Baby Kieran has his own blog. You are invited to visit!
http://babyktg.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Birth
The baby came on Friday morning.
Labor was longer and harder than anything I've ever done. The result is more precious than anything I've ever known.
We are both doing well.
Click on the flickr photo badge to see lots of baby photos.
Labor was longer and harder than anything I've ever done. The result is more precious than anything I've ever known.
We are both doing well.
Click on the flickr photo badge to see lots of baby photos.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Past Due
This moment is all there is. Every other day or so, there is a rush of hormones: muscles contract in involuntary readiness; a great love rises and runs high; an inner ache banishes sleep. The cliff's edge is approached.
And then something draws back. It is not yet time. Mundane matters fill the day.
There is only one way for this to end, however. One day the boundary will not hold.
Perhaps this slow approach is good. The gate is opening slowly and gradually over days, so that when birth comes, it will be more gentle.
Over the past couple of weeks, something has happened. Some very specific regrets and fears have melted away. Old shame has dissolved. A gentle death of some attachments to a past time; a gentle death 0f some old life.
In this in-between time, there are many lasts. The last time I will have dinner and a long conversation with K. The last tutoring with M while still unencumbered by maternal concerns. The last weekend, and then really the last weekend, of quiet togetherness with my husband.
Some old life--once mine--is already dying. And some new life is actually already here. The baby becomes a person only when it emerges. But already it relates and fidgets, sleeps and gets excited. It likes eating, especially after a while without food. At the first mouthful, the baby wiggles with great energy. I don't know who this person is behind the skin veil, but I have no doubt that they are wholly there, dreaming their way toward the day when their genuine personhood is officially recognized by the US government. For today, this little one has no papers and no number. But he (or she) is more real than the remembered self that once lived my life.
I look at all the little clothes, at the baby bed, and the birthing pool, and my own roiling belly, and I am so excited. So worried, so happy, and so calm. Karma comes due. Waiting to dive over the cliff's edge is like this.
And then something draws back. It is not yet time. Mundane matters fill the day.
There is only one way for this to end, however. One day the boundary will not hold.
Perhaps this slow approach is good. The gate is opening slowly and gradually over days, so that when birth comes, it will be more gentle.
Over the past couple of weeks, something has happened. Some very specific regrets and fears have melted away. Old shame has dissolved. A gentle death of some attachments to a past time; a gentle death 0f some old life.
In this in-between time, there are many lasts. The last time I will have dinner and a long conversation with K. The last tutoring with M while still unencumbered by maternal concerns. The last weekend, and then really the last weekend, of quiet togetherness with my husband.
Some old life--once mine--is already dying. And some new life is actually already here. The baby becomes a person only when it emerges. But already it relates and fidgets, sleeps and gets excited. It likes eating, especially after a while without food. At the first mouthful, the baby wiggles with great energy. I don't know who this person is behind the skin veil, but I have no doubt that they are wholly there, dreaming their way toward the day when their genuine personhood is officially recognized by the US government. For today, this little one has no papers and no number. But he (or she) is more real than the remembered self that once lived my life.
I look at all the little clothes, at the baby bed, and the birthing pool, and my own roiling belly, and I am so excited. So worried, so happy, and so calm. Karma comes due. Waiting to dive over the cliff's edge is like this.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Little to Know
I cried the other day hearing Liam Clancy remember a departed friend, encountered in "that brief window of consciousness that is given to us between the two great mysteries."
What can you say, as you wait for the window to open for a child?
I thought when I started pregnancy that I would gain some insight from the experience. I would learn something and be able to report it to the world. Some profound understanding about this mystery would reveal itself. I would be able to say that growing a baby is “like” this or that.
Maybe it’s no surprise: I don’t understand anything. In my body, something tremendous has transpired, with no particular effort on my part. I have become extremely large, and I have had feelings about that. But when your body is co-opted for reproductive purposes, there’s not much you can do. The challenge is to feel, and to keep feeling. To note the physical and emotional landscape, all the wonder and trepidation and uncomprehending responsibility. This is a person we have here! the mind isn’t made to wrap around that truth. Only a soft and stable heart can hold it.
Last night I dreamed I was holding a very new Native American Indian baby named Donald against my chest. He curled against my tummy like a little frog, and tried to suck on my sweater. He had a full shock of blackblack hair. I took him down some stairs and gave him to his mother. She was wearing a beautiful white puffy jacket and a matching white baby carrier.
My pregnancy dreams are like that: taking care of babies and little children. None of these dreams horrible or traumatic or even psychedelic in the way that pregnancy dreams often are. Just tenderness and a bit of joy. This dream-baby was the youngest yet.
What can you say, as you wait for the window to open for a child?
I thought when I started pregnancy that I would gain some insight from the experience. I would learn something and be able to report it to the world. Some profound understanding about this mystery would reveal itself. I would be able to say that growing a baby is “like” this or that.
Maybe it’s no surprise: I don’t understand anything. In my body, something tremendous has transpired, with no particular effort on my part. I have become extremely large, and I have had feelings about that. But when your body is co-opted for reproductive purposes, there’s not much you can do. The challenge is to feel, and to keep feeling. To note the physical and emotional landscape, all the wonder and trepidation and uncomprehending responsibility. This is a person we have here! the mind isn’t made to wrap around that truth. Only a soft and stable heart can hold it.
Last night I dreamed I was holding a very new Native American Indian baby named Donald against my chest. He curled against my tummy like a little frog, and tried to suck on my sweater. He had a full shock of blackblack hair. I took him down some stairs and gave him to his mother. She was wearing a beautiful white puffy jacket and a matching white baby carrier.
My pregnancy dreams are like that: taking care of babies and little children. None of these dreams horrible or traumatic or even psychedelic in the way that pregnancy dreams often are. Just tenderness and a bit of joy. This dream-baby was the youngest yet.
Birth Vigil
We are on birth vigil.
Yesterday I lay on the exam table as the midwife, a veteran of thousands of births, made ready to examine me. Instead, I asked a question about death, and she told me about the deaths she has attended.
Yes, she said, it's the same feeling of great transition.
I asked if she thought people dying go to the same place that people being born come from. She thought so.
There's a real physical effort to dying, she said, as if someone is pushing their way across something. Bit by bit, with enormous effort, they stop and rest, and then they carry on, gradually making their way. To the other shore, she said.
She is not, to my knowledge, a Buddhist.
You attend a dying person like you attend a birthing woman. You cannot do the work for them, but you can coach them and help them remember their intention. In both cases, they must open, and they must let go.
Breathing is so automatic, she said. It takes great will for a person to stop.
It takes great will to be born, too. The twelve-linked chain of causation culminates there--at birth, the apex of successive waves of desire and becoming--before it dives again into the next cycle of drives and wants.
Why are we born? Some basic desire draws us forth. It is all terrifying. And beautiful. Not entirely positive, in this world of dwindling resources. And yet, it’s just exactly As It Is.
The midwife turns at last to my body, and feels around. Things are in good shape, she says. Pelvic instability, which prevented me from walking earlier, is a predictor of easy labor: the bones are able to move apart. The baby-gate is nicely thinned and barely cracked open. The child’s head is low, ready to go. If everything were like this in a week, when the pregnancy is officially at term, the midwife would be pleased.
So we are ready. The baby is a good size. Some of the little clothes in the newborn lineup will never fit. The diapers are stacked; the cosleeper nestles next to our bed. Nothing to do but wait and invite the miracle.
Yesterday I lay on the exam table as the midwife, a veteran of thousands of births, made ready to examine me. Instead, I asked a question about death, and she told me about the deaths she has attended.
Yes, she said, it's the same feeling of great transition.
I asked if she thought people dying go to the same place that people being born come from. She thought so.
There's a real physical effort to dying, she said, as if someone is pushing their way across something. Bit by bit, with enormous effort, they stop and rest, and then they carry on, gradually making their way. To the other shore, she said.
She is not, to my knowledge, a Buddhist.
You attend a dying person like you attend a birthing woman. You cannot do the work for them, but you can coach them and help them remember their intention. In both cases, they must open, and they must let go.
Breathing is so automatic, she said. It takes great will for a person to stop.
It takes great will to be born, too. The twelve-linked chain of causation culminates there--at birth, the apex of successive waves of desire and becoming--before it dives again into the next cycle of drives and wants.
Why are we born? Some basic desire draws us forth. It is all terrifying. And beautiful. Not entirely positive, in this world of dwindling resources. And yet, it’s just exactly As It Is.
The midwife turns at last to my body, and feels around. Things are in good shape, she says. Pelvic instability, which prevented me from walking earlier, is a predictor of easy labor: the bones are able to move apart. The baby-gate is nicely thinned and barely cracked open. The child’s head is low, ready to go. If everything were like this in a week, when the pregnancy is officially at term, the midwife would be pleased.
So we are ready. The baby is a good size. Some of the little clothes in the newborn lineup will never fit. The diapers are stacked; the cosleeper nestles next to our bed. Nothing to do but wait and invite the miracle.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Waiting for Baby
Mostly what is left is the waiting.
I can walk now, and I enjoy it greatly. I fly up and down stairs, carefully but full of joy. I rest and do not carry things. Other than time and ice and kindness, nothing helped my hip to heal more than the midwife/naturopath's recommendation of great quantities of turmeric, a known anti inflammatory.
So I can do things again. I can move around the kitchen and cook. I can remember that following the recipe gives better results, sometimes, than complete improvisation. The freezer is filling up.
Pictures now hang on some walls. We have diapers stowed in large stacks in the antique dresser that will be the baby's changing table. The birthing pool is partway inflated, in readiness. The gaudy cartoon-fishies on the side really clash with our decor.
I fill the waiting with naps, with zazen, and with socializing. Soon it will be harder to connect with people. So many good folks are no longer in orbit; from a few, the silence is deafening. But it does not matter. The world is opening, the trees are in bud, flowers rise up, and we are never really separated from the people we care about.
Still, it is good to talk to my cousin M, to share chilaquiles with R and J, to know that A is coming over later to tell me about her kids and her job.
I am "due" in a week, but I secretly believe the baby will come before that.
I can walk now, and I enjoy it greatly. I fly up and down stairs, carefully but full of joy. I rest and do not carry things. Other than time and ice and kindness, nothing helped my hip to heal more than the midwife/naturopath's recommendation of great quantities of turmeric, a known anti inflammatory.
So I can do things again. I can move around the kitchen and cook. I can remember that following the recipe gives better results, sometimes, than complete improvisation. The freezer is filling up.
Pictures now hang on some walls. We have diapers stowed in large stacks in the antique dresser that will be the baby's changing table. The birthing pool is partway inflated, in readiness. The gaudy cartoon-fishies on the side really clash with our decor.
I fill the waiting with naps, with zazen, and with socializing. Soon it will be harder to connect with people. So many good folks are no longer in orbit; from a few, the silence is deafening. But it does not matter. The world is opening, the trees are in bud, flowers rise up, and we are never really separated from the people we care about.
Still, it is good to talk to my cousin M, to share chilaquiles with R and J, to know that A is coming over later to tell me about her kids and her job.
I am "due" in a week, but I secretly believe the baby will come before that.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Sitting, Walking, and Trying to Stand It
The pyriformus is a muscle that holds the head of the femur in the hip joint. The gluteusminumus is another muscle that does this. They anchor the leg onto the sacrum, the perforated shield-like bone that solidifies late in life. Until age 20 or so, you have a tailbone down there. After age 25, you have a sacrum.
These left-side muscles have never had an easy time binding the femur's head to the sacrum. Now that an extra 50 pounds of pregnancy weight has settled about my bones, they are in distress. There is inflammation, there is immobility in the SI joint, there is the apparent shortening of one leg.
There is ordeal of going down stairs. There is the bus driver making the bus kneel. There is the assurance that this is temporary; and there is the admonition that in three weeks or so, I'm going to need every conceivable millimeter of pelvic flexibility I can muster.
I'm not sure how much improvement is possible. Someone's head is sitting on my pubic bone, after all. Someone rides so low that I am spared the classic pregnant-lady dashes to the restroom because my bladder nestles in the space afforded by this person's neck. How can a pelvis hope to equilibrate in such a situation?
Today I did two things differently. I got out the book I should have looked at a week ago, the tremendous Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, and I figured out which muscles are struggling.
I also considered that perhaps this pain means something other than "I walked around too much, carrying too many things, two weeks ago." Perhaps there is some holding, some distress, some unreadiness, something unresolved. Perhaps I am fighting something. Perhaps I am scared. One clue to this is that my mind has been resolutely singing to me for weeks. I wake up with a song in my head. I sit. And then the song comes back. Finally, I instituted a practice of non-thinking for three breaths, just in the middle of daily activity. Did it several times an hour. Wondered, felt, listened only to breath. Sang some more.
Is this what it will be like when I face death? Will the profundity of what is coming be masked by the banal chatter of the mind? Do I want to be like that? Do I dare be otherwise?
This life as I know it is coming to an end, and something else will be born. A baby--and a mother--will come into the world. I don't know that I will even remember this time of waiting, but I want what comes next to be felt truly and deeply. That means feeling truly and deeply now.
This is the time to sit, and to sit more than ever. The pyriformus doesn't mind, and the heart and mind need it. I'll be aiming for 3 hrs a day, I think. Ask me how it's going.
These left-side muscles have never had an easy time binding the femur's head to the sacrum. Now that an extra 50 pounds of pregnancy weight has settled about my bones, they are in distress. There is inflammation, there is immobility in the SI joint, there is the apparent shortening of one leg.
There is ordeal of going down stairs. There is the bus driver making the bus kneel. There is the assurance that this is temporary; and there is the admonition that in three weeks or so, I'm going to need every conceivable millimeter of pelvic flexibility I can muster.
I'm not sure how much improvement is possible. Someone's head is sitting on my pubic bone, after all. Someone rides so low that I am spared the classic pregnant-lady dashes to the restroom because my bladder nestles in the space afforded by this person's neck. How can a pelvis hope to equilibrate in such a situation?
Today I did two things differently. I got out the book I should have looked at a week ago, the tremendous Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, and I figured out which muscles are struggling.
I also considered that perhaps this pain means something other than "I walked around too much, carrying too many things, two weeks ago." Perhaps there is some holding, some distress, some unreadiness, something unresolved. Perhaps I am fighting something. Perhaps I am scared. One clue to this is that my mind has been resolutely singing to me for weeks. I wake up with a song in my head. I sit. And then the song comes back. Finally, I instituted a practice of non-thinking for three breaths, just in the middle of daily activity. Did it several times an hour. Wondered, felt, listened only to breath. Sang some more.
Is this what it will be like when I face death? Will the profundity of what is coming be masked by the banal chatter of the mind? Do I want to be like that? Do I dare be otherwise?
This life as I know it is coming to an end, and something else will be born. A baby--and a mother--will come into the world. I don't know that I will even remember this time of waiting, but I want what comes next to be felt truly and deeply. That means feeling truly and deeply now.
This is the time to sit, and to sit more than ever. The pyriformus doesn't mind, and the heart and mind need it. I'll be aiming for 3 hrs a day, I think. Ask me how it's going.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Close the Door and Enjoy Life!
Every once in a while, the New York Times offers a real gem. In this latest, the wisdom of "letting go" of what is old and no longer useful is made plain.
In the desire to keep our options open, we so often enslave ourselves. And in curtailing the abundance of possiblities in life, there is a sort of freedom. Watching options slip away, even if they are options we can't or shouldn't enjoy, gives us a sense of loss. But who has not felt a surge of liberation upon losing something they were clinging to, but finally didn't really want?
Every day I wake up pleased to be married, honored and terrified at the knowledge that I will soon be a mother, and secretly relieved that, for the next few years, I know exactly what my priorities will be.
Some excerpts from the article appear below:
In the desire to keep our options open, we so often enslave ourselves. And in curtailing the abundance of possiblities in life, there is a sort of freedom. Watching options slip away, even if they are options we can't or shouldn't enjoy, gives us a sense of loss. But who has not felt a surge of liberation upon losing something they were clinging to, but finally didn't really want?
Every day I wake up pleased to be married, honored and terrified at the knowledge that I will soon be a mother, and secretly relieved that, for the next few years, I know exactly what my priorities will be.
Some excerpts from the article appear below:
Apparently they did not care so much about maintaining flexibility in the future. What really motivated them was the desire to avoid the immediate pain of watching a door close.
“Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss,” Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easy to measure in lost cash. In life, the costs are less obvious — wasted time, missed opportunities. If you are afraid to drop any project at the office, you pay for it at home.
“We may work more hours at our jobs,” Dr. Ariely writes in his book, “without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away. Sometimes these doors close too slowly for us to see them vanishing.”
So what can be done? One answer, Dr. Ariely said, is to develop more social checks on overbooking. He points to marriage as an example: “In marriage, we create a situation where we promise ourselves not to keep options open. We close doors and announce to others we’ve closed doors.”
Friday, February 22, 2008
10-Month Synopsis
I wrote this today to a friend who has the magical quality of bringing out very clear and simple missives from me. Perhaps this is because I don't know him all that well.
I sent him an email to tell him about the new ground of practice I am entering: one where body and blood are given over to another being, joyfully.
The baby was officially full-term yesterday. Not that he knows that.
I sent him an email to tell him about the new ground of practice I am entering: one where body and blood are given over to another being, joyfully.
The baby was officially full-term yesterday. Not that he knows that.
Two years after my own monastic experience, I found myself very suddenly entering a phase of practice that included marriage and (very soon) family life. I had no particular plans, although I suspected beforehand that I would either be married OR ordain sometime soon; it seemed to be time for a long-term committment. I hadn't ever done anything for more than 5 years at a time, and I was very much wanting to be held by a vow.
I was also sensing that it was time to become a mother, not necessarily literally, but in the sense of undertaking some lifelong task that would be bigger than myself. I wasn't sure what this project would be, but I wanted to really work at establishing something that would last and have some sort of continuing impact.
I was working as a freelance math and science tutor and occasional substitute teacher. I slept on the floor of a tiny studio flat and kept life simple. I thought that writing a book might be the big and impossible future task that would consume my creative energies. I heard that a classmate of mine was in town (we were in high school together) and I thought I might interview him for the book. So we set up a dinner date.
As a teenager, B. was about the last person I would have imagined falling in love with. Not so now! Being with him felt very right. There was none of the wondering and inner debate that characterized most potential relationships.
Things moved quickly. We made plans to be together, we learned we were going to be parents, and we were married. Really a wonderful stream of blessings. Within a couple of months I had gone from a minimalistic existence to one that included a car and a husband and a baby on the way. I think we're a good influence on each other, and we really enjoy being together. He is funny and hard-working and my often-cantankerous mother just adores him.
The baby is due anytime really, but most likely after two weeks from now, and before five weeks from now. I'm planning to have him at home. I don't know if that's common where you are, but it's pretty rare here. Everyone thinks you need to be in a hospital, for some reason. We'll see how it goes; I can always go to one if need be, but I'm pretty sure that things will go fine. I can feel the little baby squirm and stretch and have hiccups; it's like I already have a little friend. When he comes out he'll be much more high-maintenance, though!
I don't know if that's more length than you were expecting in catch-up email, but there you go. I'm very happy to be in touch with you. I'm on a sort of getting-in-touch drive *now*, since I figure I'll be a bit absorbed with other things after the baby comes.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Stove Service
I felt moved to offer some thanks to the guardian spirit of the oven of that has anchored this kitchen for 57 years. An object this venerable and this well-used has a being-ness of sorts.
We are grateful for the gifts of life conferred by this stove.
May the spirit of such selfless giving pervade the universe and benefit everyone.
May each of its parts find some beneficial use in the world.
As everything that comes into existence also comes to an end, so the stove's life and our life are one.
May all beings benefit by its new form.
JI HO SAN SHI, etc.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Crawling Toward the Big Day
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.
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.
Friday, February 08, 2008
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.
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.
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