaris celebrates people who dare to be themselves (such as his wacky sister who is always dressing up as someone else, or his father who hoards old food). This is a book that left me smiling, though I felt it was slightly alien to the fabric of my life.
Our place here
The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs itsorbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again.
The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification. By August 27, Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the East at 10p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m. By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30a.m.That's pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month.
I have a distinct memory of seeing my first lunar eclipse. I must have been three or four, when my family still lived in a cabin in the rocky mountains. It was summer, I think, and the middle of the night. My parents woke me up, and I remember snuggling into my dad's arms while watching the moon slowly get swallowed in shadow.
A friend of mine sent me this reminder today. Bean will be too young to remember it, but I think DH and I will make a point of going somewhere in late August away from city lights, out in nature, perhaps on a mountain top, where we can watch that little firey spot glow its brightest. And I'm certain we'll marvel at our smallness, little specks in this huge galaxy. And yet, watching Bean grow, I marvel also at our greatness--each and every one of us humans, unique and bright and different in so many myriad ways.
How things were
I wrote this about a month after Bean was born. I can hardly recall that feeling of newness and fragility. Now we are so absorbed in the immediacy and robustness of this little person who smiles, and rolls, and just today for the first time started babbling. Of course, his first babbling sounds were "da da." No coincidence, I'm sure! After thirty minutes on the ellipse machine in DH's office, bright red blood flowed from my womb, a reminder of the remarkable thing I did four weeks ago. It surprised me. I felt vibrant and alive while moving rhythmically back and forth following the machine's elliptical pattern with my feet and arms, but now later my body feels fragile again, like I want to curl, cocoon like, in upon myself, or be held.
Each day looks more and more like spring. The light falls differently, and the sun, like a disc of lemon, hangs above the horizon longer in the evening, making the quaking aspen bark outside my window paler on the westward side, and bright.
Last night DH and I had one of those difficult couple conversations about roles. Thankfully we are able to have such conversations, thankfully we don't just give up, run off, implement plan b, self destruct. We sat in the nursery eating mochi, maple syrup and butter with our fingers while Bean slept on the slope of my folded knees. We're both caught off guard by this role switching. Both of us need time, need space, need to feel like individuals.
I find myself carrying a strange dual standard. I feel, for the first time in my life to be deeply maternal, and yet, I also do not want to be limited by that. I do not want DH to suddenly see me as "mommy" rather than as the woman, the girlfriend, the lover, the partner he has always seen me has. I've watched too many relationships diminish because of that--- the gradual taking for granted of simple things, the shift in roles, towards only family, away from partnership and independence.
It felt good to talk, to try to organize our feelings so that we could be productive. DH is trying today. I love that about him: how he has always, since we first met, been able to start showing with actions that he has internalized what we talk about. His biggest frustration about me comes from a lack of understanding for how I can get so little done in a day. Mine about him is that he has not yet reached the point where he is voluntarily interested in Bean's in his little noises, development, snuggly moments, half smiles.
This is the fundamental gap all couples I think experience as they move from being a couple into being parents and caregivers. Suddenly everything shifts, and there are little eruptions everywhere, after quakes until the earth settles in around them again, defining the new territory of family. I am not sure if it is knowable for a man to understand all that takes place in a day of caring for a baby. It's not practical, logical or conceivable to a man that so much time could be spent simply staring at the tiny person you are holding. How can it be described, the mesmerizing effect of scent and little gestures, like some fairy tale spell. And thus whole hours pass, as the sunlight shifts from the east facing windows to the west.
Yet this is not a wasted time. All the moments of gazing and holding and doing little more, amount to the writing of a primordial code: this is bonding at its best. It is these moments of inhaling the sweet scent at the back of Bean's neck, nuzzling his silky hair, listening to his seal pup grunts, these are moments of imprinting--the beginning of a lifetime of love as vast and fragile as the body's capillary network: pulsing, alive, bringing vital energy to the relationship.
DH doesn't know this yet, because he hasn't shared these moments with Bean. Like many men, his approach is much more practical: how can the crying be stopped, the diaper changed, the needs be met, he wonders. Becoming a father has less to do with the intimate and the intuitive. It is more of an abstract process that grows over time, once the reciprocation of affection is more obvious, once there is a reason, in the logical sense, to stare, he will. Until then the two of us have to try our best to tightrope walk out over the gap of differing experience that's widening between us. And we try. We both listen. We have learned how to start a dialogue, how to attempt, though it's often awkward, to describe what we feel.
That's what we did last night, in the flickering light of the large paraffin candle in the nursery, our sun breathing with quick rhythmic breaths on my knees, and our dog licking his paws at our feet.
Halflives, Brooke Williams
This is a passionate book that spoke to my soul about finding work that is symbiotic with a life that is whole--connected to nature and in balance. The book shared many small excerpts about nature that I found amazing: about the Shell Trail in Mexico, whale babies, cave art, and water freezing. Brooke's passion and urgency spoke to where I am in my life. It made me want to try harder to be more in tune with my life: to do yoga, run, be outdoors, work in nature. It also made me want to write. The non-sequential style of the book, spiraling forwards and backwards within events, time and ideas was simple and powerful.
How things have changed
Yesterday afternoon it poured. Thunder rumbled for a over an hour, and later, everything was beautifully drenched and glistening. I took Bean out after his nap. We walked around our small Connecticut yard, taking one last look before our move tomorrow, at the garden beds DH and I dug last spring, now filled with snap peas, beans and lettuce, the lilies and roses, and the heart-shaped lilac leaves. Bean drinks the outdoors in with his eyes. He turned 19 weeks yesterday, and it seems like so long ago that he was that itty-bitty bean in my arms, newborn, and unable to focus. It's incredible how much he's changed, and I've changed since he was born. Each day brings exponential growth it seems. His brain is at such an incredible, plastic point in its development, absorbing everything and synthesizing: making meaning. He associates certain sounds with things now. He has grown to recognize the sound of DH making espresso in the morning. Drawing shots, emptying the grounds, etc. He recognizes our voices too, even when we're out of the room, and quiets when he's crying if he hears one of us calling to him.
Just in the past couple of weeks the kid's hair has been growing like crazy, and he's really discovered his hands. Suddenly also, he has developed this whole range of brilliant expressions, and he's rapidly discovering their impact on us. Yesterday, sitting in my lap he started to explore cause and effect by intentionally dropping his pacifier on the floor just so that I would pick it up for him and say "oops!" He grinned and then squealed with delight every time.
It's funny now for me to try and remember life without Bean in it. Like so many babies in the world, he came as a unplanned surprise. It was this time last June that I began telling people I was pregnant. It felt SO weird to say those words. I felt embarrassed almost. Totally unfamiliar with the idea, and a bit uncomfortable with it. Not that I didn't want to be pregnant. We'd been talking about the idea of a family seriously for months, but somehow I pictured that having kids was something I'd do when I was thirty. And then suddenly, there were those two crazy blue little lines.
I remember sitting on the couch with DH trying to wrap our minds around this new fact. I had a great deal of fear about having a baby I realize now, mostly because there were/are so many people in my life who flooded me with congratulatory warnings, "You're life will NEVER be the same again, EVER!" friends with kids would say ominously. "Enjoy your sleep now, you'll never sleep again," was another famous admonition. But it was really the less blatant references to the sacrifices I'd have to make as a career woman deciding to have a baby early on, rather than waiting till my thirties that got to me.
Having grown up with a mother who told me frequently that I was an unplanned baby who came at the wrong time in her relationship with my dad, and if I'd been born later, their marriage would have been different, I think I unconsciously accumulated a lot of baggage around having a baby. I somehow believed that unless everything was carefully planned and timed, my life would essentially be over. I'm still getting over the surprise of discovering that this isn't at all how I've felt, actually having Bean.
I suppose I was reluctant to be pregnant. I am so passionate about the outdoors--about biking and running and hiking and I felt really hampered by my huge belly. But I think I was also internally hampered by what I was imagining motherhood would be like. So many people, strangers and friends alike, feel an ABSOLUTE COMPULSION to tell you all about their horrific labor stories, and how totally difficult their lives have become: overrun with plastic toys, no sleep and argumentative inlaws. I expected that my life, post-Bean would be one of huge sacrifices. That DH and I wouldn't have fun anymore. That suddenly, hugely, momentously, our lives would be totally different.
And our lives are different, but not at all in the ways I imagined really The first six weeks with Bean were complete total hell. I'll grant anyone that. I had an episiotomy, and could barely walk, not to mention I'd had the most horrible stomach flu of my life for the twenty-four hours preceding labor. (That stomach flu, by the way proceeded to wipe out everyone who'd come into contact with me: my midwife, DH, his parents, my mom. In the first week after Bean was born, when everything seemed to be spinning, it felt like our house was a part of the Hot Zone.) I felt derailed. Tired on a cellular level. Completely unhinged by Bean's crying, my constant hot flashes, and the surreal experience of crashing into a hormonal brick wall.
But that time of total derangement dwindled. Around eight weeks, Bean started to have a regular sleeping routine--all on his own accord--and though he still wakes up once a night to nurse, it's something we both do while we're half asleep, my nights seem whole upon waking. And now, 19 weeks after he was born, he's this incredible little squirming bundle of giggles and squeals, and instead of making our life harder, he's made it fuller.
I don't really know how to explain this feeling of fullness better. DH and I are very laid back parents. Instead of expecting the worst, we both expect that things will be okay. Having both grown up with homeopathy, we seem to trust that our bodies are designed to heal and to stay well. So most of the worry that rips through some parents after the arrival of their child hasn't seemed to take over our lives, and I think this in some way affects Bean's disposition. Incidentally, he is an incredibly happy baby, who cries only when he needs something, and is content to ride around with us in the Baby Bjorn or hang out on a quilt on the floor, watching us as we go about our lives.
And though we have made changes, huge changes, since his arrival and because of it. Our lives are also very much the same. We still have fun together. We still have sex. We goof around. We still hike and people watch and go to Starbucks like total geeks to play chess at 9pm, or out to breakfast, and Bean is just a part of it all. A great, silly, incredible part that leaves us gasping with wonderment and gratitude. This little boy, with eyelashes as long as a camels, and a smile that makes our knees wobbly, is not the sacrifice or the trouble everyone warned us about. He’s just a joy, plain and simple.
Of course there are the times where I still feel nuts after having talked to no one but a four month old all day. And there are other times that I wonder what it will be like this year, to stay home instead of work (more on this later). But I don't feel like these things are sacrifices--just changes. And lying in bed at night sometimes, listening to Bean's breathing in the co-sleeper next to me, and DH's breathing coming steady and rhythmically from my other side, I feel my heart thumping around in my chest like a rabbit, and I can't name the feeling I feel. It's just too huge.
The Process Begins--Written June 11
The night is frenetic with sounds. Jazz on the street, neon rushing up. I want to dissolve and pour myself around my son like a protective coating covering his little hands, his delicate eyelids with veins like a network of rivers, lashes delicate like a forest of ferns. We are moving. Everything in my life is uprooting, the soil of familiar things, shaken out, scattered. We're transplanting to northern New England where in the summer people swarm the streets and the mountains nestle down into the valleys like sleeping dinosaurs.
This move is a sacrifice. We own a house now in a decent neighborhood in a wealthy CT county. It has three bedrooms and paint we love. Moving is a lesson in letting go of attachment to the comforts and accouterments of an life grown easy out of habit.
Our apartment is smaller, without a dishwasher, or the clean lines of newly laid floors, tile, slate. The apartment is on a dead end street about five blocks from downtown, in the bottom story of an old creaky colonial with slanting floors. We are on the bottom story and I can hear the people walking above us, the ceiling creaking under the rhythm of their movement. I can grow used to all of this, but I feel myself bucking up against this attachment. I feel my heart like a fish out of water, flailing at the loss of things familiar.
It will take pictures on the walls and rugs; and it will take hours of walking around downtown to feel at home here. To create new routines to cradle our little family.
Tonight I am sitting in the empty living room in a bendy Ikea chair as Bean sleeps in his stroller and DH talks to his brother on the phone from Japan. The fan slaps around in lazy spinning circles. The shades are drawn. The house feels cool now, with a few windows open to the night air, cooler after the thunderstorms came.
This is the shape of my life now: living into this transitional time, and embracing it. I am afraid of the introduction phases of things. Afraid to meet people for the first time, to put myself out there in the terrain of risk and unfamiliarity. But my goal is to face this and alter this aspect of my personality: each time the fear rises, instead of backing down, confront it. I want to meet people. I want to join a mommy & me yoga class, and a biking group. I want to meet people at the Y, meet people everywhere. And here, for the first time, I see people everywhere that I would like to know.
My Merry Month of May In Bullet Points
* Put our house on the market two weeks ago & get 6 offers. Navigate the process of a bidding war & accept an offer; then realize we'll very shortly have no place to live. * Pack 3.5 month old Bean into car and make our way to our new city (totally last minute--after discovering all the rentals in Our New City are only available in June or August because of the way students gobble up all rentals).
* Make last minute reservations at DAYS INN (a.k.a. hell hole) because EVERYTHING else (even the "HO-HUM MOTEL") is booked due to the fact that it is Memorial Day weekend AND the nationally renowned Marathon that draws Olympic qualifier hopefuls.
* Arrive at DAYS INN amidst an abysmal rain storm. Our room is in the basement and smells like mold. The tub and toilet are chartreuse green ceramic. The carpet clearly hasn't been vacuumed. We are totally depressed.
* Venture out to look at the first of many rentals we've contacted after spending hours at home surfing the online version of the Our New City newspaper. The first one we see is a complete pile of shit--the only thing it's missing is the actual pile of shit. DH goes to look at it while I try to calm a very sweet but totally frantically starving baby by shoving a boob in his face while hunched in the back seat of our car.
* Meet Tim. Tim's rental is in a huge yellow Victorian. The first apt. we see is on the third floor and you can't see the floor because of all the crap the current occupant's have on it (students). The bathroom has clear patches of mold on the shower ceiling and walls. There is sludge in the bottom of the bathtub. The kitchen is dark and tiny. We want to run away. The second apt. he shows us in the same building is on the 5th floor. Exterior stairs only!!! I try to navigate the stairs in flip flops while holding Bean. DH listens politely as Tim tells us about the previous occupant. "He never wore shoes, man, which was cool and everything. I think he was a farmer, you know? When I'd come by to check on things he'd be washing vegetables in the shower, and I'd be like, 'cool man' and he'd offer me fresh apple juice." We run away.
* Eat dinner outside and are overrun by muscled marathoners eating pasta. A band plays in the restaurant next to us so loudly the entire street seems to reverberate. Neither of us can think straight. Bean's eyes are the size of eggs.
* Sleep, all three of us in the king sized bed, and DH & I can't get the story his dad just told us out of our heads--about him getting crabs once while at a hotel just by sitting on the bed naked while watching TV. (First of all, who wants to imagine this about their father in law??? Secondly, we are now imagining this about ourselves! We sleep in our clothes.)
* Leave the hotel at 7 a.m. and drive around town looking for a parking space--but of course, they're all taken. There's a marathon happening here, today, remember? Several times we come to an intersection only to have a cop come and plant a cone in front of our car before we can turn. We get front row seats to watch the disabled "runners" (in reclining cycles) start off. Finally we find a spot in a parking garage. It's so narrow we have to unload first. It takes DH five minutes to angle in between the two poorly parked minivans. We get breakfast.
* Meet our next apt. rental buddy, Dave. He says he's a rental agent, and speaks with a heavy Boston accent. He has long hair, a baseball hat and very dirty jeans. He says he'd like to shake our hands but, "I've just been checking my cat's ears for mites, so I don't want to get anything on your baby." We nod, dumbfounded. He shows us two places--one, a 2nd story apt. that is thankfully vacant and therefore cleaner than anything else we've seen, but is located across from a condemned building. The other is the house of an old lady who is being moved to a nursing home. Both depress us.
* Meet Bill. We actually like his apartment. The apartment is above a Japanese restaurant however, and has no parking or a washing machine/dryer. These are the things that are actually issues to people who are now parents who have acquired not one, but two cars and a the need to wash pooped on apparel at least once a day, at our convenience. We consider the apt. anyway. We are desperate. We call several other places, but it is Sunday and no one is around.
* Go to North Hero House--on North Hero Island (where we were married) to spend the night in more plush accommodations. During our stay I get stuck with Bean in the hammock while DH is on the phone. It isn't pretty. We also get in a fight (executed all in whispers) on the veranda the next morning over breakfast. Neither of us is really sure what we're fighting about. Both of us are fairly certain we won't ever find a place to stay.
* On Monday we find a gorgeous rental in the bottom story of a restored Victorian. We can't believe our luck. The owner is there, putting down hardwood floors. Everything is newly painted. It has a back yard, garage, laundry. The owner is our age and has an 8 month old named Wyatt. We swap stories about living with these incredible little people. We put in an application & he tells us he'll choose someone that evening.
* Just in case he doesn't pick us look at rentals in adjacent cities. We meet a lady who has renovated an old historic house. She says that technically we are THREE people and she would prefer just two, and eyes our baby leerily. She has also painted the walls of the rental in specific shades of ecru and beige that are supposedly accurate from a historical standpoint. Her office is in the barn behind the rental, and though we love the claw foot tub and the fact that it's nicer and cheaper than anything we've seen we can't imagine her as our landlord. We call Wyatt's dad to grovel--saying we really loved the place. His wife calls us back and tells us they are going to check our references--but that they liked us and really, the apt. is ours.
* We breath a sigh of relief. We are totally overwhelmed. I want to wrap my body around Bean to protect him from all the noise and tumult and I want to stop putting him in his car seat! He has started to arch his back and wail in protest now, when we put him in it--he's been in his car seat probably 18 our of the last 24 hours. We are going to hell for being irresponsible parents.
* We drive back to CT. It is still raining. I nearly dislocate my shoulder trying to reach around behind me so that Bean can suck on my finger. We arrive home dazed.
* Tuesday DH works and I try to find out about private health insurance. I'll be officially quitting my job this summer and doing a stint as a SAHM while taking graduate classes for the next year +. The only agency that actually contacts me is one that FOX News has just done an expose on--apparently they're a total scam. I am off to a good start.
* Wednesday we go to Manhattan, to see my sister and her husband. This makes us certifiably insane on many counts (more on my sister later). It's fun to see her however, and we go to the Natural History museum where we see a prehistoric mosquito the size of a small dog, and of course, the dinosaurs. By the time we are ready for dinner, Bean once again has huge eyes, and looks completely worn out. We leave before dinner. Getting our car out of the parking garage proves to be quite the ordeal. We wait in line for the parking attendant to bring it to us--although we can see it from where we are standing. It takes us 15 minutes.
* We haven't heard from the Wyatt's dad and we are sure they hate us and don't want us to get the apartment. We're dreading going back up to Our New City to look for more rentals. Finally we call them. They apologize profusely for acting like air heads & promise to fax us the lease in the morning. They say they have been very busy. We try to believe them--and do, when the fax shows up on time in the morning & we sign the lease. We are sooo happy to know we actually have a place to move to that isn't seventeen stories up rickety stairs or roach infested.
* Thursday we get back in the car and drive up to Lake George. We are staying at the Sagamore with DH's parents--DH's mom is a meetings planner and her company is doing a convention there and have comped her the rooms.
* The Sagamore is gorgeous, snobby, and has a dress code. We haven't packed a single item of clothing that is appropriate (i.e. we've only packed flip flops and shorts, rather than dresses, blazers and topsiders---seriously, who calls those things topsiders anyway???) DH & I go for drinks on the veranda in the evening anyway, wearing jeans & flip flops. No one gives us dirty looks. The stars and the lake are exquisite. People's voices and live music carry out across the water. The mountains look like the silhouettes of old dinosaurs napping. We sit in Adirondack chairs drinking margaritas and kiss.
The following morning I am treated to a massage by the gay masseuse, Karl. It's lovely. I am totally relaxed as I lie face down looking at his little feet (he really does have tiny feet for a man--they're smaller than mine) work their way around me on the bamboo mat flooring. When I return to my room, DH sees a bright red spot on my neck that looks like a bulls eye. We fear the lyme tick. We call security--who is more than happy to come to our room, prod me, and then call in the on-staff EMT, who takes all my vital signs and is thrilled to tell me about how, down south, "there is a spider called the brown recluse that leaves a bite that looks just like that, but after a day or so the poison eats through your flesh." I am delighted with this piece of information. We decide to go to the Urgent Care clinic to get it looked at. Two hours later, the prognosis is that they're not sure what it is, and that I should get a lyme test in 6 weeks. By then the disease will have reached critical mass in my system. The doctor does tell me that it probably isn't lyme if the bulls eye doesn't get bigger. We watch the bite gradually fade over the rest of the weekend, and are eternally thankful.
* Spend the following two days biking up mountains and kayaking. I get sunburned. We contemplate having sex on a tiny little island where we've stopped for lunch, but the a boat named "The Stripper" (no joke) comes by and tells us to leave, it's private land. We play with our baby, who can now hold his head up and prop himself up on his elbows. He rolls over. We are absolutely amazed. We're totally drunk on love for this tiny little person who flashes us wet drooly grins and sucks on everything he can get his hands on.
* On Sunday we drive home. Bean is REALLY SICK OF HIS CAR SEAT.
Traffic
Traffic in the tri-state area is like an ant hill that just got rained on. Unlike the autobahn in Germany, in the US everyone feels like it's okay to drive any speed they want in ALL THREE LANES. The idea of a left lane for passing is completely unheard of. Over the weekend we had the delight of driving, with Bean, down to New Jersey with a 5x8 trailer in tow. We're in the midst of relocating to an apartment in a northern New England city moving from the house we currently are selling in the Connecticut suburbs, and it's a bit of a downsize. The trailer, fully loaded, made our car about as nimble as a drunk elephant, and on I-95, I was sure we'd either be killed by merging cars who didn't see our trailer, or totally flattened by truckers who did, but didn't give a damn.
Our usual 3 hour drive to Princeton turned into a 5 and a half hour adventure of screaming baby, high blood pressure and total traffic induced insanity. Finally, once we'd hit the Meadowlands in NJ, we started playing the alphabet game. This consisted of us trying to find billboards with a word starting with each letter of the alphabet, in order. It resulted in us saying things like "a, hmmm, appendectomy, anus, arugula, apocalyptic... " and then finally noting a sign with the words AMAZING PRICES. It kept us entertained.
On the return trip, sans trailer, there was a TWO HOUR DELAY on the George Washington Bridge, and about an hour and a half delay at the Holland Tunnel. This folks, is just one more reason we're moving North!
Cowboys Are My Weakness, by Pam Houston
I'm hoping to go to a Literary Workshop with several authors, including Pam Houston at the end of July, so I figured I'd pick up a couple of her books. COWBOYS is sharp, delectable, and silly. It rings true, for women at least. (Note to boys: when I read sections aloud to my husband that I thought were screaming funny he just gave me a nice bland smile, and resumed reading Mountain Bike Magazine.) It's a quick read. Each story is tight, short, and packs some kick-ass punch that makes you want to smile and go do things you've kept putting off. Like hanggliding, or roller-blading, or sitting in a field with the man you love and watching fireflies. Which is what I did, last night.
Last June
Eating a dry toasted round of pita bread and peppermint tea, I try to quell the queasiness I feel. This is now my life, this pregnancy, and I feel new, and vulnerable and strange. I haven't yet reached a point of feeling wellness. I find myself imagining the first cave people, in a world full of moisture. What was pregnancy like then? Suddenly, I look around and realize that everyone: the man I am in love with, my sisters, the guy who works at Cumberland farms with the bandage around his head, was a baby once: a fetus inside their mother's belly. I begin thinking about what pregnancy must have meant to all those women. Those first moments of realizing, the gradual shift towards becoming something other than yourself. A total body transformation, that creeps up gradually, like the morning sunlight moving across my shaded backyard.
This morning I saw four cardinals. Three were female, and a more delicate rust red than the cocky male. High among the leaves of the red maple outside my kitchen is a robin's nest. The birds change off sitting duties, and even in a storm, with the rain pelting down, a russet breasted bird with hollow bones can be found huddling over the small blue eggs, its feathered wings acting as a watershed.
I wonder what sudden urges will possess me as a mother. The mother bear, the raccoon, even the silly blue jays in my yard are driven into a tizzy when their young are threatened. The jays scream at the neighborhood cats when they walk too near a nest. They fling themselves from the safety of a branch towards the cat's face, and then swoop off at the last minute, scolding.
I wonder about my sudden elevated sense of smell. Last night I bought Special K cereal at the gas station, and at home, pouring it into the bowl, was overwhelmed by the scent of cigarettes, stale and old, still clinging to the box. Certain smells linger; and of course they are the worst: the fragrance of garbage, or of cat feces, or peanut butter. They cloy and clot in my stomach, causing muscles to tense up and heave. I think about my dog, who once, on a hot day at the park, pulled me to a hole in a hollow tree where rainwater had collected so that he could drink. I wonder what water must smell like, and what it must be like to smell water from a great distance off and to travel towards that scent, knowing it means survival. I think too about the great white shark, and its ability to smell a gallon of blood in a billion gallons of water. By comparison my heightened sense of smell, is hardly heightened at all, and seems to serve no purpose. Though recently I read about a study linking strong, smell based aversions to increased chances of survival in prehistoric women. Perhaps long ago this morning nausea served a purpose.
June 30, 2004