Crawling Toward the Big Day

Hip, hip. January 22, 2008
Originally uploaded by sharonNYC.

On the day I was born, my mother gave a mighty push and I shot into the world so suddenly that there was a sound like a cork. So the story goes.

This was a hospital birth, but there was a midwife waiting to catch me. She was a bit surprised, and she fumbled my tiny body and caught my by my left leg en route to the floor.

That leg, specifically that hip joint, has never been right. The foot turns out when I walk. I have to sit zazen just so; it's as if some ligament there is loose, or missing. That hip makes a loud "clunk" when I raise and lower my leg from a seated position.

Two days ago I went on a massive urban-foraging expedition and came back with an astouding amount of groceries and Goodwill finds. In my condition, a dress that fits is a great blessing; one from Norm Thompson in soft charcoal wool for $7 is a gift. In the throes of my excellent second-hand karma that day, I lugged too much. And then I went for groceries. The little wheeled cart was instrumental in their transportation. But lifting it up the stairs was a bit much.

By evening, my hip hurt.

It hurt the next day too. I went for a walk to try to work out the knots, but I only succeeded in circling the block in record 15 minutes. I went to a play in the evening, wearing the Norm Thompson dress.

Today I realized: I've been wanting to do more walking meditation, and now that's the only kind of walking there is. My hips do not cooperate. There is a baby head wedged above my pubic bone, which may be contributing to the general pelvic instability. I should have spent the second half of the day the way I spent the first: in bed. But we went all over town looking for a baby dresser/changing table, me shuffling like an infirm old lady.

One thing from those years of wearing the kungfu outfit and the supershort nun hair: I don't mind being looked at in public. Pregnant women are a spectacle, even when they can walk.

Sometimes I cry out in pain. And tonight I was sad that I could not make dinner and move pots and pans out of the way in preparation for tomorrow's grand installation-of-kitchen-gas-line. But for the most part, this is just what is. It's something to be curious about; something that will be over soon. In month, I'll be absorbed in the care of someone else's tiny body. Temporary pain, temporary tiny body: temporary, temporal, tenuous.

Long ago, Dr Ou said, "There is no body, only energy," with the force of truth in her voice. Long ago, a baby burst forth; what happened that day was the seed for now. There's no way to know for sure how the events of one birth shape a future life. We are only here, in the middle of it all, for the time we have.

I will now proceed to bed. I will do so crawling all fours, because that makes the most sense.

Goodbye, Memoirs

I like memoirs. You could say I've been writing mine since I was ten years of age.

B. likes biographies. He's been reading the New Yorker article about Eliot Spitzer for over a week now, in little bits. He sits me down to watch our nightly half-hour dose of the Ken Burns documentary on Frank Lloyd Wright. This seems to be a harmless hobby on his part; he reads an article here or there, or watches a DVD. He finds it interesting to see how the accomplishments of great men (or would-be great men) are inseperable from other personality traits, such as great narcissism. Apparently the conviction that one is absolutely brilliant can be quite empowering.

Memoirs, to me, are dangerous. I cannot digest them in small doses, as B. does his biographies. I fall into another world. All books are dangerous to me in this way, but memoirs are the worst. I am just recovering from one, and my mind is perilously split between this reality and another. The songs and smells of that other life assail me. My mind will not be still.

And yet this life--the one immediately real--is so precious, the kind of clear bright time one might very well include in a memoir. Soon my most fondly-held rituals will be destroyed.

There will be no more reading in bed, early, with the lights on. No more conversations that end when we get tired. No more Frank Lloyd Wright DVDs; no wondering what do this evening; no getting sucked into a book. All of this--the quiet time as a couple, the quiet time alone, the complete freedom of the day, the unbroken sanctity of the night--will be annihilated.

This is that time before children, when two rooms provide plenty of living space, when leftovers are plenty for dinner, when a bit of vulgar language makes the jokes a little funnier. When there is some hope, still, of organizing the basement storage room.

I have five weeks to enjoy this. I do not need to be mired in a memoir of someone else's life. Soon enough I will be immersed in another world: precious, changing day-by-day, defined by diapers and feedings and powerful feelings. Soon enough, just writing about my own life will be a tremendous challenge, never mind reading about someone else's. Never mind reading at all--unless it's to the baby.

Sing Out!

Being pregnant has involved the acceptance of so many hormonal and physical changes. More curious than painful, their sheer number can be disorienting. The skin on my face has lost its elasticity; I've gained a shoe size (they say your feet never shrink back to their original dainty dimensions); I can't remember what I'm supposed to be doing; I'm warm all the time. There is, of course, a large growth on the front of me which hiccups periodically; the other day it slugged me so hard I gasped. These changes are things I work on accepting; they can't be avoided, they are common to all mothers, and putting up with them seems the only option.

There is something though, which makes me very happy, which is completely unexpected, and which I find mentioned nowhere online or in the baby books: I can now sing.

In order to understand the magnitude of this development, you would have had to hear my vocalizations before. And trust me, you don't want that. I sounded terrible. I knew it, and so did anyone within earshot.

There has been only one other person I've heard acquiring this skill upon motherhood, and that's my own mother. I always thought that the unselfconscious presence of an infant me freed her to express herself. But I don't even have a baby yet. I'm just as nervous as ever. And still...I can sing.

Today I sat next to Bun as he drove his sister's minivan around Portland. In the back were an increasingly tired and fussy little niece and nephew, and a saintly aunt. The kids were getting whiny: the seven-year-old was regressing, and the two-year-old was behaving in an age-appropriate manner, which is to say, insisting on the impossible.

"We can't go inside if you don't put on your shoes," Bun told the two-year-old.

"He doesn't understand logic," I informed Bun.

The clamor rolled on. A toy hit the floor.

And then, from out of my mouth, there came a song. I don't know why it was "Kelly the Boy from Killanne", but my voice was a beautiful free thing. The kids quieted down, and were civilized for the next five minutes.

The songs I like lately are mostly completely inappropriate. Do you really want your little child to idolize the highwaymen of "Wild Colonial Boy" or "Whiskey in the Jar"? Should he emulate the wife-stealing antics of the "Gypsy Rover"? Problem is, they're just so catchy. They've been honed on a few centuries of roguishness and drink, polished till they're more insidious than any advertising jingle.

That kind of looks like fun, doesn't it?

I promise myself I will avoid the songs that involve sporting and rolling around with lassies--the manly-boasting songs that really are a bit much, period charm or no. Likewise will I eschew the sad laments of young women rejected by their families in the aftermath of said antics, who roam the world destitute and dishonored--early pro-abstinence education from a world where one unfortunate moment could lead to a lifetime of sadness.

Delightfully, all my favorite lyrics can be found online, in the great storehouse of the web. Wandering the electronic byways today, I found this impish parody to share. It is probably not appropriate for the baby, but most people over age seven will enjoy it. It turns "Amazing Grace" into a series of truly unfortunate events:

(found online in the modern bardish Book of Song.)

A Grazing Mace

A grazing Mace! How sweet the sound
it is a friend to me.
I once swords crossed, but now Ive found
Its a grazing mace for me.

My sword it could, but hack and slash
and slay a foe or three
but with my mace I crush and smash
its a grazing mace for me

I swung it once I swung it twice
his sword it went sniker-snee
but then my mace, it found its mark
he now has but one knee

my mace it opens doors for me
it clears my path to eat.
It finds its way into men's hearts
and lays them at my feet

A grazing Mace! How sweet the sound
it is a friend to me.
I once swords crossed, but now Ive found
Its a grazing mace for me.

***To the tune of... aw, forget it***
Norseland Songbook Project
Fall Thyng, 1988

Prenatal Talents

It takes me twenty minutes to read over, comment on, and grade three of a student's lab reports. It takes me 3-8 minutes to write a paragraph-long summary of that student's work over the four months of fall semester. I have always been a fast reader, but I think this means I write faster than I read!

This evening, I am delighted to be done with student reports. I had my exit interview at the school today. Barring any whining over semester grades on the part of students or their parents, I am done. It is time to focus on getting ready for the baby.

Baby Fingers, Dad's Thumb
Originally uploaded by footleg.

According to the authorities, the little already has a few hobbies: hiccuping, sucking, and squirming. The sucking reflex is so strong that infant (in and out of utero) will suck on anything, or nothing at all: hands, feet, wrists, your finger, a patch of exposed skin, a pacifier, or even a nipple. Unfortunately the sucking reflex is not accompanied by an innate opening-the-mouth reflex, which can be a problem when feeding time rolls around.

Hiccuping takes care of itself; I feel it about once a day, in the evening. I figure hiccuping is good practice for swallowing, another important skill we should all have perfected before birth.

Squirming is my favorite hobby du bebé. I mean, I enjoy watching and feeling the little one practice it. He is quiet during meditation, unless we're doing Tonglen. Today I prayed with each inhale and exhale:


Whatever fear or pain you may have brought with you
may it be let go.

Whatever unwholesome habits or predilections you may have,
may they be released.

Whatever anger, whatever issues, whatever distress you may bear,
may it dissolve away.

May you be happy and calm, wise and compassionate. May you have a joyful life and be a help to others.

let your light shine in
Originally uploaded by Sara Heinrichs (awfulsara).

And the baby squirmed and squirmed.

Other squirming stimulants are: the first taste of food when we've been hungry for a while, and the scary parts of movies. I thought I could watch the latest Harry Potter DVD without having an impact on the wee one, but it's already too late.

End In Sight, Apparently

I do not seem to know that in a week I will be done teaching. There are still the out-0f-control musings on how to best set up a lab experiment; there are still the dreams about students in various states of crisis and joy; there is, more than ever, the lingering worry about parental "feedback", which this semester has ranged from gentle inquiry to forceful high-volume opinion (shouting).

Depending on how well the little darlings are able to complete the last lab experiment, we have either one or two instructional days after today. Perhaps we'll have three. You never know with these kids--some of them have really abysmal physical skills. Ask them to mix warm and cold water, having first measured the temperatures, and then do another temperature reading? That'll cost you 25 minutes of instructional time, easy.

Yesterday one of the brightest students--who has always seemed a bit uncoordinated, in spite of being the only freshman in school history to start an after school rock-n-roll performance club--was handing off a test tube of Mysterious Solid. The tube hit the floor, and we got a closer look at its insides. Previous to this accident, I had no idea what substance it was, only that our mission (should we ever complete it) is to experimentally determine its specific heat.

Cleanup was delayed because I had forgotten about the accident, and the aftermath, entirely-- until someone pointed out the large white splash decorating the far end of the lab. I scraped at it. It did not have an odor; perhaps it was wax. I suspect that forgetting to attend to a prominent mess, and barely caring whether we take a day longer to finish, and not recognizing the end in sight are all part of the same story. That I'm tired. It's time to slow down. And sometime after the impossible milestone of next Tuesday, I will.

Next week, I will sleep and write and compose an impressive to-do list. I will stay home and gestate and hang some art around the flat. I will take myself to the antique mall in search of a dresser/changing table for the little one, since 100-year-old oak often costs less than newly-fabricated particleboard. I will do all these things slowly, in my own time. I will make soup, and clean my desk; I will stock up on 50c onesies at the thrift store, and sew some swaddling blankets. I will have more dreams about the baby, and fewer about lesson planning. Best of all, there will be only one set of parents to worry about.

This One

This one
shifts in the darkness
crosses and uncrosses his legs.

This one
I have not seen
hears a voice and is still.

This one
holds nothing
and rootless becomes the world.

30 week fetus
Originally uploaded by borgia6.

A Very Little Cataclysm

Two nights ago, the rain poured down, and my normally-optimistic disposition gave way to all the worries that impending parenthood brings.

Breastfeeding will occupy 25% of my time.

Parenting a toddler requires boundless reserves of wisdom and compassion. You cannot punish a child for doing developmentally appropriate things. And yet you are exhausted, and perhaps impatient, with the repeated struggles.

In the light of day: this is the practice I opted for. This is the ripening of all kinds of karma.

And more to the point: this is a new little person. Who will have their own quirks and foibles and tendencies. Who will quickly outgrow whatever stage they are in, be it voracious breastfeeding or voracious house-trashing.

Not even in adolescence does the body change this quickly. Looking at how the loss of control affects me, at how desperate it makes me, I realize:

We cannot control what the body will do. It naturally swells with baby; it naturally accumulates an impressive layer of fat. One day it will naturally begin to fail; one day it will slowly turn toward death. There is very little you can do about these processes once you are in them.

The only hope for control, the only place where there is perhaps a choice, is in the realm of the mind. We might still panic, or judge, or react in some habitual way, but there is at least the option of recognizing that and attempting to accept the reality of things as they are. There is the possibility of turning the mind towards that which illuminates and calms. There is the possibility of finding some wisdom in the midst of the cataclysm.

Or not, depending on what you think life is all about. For me, I choose for it to have some meaning. No sense in going through all this, and not learning a damn thing.

Time Among the Horses

May I recommend this rumination on New Year's Eve by Verlyn Klinkenborg. (Now there's a name...)

The Sleeping Duo

Naps have become like food, as necessary and as perfunctory. In the course of a day, I might quietly lie down two or three times, slide into insensibility, and then then get up again as if nothing had happened.

Meditation is the most reliable trigger for a nap. I sit down, cross my legs, relax the mind into some semblance of receptivity and openness. There is the distinct sensation of energy moving down into the abdomen to nourish the being who grows there. A twenty-minute instant later, my eyelids begin to sink. It is so delicious to curl up right there, on the cushion. I come awake again to find the candle still burning.

I can't say what happens in the twenty minutes of sitting and thirty minutes of sleeping. But I choose to imagine that, in some very real way, life is being given to the child.

In Taoist thought, a woman loses qi by bearing children. Men lose qi with every seminal emission, and from that belief there arose an elaborate system for having a climax while avoiding ejaculation. If you're a pregnant woman, however, there's no way to have a baby without actually having a baby.

In yogic thought, prana, which is roughly the same life-force as qi, is transferred to the growing baby during the third trimester. This is the gift that everyone receives from her mother. Consciousness migrates from who-knows-where, but the vitality of life comes from a woman's blood and bones. And diet.

The pregnancy newsletter I receive ("You are now in the 30th week of pregnancy!") says,

Your baby is rapidly growing at this point. Obviously your baby is continuing to gain weight, and his/her head is also growing.... Because there is so much development and maturing going on, it is incredibly important to ensure that you are getting plenty of nutrients and rest.

No kidding.

I Am Two People

Expecting in the Kitchen
Originally uploaded by Shugetsu.

Perhaps it is presumptuous to imagine having a relationship with a person who doesn't know what they are yet.

But you know how it is: spending time being close with someone, especially in silence, gives you an idea of who they are. Whether it's correct or not is hardly important: there is the impression of relationship.

And so I feel that I get along well with the little one. He bustles about in response to his papa's voice; is quieted when I sing to him; rests when we meditate.

He would weigh 2.5 pounds, and open and close his eyes, if he were on the outside. But in the realm where he now resides, there is no reference for these things.

-

For me, being pregnant seems to precipitate recurring dreams. So I have dreamed the same dull dream every night for a week, just before I wake up: something doesn't measure up; there is some mild disappointment, and I make my way home from a building in Belfast.

Baby Name

To name something you have not seen seems presumptuous. How can a name be the only thing you know? It is a false conceptual handle on an unknown phenomenon.

Even so, there is a baby--or rather, there is a heartbeat, and a shadowy ultrasound image, a growing abdomen where he allegedly lives--and there is a baby's name. It is a boy's name that came to me early on, so unmistakably as to relieve one of the need for further brainstorming.

Now the baby's movement has is becoming apparent. It is extremely subtle. But now the name begins to denote something more real. There is evidence; there is someone this name applies to. Deep inside, someone devoid of concepts--a tiny being in a dream--is called something. Is named and measured and planned-for. I suppose it has always been this way. Knowing nothing, we are born into this world of speech, symbol, and meaning. It's not more valid than the void; it's just the law of this realm.

What I See Right Now

No camera could capture this.

Snow has begun to fall in thick flakes
and the sparrows cluster and flit around the feeder
that hangs across the way
in a maple still golden with autumn leaves.