Motherhood

I hear her. *yawn* Is it really time to get up? Already? I just fell back to sleep. I guess - it’s daylight outside. Fuck I’m tired. “Honey, wake up its diaper time.” A minute later. “Honey, wake up it’s diaper time.”

We’re up now. She won’t nurse now that she’s fully awake. Put her down to play and get out the pump. Five minutes pass and I’ve thought the words, “I hate pumping” about fifty times at least already. Half an hour later, and I have a whole four ounces. I feel proud of my accomplishment, but still hate the stupid pump. Damn I wish she’d just nurse. She’s getting fussy now. She must be hungry. Pour some breast milk into her rice cereal and prepare for war. Well, that’s perhaps overly militant but she won’t open her mouth anymore, and it’s turned into a struggle. Ever since those stupid green beans. I resort to trickery and make funny faces until she smiles, and then stuff a spoonful in. She couldn’t look more annoyed. Maybe I’m doing irreparable harm, and giving her bad eating habits; maybe she’s not ready for solids after all. Maybe she wants a bottle. Pour the remaining breast milk into a bottle. She drinks two ounces and that’s it. No. You need to drink more! How can you live on a few ounces at a time!? You’re supposed to drink six at a time for your age. I lived on chips and beer one year. I lived. I guess she’s fine.

Let’s read a story. No, don’t eat the story let mommy read it to you. No, don’t eat the story, let mommy read it to you. Oh fine, eat the story. Where’s my coffee? Oh I didn’t make it yet. Damn. I’m so tired. I want caffeine. I can’t have caffeine because she won’t sleep. Decaf it is. I did boil water didn’t I? Oh crap, I left the element on again. Jesus I’m going to burn the whole house down one day, and I just put the grounds in my cup instead of bodum again.

I pour the water into the bodum and return to play with her. God she’s cute. Look at her, trying to crawl already. Where does the time go? She was just born wasn’t she? I’m not ready for mobility. Sigh. Soon it’s time for morning nap. What will I do? I have to clean the kitchen, have a shower, and check my email. I only have time for one of those things. I can’t clean the kitchen or check my email in the shower, but I can clean the kitchen while I’m dirty, and then if I’m lucky check my email quickly too. Wait, I’m expecting an important email from work. Kitchen and shower will have to wait until afternoon nap. Suddenly everything must be prioritized, and grouped into efficient simultaneous pairings. Damn, I forgot about the laundry! I can’t shower until I finish the laundry.

Baby’s finally sleeping and I trip over something. I always trip over things now. What the hell is stuck to my foot? Oh…it’s a guitar pick. Thoughts of times when guitar picks all over the house would signify some artistic youthful hedonistic household are replaced with images of security threats. I am homeland security now, not a young bohemian. She could choke on that. It’s not safe. To a mom, everything really is a terrorist. Guitar picks, plastic bags, electric cords. Even my laptop. It could fall on her.

Playtime lasts for two more hours. We do the circuit. Stand up pladybug with assortment of pull toys. Sit down chair with assortment of chew toys. Playpen with mirror to inspire baby narcissism. Floor time, to learn to crawl. I’m not talking to her enough. More irreparable harm. Her brain could be in stasis. Let’s read more stories. No don’t eat the stories. How about you play on the floor while I read you one of my stories. I read Paulo Coelho out loud until it gets to a part about sex. Maybe I shouldn’t be reading this to her. Maybe this is all kinds of wrong. Multi-tasking is hard. She’s fussy but we’ve done the circuit and it’s a bazillion degrees below zero and we can’t go outside. Fuck, I hate winter. I am a mom now and probably shouldn’t say fuck. Damn it.

Loud crying. She’s bumped herself on the head again. Rescue missions and hugs and lots of kisses. It’s time for afternoon nap. What do I need to divide my time between now? Oh right, still need to shower. And do laundry. I have baby puke on my sleeve. Sigh. I always have baby puke on my sleeve. I get into the shower and wash my hair. Dear God when did I last shave!? I’m all kinds of hairy! Hair washed, face washed, body washed. Now I am under the hot stream of water for some more minutes but am already all clean; this is pure luxury time. I don’t need this time to rinse. This is selfish showering now. I could be doing a million other things. Oh but dear God it feels good. But. What if I can’t hear the baby get up from her nap? Maybe she’s crying and I can’t hear her? I peek my head out to listen. I still can’t hear her. She’s not crying, it’s fine. Stay in the shower, just a wee bit longer. It’s heavenly. No. What if she can’t cry? Maybe the blanket that I put over her crib to darken it for her has fallen on top of her and is currently smothering her? Oh NO! Must get out of the shower as fast as possible. Everything is now “as fast as possible.” Even sex. (And not because I’m hairy most of the time now, but because we don’t want the baby to wake up. If I hear her, it is all over.)

I am out of the shower and glance at the counter. Make up? Right. Who has time for that anymore? My hair is wet and I tie it back into a ponytail. I will come back up and dry it later. Maybe I’ll just put mascara on quickly. It won’t take too long, and it will make me look less dead tired. Baby could be smothering! Hurry! The days don’t seem that long ago, that the primping and preening ritual was something I did completely unconsciously; it was routinized into thoughtlessness. Now the spending of a stark four minutes flat in the bathroom is something that I know my younger self would have been shocked at the idea of. Everything seems utterly utilitarian now.

Ok. The baby is not smothered. Good. In fact, she is still sleeping. Perhaps it is time to eat. Breastfeeding moms have to eat like five thousand calories a day, or something preposterous like that. It’s like a torture test. How does one have time to spend putting that much food in one’s body? Protein shakes. Weight Gainer 5000. I pound back four scoops of the vanilla grossness, and empty the dishwasher. I have eight phone calls to make but I am quite confident that as soon as I dial the last digit of the number, she will wake up and need to be fed and changed, and then I will need to pump for another half and hour. Phone call will have to wait. Dear God I haven’t spoken to them for months now.

Facebook. I can check that while I watch her play and pump my milk at the same time. I can thump the keys with two fingers. It’s my only conduit to the outside world. Since fall, these four walls have restricted me almost constantly. Hibernation. (Please be spring soon, I am going crazy.) She doesn’t even know what grass is! Anticipation of showing her more of the world courses through me. I type a message to a friend. Then I realize that I have spelled simple words entirely wrong. Do I have Alzheimers? Maybe I’m permanently dumb now. No. It’s just sleep deprivation and it’s not permanent I tell myself. I don’t fully believe myself, but the reassurance is nice. I forgot to dry my hair. I must look like hell. I want coffee. I go into the kitchen to make some and realize that I never drank the bodum I made in the morning. It’s cold. What does hot coffee even taste like anymore?

Soon it is time for dinner, and then bath time, and then bed time. I look forward to bed time. I feel somewhere that this is wrong and makes me a bad mother. Then I tell myself that it is normal and I am not a bad mother. We swaddle her and sing her a song and tell her a story, and then the shushing starts. I am not terribly sure when the shushing will stop. I feel I have wrecked her again and she will need to be shushed to sleep forever. Her one day boyfriend will find her neurotic and peculiar when she requests him to shush her to sleep. More irreparable harm. Must teach her to self soothe one of these days. Tomorrow maybe. Tonight I need her to sleep so that I can have a few hours to myself. I want to read tonight, or maybe write a story, or start sketching out a painting.

She is sleeping and I look down at her and remember her being born. The angel of my imagination. She is perfect to me, and I would mow down anyone that intended to bring her harm. I am momma bear and she is my tiny, vulnerable bit of perfection. Love courses through me and I get teary. Maybe I love her more today than yesterday. Maybe it will be like that always. I think I might burst.

I put her down in her crib and walk away. I miss her already, and find that weird. Then, I feel my entire body relax, and go near limp. I have so much time now! It’s only 7:30 and it’s not even dark now. I remember being young and hating that. The amount of time that I have now, feels infinite. It is a whole 12 hours until she will be fully awake again. I say fully because she’ll be up about four times to feed and cuddle in between. But for now, I could, read a novel, finish cleaning the kitchen, eat a huge dinner, and…

And nothing. It’s 9 pm and I can barely keep my eyes open. I haven’t finished my novel, nor picked up my pencil to draw. In the days of yesteryears I used to go out about now. The night would be magic and young and just only beginning. I would write until the wee hours, and drink wine and smoke a pack of cigarettes. I don’t smoke anymore, and the thought of sleeping until two in the afternoon now seems somewhat outrageous and somewhat incredible all at the same time.

I sit. Slumped in my comfortable chair and finish my beer. I stare at the wall and reflect. I should write it down, but I fear I have carpal tunnel syndrome from pumping all day. I smile, a kind of inward quiet smile and listen to my breath leave my body. I never imagined life so full. I never imagined love so strong. Thoughts of her at 2, 6 and 16 start, and I begin to imagine the unimaginable. There is no preparation for each of the changes as they occur, or words to adequately describe the experience. I have no lexicon for this. There are no words at my disposal to capture life now, as it exists apart and juxtaposed to life before. My Self, born anew at the time of her emergence, has metamorphized into maturity. My motivation for being is now, almost entirely for the betterment of someone else. Everything is different, and I am so brand new. I should go to sleep. Tomorrow will come quickly.

Fingers and Toes

Over and over again she wished that she could break the cyclical nature of the tempestuous temper tantrums that made up her solitary evenings. Her toes were the ones that always started it. They were absolutely incorrigible. They were fiercely independent. For example when the rest of her body was warm, her toes remained cold. When the rest of her body wanted to be still, her toes would balk at this notion, and move regardless of being asked numerous times to settle down.

Her fingers were the other rebels. They weren’t as independent as her toes, but they were most often trouble makers in their own right, and were great at giving a good sales pitch. They weren’t as whiney as her stomach – but they often got the best of her and had the last word. It was the fingers that would convince her to stay awake, until far past her bedtime.

“Can’t we just play a little longer? Please??” they beg.

Why didn’t they ever take no for an answer? Her eyes really wanted to know the answer. They were not allowed to sleep until the fingers were tired, and to her eyes – that just seemed a little too unfair. Her eyes wanted more say in matters but even this complaint often was left ignored.

journey

if i cry when you look at me
it is because many nights
i have looked for you;
lost deep within a dream;

you were gone for so long
when i forgot how to love you;
when i stopped looking;
when sleep was just sleep

at night the sound of a silent song
now quietly carries you back;
and i want to weep, to be
reunited in the morning,
when the first thing i see,
is your smile

if i cry when you look at me
it is because i remember forgetting
how to love you, and because
now i also remember
how i love you

Fire

Deep in the middle of a forest, on the edge of the country and the interior of the woods, a footstep frees a small piece of glass from underneath a pile of fallen leaves. The sun is penetrating, and its rays move steadily from east to west, traversing the sky to find the exact place where the fingers of this great star touch the first edges of the glass. It then finds the center of this small, broken object; the leaves catch the heat and embrace it, the glass magnifies it, and a fire erupts. The flames touch here, there, and everywhere.

But then, as it does, because the earth cannot stand still, the sun continues to make its journey onward.

There was no reason that it has met with the glass; only by chance. The fire was born by accident, although the consequence ripped through the trees, and proved itself to be uncontainable in its force; the heat - intense, and the flames - beautiful. But there is nothing to tend to it, no reason for it to occur, and people both started to marvel at the life of its own that it took on, and were scared of it - for they understood the damage that it can do.

On the other side of the country, where the rain had soaked the earth and the Ocean continues to lap against the rocks, a woman was collecting sticks. She wanted to make a small fire to warm her camp. She noticed a man walking by with a stick of his own in his hand. He was using his to draw interesting shapes in the sand, and appeared to be lost in thought. He had a newspaper rolled up under his arm; a collection of worldly news that he had just finished reading. She wouldn't have said that he was an image of a person that had walked out of her imagination to be the replica of a figure she was usually drawn to, but he had intensely beautiful eyes, and interesting features. He had beautiful hands.

She sat beside him, and they spoke for what seemed to be an uncommonly long time. Their similarities in thought were startling to both of them. His politics made their way to her philosophers, and a connection was born. She invited him to come to her tent, to help her make a fire, but he suddenly grew tentative and balked at her invitation. Being somewhat tenacious and aware that they were still new to each other, she continued to coax very gently, and with enough persistence he gradually followed her towards her tent. It was there that he wanted to touch her. He wanted to kiss the mouth that had spoken her existential ideas, and to become familiar with each of the places of her body that might cause a shock of electricity to course through her.

After they emerged from her tent, from the intimate bond of sleep in which he had taken her hand firmly to his chest and wrapped around her like melted wax, she grew suddenly and once again cold. The air was damp, and the wind was brisk. It was not the best time to attempt to make fire, but it was necessary if they were able to keep warm. She tried several times to rub together the sticks that she had; fast enough, furiously enough to make fire. But it would not catch.

He sat there, watching her work tirelessly to warm them but he would not join in the endeavor. The harder she tried, the more disappointed he became that she could not make a spark. Sadness grew inside of him, and she could see it reflected in those eyes that she had come to adore. She wanted to relieve the sadness as much as she wanted to be warm, but each time she made a single, ephemeral spark appear, it would burn out as fast as it was born, for there was nothing dry in which to let it live.

In a moment of complete exhaustion, she asked for his paper. It was the only thing that was going to make this work. He looked at her with hesitation; his body and silence sent her the strong signs of doubt. He did not want to give this up. He didn’t want sacrifice the notations of his worldly politics; politics that he held so dear. She could tell he wanted to be warm, for his body was shivering. But he wanted her to make the fire without it, and continued to be more and more displeased in the inability for this to occur. She took two of the driest sticks she could find, and tried again, but as soon as the tiny beginnings of fire met the damp ground, they once again ceased to remain; ceased to exist. In her state of frustration, he told her the story of the forest fire he had witnessed on the other side of the world, and told her that he was certain that it was possible for flames to erupt without so much work.

“But you have paper,” she said. “If you would only give me the paper that you have, we could have a fire, stay warm and continue to talk through the night. We could laugh the way that we did on the beach, and tomorrow we could swim in the Ocean.” But the words rang hollow. He remained convinced that if she could not make fire without his sacrifice, that she was not magic, and there could be no flames as hot and as uncontainable as the ones that he had previously seen erupt in a forest, once before.

He got up. He didn’t say goodbye. Nor did he tell why her that he was leaving. After concentrating on her two sticks, and with her unequivocal will, she looked up only to notice that he had quite simply vanished. Down the beach she could see him walking away; he looked small, and the sense of loss that came over her was overpowering. The tears then came with the cadence of the distant waves, as she grew colder, and grabbed a blanket from her tent. There she sat, wrapped up alone, and grew pensive and wondered why he had just given up.

A stranger woke her from her daze. She had not been aware of time, and was startled by him. She wasn't sure how long that she had been in this state of half-sleep, and rubbed her eyes awake. She brought him into focus, and peered up at this man standing in front of her, still confused as to why he was there. He was holding something in his hands, which were outstretched in the darkness. She moved her eyes from his face to these hands, and noticed that there was a book in it. The pages were yellowed, and the book appeared loved, old, read, and re-read. In a state of shock she didn’t know how to respond. She was simply silent, and just moved her eyes back to his face.

“You look a bit cold” he said. “It is too wet here to make a good fire, but you can use my book. Just tear out the pages.” She was stunned. Not only were books sacred to her, but she didn’t understand why he was there, and why he was so willing to offer this to her so quickly. But she also felt the chill again throughout her body, and ached to feel heat. He sat beside her, and they began to speak as he tore out the pages of the book that he had offered.

The manner, in which he did so, became a slow and quite sensual ritual; for each time he pulled the page from the spine he also relayed to her, in attentive detail, what was on each of them. Hours passed in the cold, and in the dark. He told her the whole story, as the pages from this cherished book became a growing crumpled mass under the tent of twigs that she had constructed.

This time it was not difficult. She rubbed the sticks in her hands together and the spark caught almost instantly. The kindling and the paper from the pages were enough to start a tiny little fire below the wood. It filled her with an overwhelming sense of joy. He knelt gently beside it, and blew continuously and smoothly into the emerging little flames, which responded instantly, and caught the larger stick resting close. The sound of the crackling found its way to satisfy yet another sense, and the warmth began to make its way to kiss her skin. She watched his face as he concentrated on the fire, and in the growing light, it became beautiful to her. She took her turn, and lent her air to the fire, breathing her desire into it, and watching it grow.

Very soon the fire had taken hold, but was still new, and needed tending. He walked to the dry part of the land to gather more sticks in which to feed it. And when he left her side, a happiness filled her entire body unlike she had previously know. She trusted that he would return; he had invested in the flames.