Moment of levity

Y'all, this made me CRY with laughter.

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So...

I haven't been on a whole lot lately. Not here and not on any blogs. I wish I had a reason, but...I just haven't wanted to be in the blog world. Things have been vaguely surreal since my early morning hospital visit (although we are all fine, and thank you so much for your kind words). 

I feel a logjam in my heart...a mass of something overwhelming and strange. And I can't seem to dislodge it. 

So I do the next best thing. I try and distract myself, listen to music, sing. Sometimes it even almost works.

What does it mean when you lose interest in almost everything you once loved? I find myself almost viscerally recoiling from books, from words. I practically cross the street when I see a bookstore. My library requests are being returned to the shelves, unread. Today was the first day I have done my morning pages in weeks. They were...not illuminating.

Perhaps it's just worry. TEG ended up extending his stay in India. By the time he gets home, we will have been apart almost a month.

Perhaps it's dislocation. Our lease is up here soon and we need to make a decision on where to move next. A decision we are finding most difficult to make. 

Perhaps it's hormones. I finally managed to wean the Madam.

As always, more questions than answers.

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Whoa

This week, I received the answer to three questions that have lurked in the back of my mind ever since I became a mother:

1) What if something ever happened to me while I was alone with Madam and she couldn't call 911?

2) How would Madam cope if we needed to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night?

3) If I ended up in the hospital, would I finally be able to get some rest?

The answers are:

1) My parents would call 911 from Miami when I didn't answer the phone and the police would rush over and pound on the door at around 1:15am, which I couldn't hear because I was apparently passed out in the bathroom.

2) Surprisingly well.

3) Alas, no.

Madam has been sick with a persistent stomach bug since Sunday night, and on Tuesday, I got hit with it, hard. My head spun, my stomach revolted. In misery, I called my mom to get sympathy and a possible homespun cure. But nothing worked, because nothing could stay down.

The worse part was that I couldn't even carry Madam, leading to much hysteria on her part (when I saw the police at the door, I thought someone had reported me for possible child abuse. That's how much she was crying.).

At some point I needed to vomit again, and after that the bathroom floor looked so inviting...

Next thing I know, the police are shouting "Minneapolis Police, open up!" and attempting to break the chain on my apartment door. It appears I had been out for about ten minutes. They took one look at swaying, pale me and recommended an ambulance.

Now, I was all ready to ride out this weird stomach thing, but I was frightened enough by this episode (My little Madam, alone! TEG, still in India!) that I finally agreed to go, after being assured that Madam would always be with me.

Madam was a complete trooper at this point, and not acting like the same furious child who had just spent the better part of an hour shrieking. "Get dressed, Mommy!" she said happily, clearly excited for an outing. I am still not sure how I managed it, but I got her fully dressed, prepared a snack, refilled her water bottle, and double checked her diapers and wipes. Must have been sheer force of habit.

The paramedic won her heart by allowing her to ride on the gurney with me. He even got her to sit in the ambulance car seat.

They put an IV in me and off we went. I was still a bit in and out, but very aware of Madam behind me, sitting quietly.

In the emergency room, they gave me another bag of fluids and some medicine (I guess I was dehydrated...can that happen so quickly?) and prepared a little bed for Madam. Who of course did not sleep (see question and answer #3). She was too keyed up by the new sights and sounds, saying "Baby cryin', Mommy. Happy, baby, happy!" whenever she heard an infant crying nearby. Somehow I managed to entertain her (with a lot of help from the new situation) while hooked up to monitors and the IV, and after a few hours, they allowed us to go home.

Madam was excited to ride in the taxi with the new balloon that one of the nurses gave her.

It was 5:00am.

I feel better, and more than a little foolish. I probably didn't need to go to the hospital, but I felt so ill at the time that I panicked.

My mom is here and other than a recurring headache and residual exhaustion, I don't think I suffered any ill effects.

But I'll be happy when TEG is home.

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Oh, sad wasteland!

How many times do I need to remember that "blogging in my head" will not actually lead to, you know, words on the page? While my mental alter ego has been industriously writing pithy posts for your amusement, the real me has been sadly less well-engaged. Not that I don't have reason. TEG is in India for the next three weeks--his mother grew ill while on vacation and is still there. He needs to help with her therapy and to bring her home when she is ready. She is MUCH better, though, so big sighs of relief all around.

But...this has all meant that I am living through one of my big fears, that of being a single mother.

It is not *quite* as bad as I thought. Oh, sure, I am tired of being on duty all the time. But having TEG gone has actually given me some space to think about our relationship. While I adore him, I don't always adore *myself* while with him. I spend a lot more time running around doing scut work while he is home, in part because he generates a lot of mess for a grown man, but mostly because I want to prove to him that I am not slacking off, that I work hard even though I don't work for money.

I realized, again, that I don't feel equal in our marriage because I am not earning money. I feel like I have to hold my house and my mothering to a sterling example so that I don't get accused of being lazy. The phrase, "Why isn't everything perfect? It's not like you do ANYTHING else?" hangs over me. The thing is...I know this is (mostly) my own stuff. So how do I move past it? How do I convince myself that I am a fully accredited partner in this marriage, even if the house gets a little dusty while I try to write? Because, dear bloggy friends, I am about to let you in on a little secret.

I know that I am doing all this because I am scared. I am procrastinating, and beating myself up about the house, and about the fact that Madam isn't doing precalculus yet (you should meet the kids at her toddler class--smarties, all!), because it's easier to use all of time-honored reasons to pummel myself than face the truth. Which is, of course, that I am loster-than-lost with my writing, and I don't even know where to START again.

Well, THIS went in an unexpected direction. I just got that tingle, though, the one that tells me that I have just hit on something *true*.

You all are better than therapy.

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Charlie Brown

(from this site)

Lately, any moment of reflection and silence leads to an interaction with THAT voice. You know the one...the one that says you are no good, never were, will never be worthy of attention or admiration and all the people in your life who say they love you are just waiting for you to die so their REAL lives can begin.

Yeah, THAT voice.

I have taken to calling it Charlie Brown.

This has helped tremendously. It helps me smile at it, a little, when it starts with its inevitable whine about how everything good is happening to everyone else. I have begun to see his little bald head, bending down dejectedly after having the football snatched away yet again (oh, cruel Lucy!). I see the striped yellow jersey, determinedly out of fashion, with its hopeful lightning zag across the chest (Charlie Brown has secret superhero longings, like we all do). I see him looking at the little Red Haired Girl, always just out of reach, embarrassed by the force of his own daydreams.

And instead of shoving the voice down into the deepest, most ashamed closet in my psyche, I listen to it. I chat with it. And I have compassion for it.

But I try not to live by it anymore. I remind Charlie that despite his long history of failure, he never fails to give himself one more shot, one more kick at that football, one more glance at the Red Haired Girl. I remind myself that Charlie Brown is bright, and empathetic, and soulful even when the world calls him a loser and tries to shout him down.

I'm learning not to be afraid of him anymore.

But I'm still going to be wary of brunettes holding footballs.

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Tagged! Writing advice...

From this site.

The amazing Delia tagged me to write out three pieces of writing advice that I would like to share with others. It’s interesting. I have wanted to do a post like this for a while, but have always hesitated. Why? I don’t know…didn’t think I had the authority to give advice, needing so much of it myself? I guess I wanted to wait until I felt like I had THE answer—the perfect pieces of advice that would enable anyone (or, OK, me) to get off their excuses and start writing prolifically.

Sadly, this has not quite happened. But, upon reflection, I do think I have things to share—things that have helped me start, and continue, and start again.

Treat your material kindly: The writing books expound often on writing what you know, and that’s not what I mean here. I am talking about those moments when you feel gripped by a topic, or a theme, or a type of character. Sometimes I am dismayed by how much my stories tend to resemble each other, and I am embarrassed by how small they feel. I start to want to write about BIG subjects—war, or terrorism, or global warming.

And then I block.

Because, see, I am pulled towards the stories I tell. I want to write about those who feel like literature is what happened to other people. I want to leave a record of the heroism in these lives, even if the inhabitants themselves can’t see it. Because I can.

So I will continue to crawl over every inch of my material, like an ant who wants to see the whole world. I will continue to write about what calls me. After all, there are lots of people to write the tales of Big History. I’ll be here writing about the bodega owners who live above the store and Minerva the Cat Lady, who likes to drive with them tucked in a basket in her front seat, with access to the window.

Find your community—in people and in books: When I became a mother, I felt like I had already fallen behind. Because with the birth of my Madam, I also gave birth to a surprisingly fierce ambition. I had always wanted to write and had even made some serious attempts at it while I lived in Chicago. But something about holding my daughter in my arms, staring into her dizzying little face, made me long to BE something for her. To show her something in me that, prior to her existence, I wasn’t sure I had. I wanted her to be proud of me.

So I went online, found all of you, not all mothers (not even all women!) but all committed to your creativity and your passions.

And then I started to read books on motherhood and creativity. I needed to believe that it was possible, and the books told me, over and over, yes it is. I return to certain favorite essays often—Anne Tyler’s patient voice has pushed me back towards the keyboard on many days when I couldn’t see past my own irritation and exhaustion. I clutch Judith Cofer Ortiz’s stories about waking up at 5am when her children were small with gratitude (even if I haven’t been able to do that yet). And on days when I just cannot do ANYTHING, I remember that Patry Francis said that she didn’t manage any serious writing when her children were under six.

That seemed to work out well for her. And it gives me hope.

So find those books, those blogs, those people who make it all seem possible and use them to buoy you up when your own life preserver starts to, well, sink. To mix metaphors, if you put on your own mask first (like they say on the plane) you’ll be able to help someone else.

Show others what you can do: This was a tough one for me; still is. I went years without showing my writing to anyone outside of a writing class. It didn’t read like “real writing,” or else it was “too small,” or “not ready.”

Nothing has helped my writing more, and nothing keeps me writing like posting on this blog. Yes, the pieces are rough, unpolished, occasionally awkward. I am definitely experimenting. But your feedback, your questions and enthusiasms help me see my own work as something outside of myself. And that helps me to make it better.

It’s scary to put yourself out there, even in a safe place like a blog. It stings when people don’t seem to respond to a piece I think works. But…it’s good to see that.

And when you like something and tell me that it moves you, well, NOTHING motivates me quite as quickly. It makes it all feel real, and possible. Because it’s not theoretical anymore. Once you put a piece of fiction out, it’s an admission that it matters to you. You are not thinking about writing, you are writing.

So thank you for that.

As far as who I will tag for my three….so many great bloggers have been tagged already! But I don’t think I have seen responses from Amber, Jessie, and Deirdre, so those are my three.

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TEG's week off

A long time ago, a friend of mine married her boyfriend in a whirlwind. They met just when he had signed up to join the Navy (literally, a few days later), and thus had very little time together before he went through basic training and shipped out. She had thought she could handle it; even relished the romance of it all. “I'll be able to visit him in so many places!” she gushed. “And the Navy takes care of basically, well, everything!”

So, they got married by a Justice of the Peace our first year of college (saving up for the Big Catholic wedding of their dreams, which they finally had about four years later), moved to Virginia, and my friend's husband, newly flushed with matrimony, left her again.

It didn't take her long to become discontented.

“He's gone all the time! I'm here all alone!” she would wail on the phone. I tried to be sympathetic, in spite of my conviction that she had rushed into this (she hadn't—they are still together over fifteen years later). But, well...she knew this, right? He hadn't hidden it from her. I still hated to hear her crying.

Finally, she called to tell me, triumphantly, that her husband was getting honorably discharged due to her depressive episodes when he was gone. Basically, they had convinced the authorities that she was so unstable without him that she might actually harm herself. I remember thinking that she had apparently sabotaged something he had ostensibly wanted to do (well, at least before he met her) and was apparently proud of this fact. Frankly, I thought she had been a trifle, well, hysterical about the whole thing.

I was reminded of all this tonight when I realized that it was Thursday. TEG's week long vacation is almost over.

I would be happy to convince any possible authority to let me have him for longer.

Oh, friends, it's been WONDERFUL. He's spent so much time playing with Madam, filling the house with her shrieks during their elaborate games, patiently honoring her many requests to “do stuck” together on the couch, his dark head balanced lightly on her pudgy little legs while they read together. And he's reading again, about passions he's had since we first met, and hasn't been able to explore because he's been so busy. He's let me sleep in, sneak out to meet Jessie.

Best of all, the tense atmosphere that too often pervades the apartment is gone—that feeling that the roof is too close over my head. He hasn't had to bark, “I'm busy!” at any of us all week. He hasn't had to fight off a clinging, crying toddler as he went into the next room to make an important phone call. I haven't gone gray(er) worrying about her noise level during said important phone call.

But now, it's all coming to a close, and it's making me a little teary eyed. I know he needs to work; I'm grateful that he works so hard, enabling me to stay home with the Madam full time. But...the intense, driven way he works, that start-up, 24/7 instability---after four years of this, it's wearying. I miss him already, and I dread to see how Madam reacts to the return of the old way, especially now that she's had a taste of something so very much better.

So, I remember my old friend, and I think I understand her better now. She did know what she was getting into. She just didn't know that she couldn't quite handle it.

This isn't what I came here to write, but I guess it's what I wanted to say.

More cheerful post tomorrow.

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