Helpless

Pern's head smells like fish when I kiss it, dribbles of wet food stuck there from our feedings. She's sick, really sick, and for a week (two weeks?) I've been force-feeding her with a syringe. She will not eat on her own.

We have a routine; I plunge the syringe into the wet food, food that stinks like fish and fermented bird and is the consistency of baby food, and I pull. Pockets of air jet in and I have to hold it upright, tap it with my finger, let the food settle and then push out the excess air. Plunge and try again, and again, until it's full.

I find her wherever she is and squat behind her, cooing to her and petting her head as I grip it in my palm. Come on now, good girl, yes, gooood girrrrl, I say as I prod her toothless mouth open with plastic. She jerks her head in protest. We're getting better at it, though, the feedings. She hacks and gums it down, miserably licking her chops. We're getting better at the routine, yes, but she's not getting better.

I'm guessing that anyone who doesn't care for an animal will not be interested in this. That she lies listless on my bed with eyes at half mast, curls against me not for affection but for comfort. On the one hand I'm numbly methodical about it all, following doctors' orders, stolidly confident they will eventually turn out to be useful because one morning she'll be bright-eyed and chirpy. On the other hand I'm so panicked I can't stand it. That sentence is lazy because I can't pry the lid off.

I thought I had more to say.

Baptisms

Did I ever tell you about the baptisms we used to host, the church congregation spreading blankets on our hill leading down to the murky pond, John the pastor standing waist deep and dunking the saved. My dad would man the grill, charcoal smoke and blistered meat swelling the air, a table with plastic cloth set up adjacent, topped with mustard, ketchup, buns. John would preach in the water, wearing a Hanes white tee-shirt, now green and brown with algae. He would hold the saved person’s head and dip them backwards, submerge them, hold them under and then haul them up sputtering. The congregation cheered and sang; we prayed. Once someone said they saw a scorpion in the grass.

I knew the way into the water was squelchy, the concrete bottom furred with algae and water plants. There were fish in there and snapping turtles, too.

My dad would give us turns on the tire swing, heaving us so high that we were parallel with the ground before he launched us, not swinging but sweeping through the air, so close to crashing into tree branches on the other side but pulled back by gravity, saved, at the last second. We would shriek and shriek, again.

I never wanted to be baptized in the pond, or by John, with all those people watching. But I loved those annual picnics at our house, Our House, in our water.

Saturday morning phone call

After small talk and updates and respective plans for the weekend:

"Oh, that phlegmatic bunch of blubber!"

"Obese, that's not even the word for her, what is it now? ("Morbidly obese?")

Yes, morbidly obese! That'd probably be a good thing for her, actually, if she just died!"

- My father, on my sister's cat Ellie

As much as I like to pride myself in being unique and strong-willed, the truth is I'm really malleable. A piece of silly putty in a cheap plastic egg. I know this because of vacations I've taken.

When I leave New York, I decide I hate it. Wherever I am, Silver Lake or Vermont, I decide I've stumbled upon the life I should be living, the life I'm too afraid to reach out and grab. God, I think, what have I been doing with the last years of my youth?

But how can that be true? How can I be meant to live in a bungalow in the Los Angeles hills and hike in the desert and be part of a freer, lighter existence, light as the bright dry air there, and also be meant to birth babies in the Vermont mountains and take up yoga and own a canoe? The contradictions don't diminish my conviction when I'm there, however.

When I come home, back to New York, I feel glum. It's so dirty, and frenetic, and old, and stuffy, and stressful, and tiring, how long can I hump groceries home on swollen feet that ache from walking up and down, up and down stairs in heels, all over the city, all day? How long can I go without smelling grass and leaves?

And then I stay put for a few weeks. Back to work and my emails and my bed that's too small for both Billy and me, and my cats who greet me at the door when I come home, and all my little objects that I've carefully collected and to which I'm so attached, and I forget.

I don't really want kids, I think, and LA is so far away... There are other things to do and worry about, and I forget. Will I never leave? Will I stay until life ('Life') intervenes and I'm forced to change course? Is that unevolved, lazy, cowardly? Is it fine?

I should admit right here that when I worked at a small telecommunications firm briefly, two years ago, I started to think I wanted breast implants because so many of the women there had them.

I mean, seriously.

Babies

A few years ago, I discovered mommy blogs. I was working at a small, inconsequential publishing house, and I didn't have much work to do, and I was very bored all day. I was transfixed as soon as I found them. I'd scooch closer to the computer screen, kicking my pinchy flats back under my chair and resting on my elbows, reading about 5am feedings, bleeding nipples, fresh baby smell and postpartum depression. Dooce. Finslippy. Breed 'Em and Weep. These absurd website names.

The thing is, I never wanted children when I was little. Some girls play with dolls, and play house and pretend to be mommies? I scoured the woods for perfectly smooth sticks to use as swords, and tried to convince my nephews that the tire swing was a time machine that could shoot them back to the age of the dinosaurs.... If a girl coerced me into playing house, I chose the dad, or the 'cool brother.' I didn't give a shit about babies.

When I started reading mommy blogs, I thought that maybe I was turning some subtle corner. That a secret part of me was unfurling, opening like a small flower towards a hidden maternal light. Because seriously, I loved these blogs; loved hearing about what it was like to give birth and take care of a tiny helpless human, to be so suddenly alone in the world, home with this unknowable squalling being, the old life gone and with it the old friends, just the new mother with her sore breasts, stranger's body.

I've thought a lot about having kids, and as I've gotten up in years - I'm 28, as of a few days ago - I thought, well maybe. Maybe. But something happened: I spent a night with a child. Not a child brought to light by its mother's words, on paper, but a real one, a two-year-old girl, daughter of my boyfriend's cousin. She didn't speak much English, this girl, mostly Korean, and she sat placidly at the table with us one night a couple weeks ago, occassionally slurping on a noodle, twisting around to take her shoe off, putting her shoe on her head. The usual. And as I sat there and watched her, I wanted to feel something for this girl, this little one. I wanted to feel, I don't know, SOMETHING. And I did. You know what I felt?

Bored.

Hanging out with the child was boring. We had to pay constant attention to her, to make sure she didn't fall or grab something dangerous or put something dirty in her motuh. We cajolled her into accepting two spoonfuls of yogurt; I absently petted her hair and accepted a handful of napkins when she solemly gave them to me. These small moments were sweet enough, I guess, but mostly they were kind of tedious. I wanted to drift off into my own thoughts, but something about being in her proximity prohibited that - something inside of me prohibited that. I had to be on guard, on alert, for the tiniest trivial nothings. With little kids, the little nothings have to mean everything.

I felt wistful walking down the street afterwards, eyeing all the young pretty girls smoking their cigarettes, balancing on one foot as they adjusted their heel straps. They gathered in small packs, soft dresses and pinned-up hair, laughing on the sidewalks of New York. I thought what it would be like to be So-Jun, pushing her daughter in the stroller, pausing periodically to pick up the stuffed fish she kept jettisoning over the edge. It didn't seem romantic, like the way I'd pictured it all these years. It seemed sad.

When I read the blogs, even at their darkest moments, the lives of the mothers seemed intensely immediate. Worth it. They'd discovered a secret world the rest of us childless ones can only wonder at and, depending on our worldview, dismiss or pine for. But there I was, suddenly thrust in the midst of the real deal, and basically, I wanted to get away.

I think that motherhood might be just be another world I've conjured up for myself. Another imagination game I've been playing. When I was little, finishing a good book sometimes felt profoundly heartbreaking - I'd mope around afterwards, casting about for some replacement of that lost world. I don't feel entirely like that now, but I wonder. It's not entirely dissimilar.

I'm 28, and suddenly I feel so far from ready, so far from ever feeling ready. I'd like to wait another 10 years or so before considering it. Maybe 20. In my next life. The one after this one.

I don't want to give up the possibility, to let go of the dream of a family, because sometimes I still think I'd be good at it - that it'd be good for me. My own little world, my own little people. But they wouldn't me mine, would they? And then I think about my life, and my life not being my life anymore, and I just...

I don't know.

I’m soggy. I wish someone could pick me up, wring me out, give me a good shake and hang me up on a clothesline to dry. I need the bleaching power of the sun.

My birthday was last week, and James was in town, and it’s seemed like every night was a reason to celebrate. I also just love birthdays, love the absurdity of it, all that attention. I was trotting around all night on Friday telling people it was my wedding night. I am now so full of sake, champagne and beer that I am likely still drunk.

*

Edit – I’m now back from several meetings and feeling less thick-headed. I don’t have much to say here, but I’m feeling bad about neglecting ‘my writing’ since the program ended and am determined to get back in shape. Consider this me wheezing on the Stairmaster.

I’ve been trying to be productive. An easy way to do that is to pay my bills, which I’ve now almost completely done. Electric, Gas, Vet, done! Sailing out the door. I love the crispness of it, the thick bold lines of a check mark. Done.

Next week I leave for LA. Will I be productive, sitting side by side with James on our laptops as the bright California sun streams in through the windows? Will we pick oranges and wear sunglasses and take photos next to palm trees? Will we drive around in his VW and play all our old favorite songs? I’m already imagining the trip in retrospect, as a series of photographs I’ll upload to my flickr and stare at wistfully years from now. That’s one of my problems, I think. I’m always anticipating things in past tense.

Simplicity

The rain started falling in a steady grey mist while I sat inside the courthouse at Livingston Street. We watched a video about the significance of jury duty, complete with no-name actors dressed up as Europeans, and then I cozied into my chair and typed. Once or twice, I checked email. It was nice to be inside, knowing no one around me, knowing no one would talk to me for a long time. Occasionally a woman entered the room and called the names of people who were going to be interviewed and, most likely, selected for a trial. My name wasn’t called.

Then, she said we could go. “Ladies and Gentleman, you may all leave; the judge doesn’t need you. You are done for eight years.” She gave a rueful smile and thumped a stack of papers on the desk in front of her to organize them into a perfect pile. We could leave! There was a satisfied murmuring throughout the room as folks started gathering their coats, stuffing paperbacks into pockets and purses.

Ben and I waved at each other. I opened my umbrella and crossed the street towards him, and we walked up Smith Street together. This place, or that place? We read menus and deliberated. We had nowhere to be and decided to drink beer. We stuffed ourselves on French fries and sandwiches, slurped cold beer, gossiped. It was delicious. When I stood up, I stumbled into him and then tripped on my way into the bathroom. I realized with some embarrassment that I was drunk – or if not drunk, then on my way. But I couldn’t stop giggling.

We decided to “do work.” We walked in the rain for long minutes, our toes getting damp, complaining about the chill in the air, until we found a nice coffee shop. Ben complained about the way the girl made my English Breakfast tea. There was no internet service. We discussed Ben’s book and I tinkered with the piece I’m writing, a maudlin account of how death is handled in offices. It was supposed to be funny, originally, but as is typical, I became too serious about everything. Now I don’t know what to do with it.

Our stomachs were starting to turn uneasily from the bulky combination of beer, grease, meat and caffeine. We found an ice cream parlor with internet access, and observed the groups of children and their mothers who were sitting in the back. It was very quiet. The rain kept falling and the children squealed while the mothers spoke in low, soft tones. The children pulled on rain boots and touched the flowers in vases that were sitting on the tables. Goodbye, said some of the women cheerfully, leading their children by the hands out the door; Goodbye, waved the others, who were still sitting at their tables, sipping chai lattes and helping their children spoon strawberry ice cream into their mouths.

The rain stopped and we had no more work to do or emails to send, or if we did, we had given up the pretense of caring about any of it, so we went for a walk. Back up Smith Street, past the apartment he and Mark shared, the bars they used to frequent, and as we walked we reminisced about those years, and I tried to think of happy memories from that time period with Mark but couldn’t. We thought that was funny, that I had no happy memories, and giggled about it. It felt nice to be able to joke about it without much of a twinge at all, no twinge really, a healthy handful of years later. We said goodbye to Smith Street and walked uphill.

We found a small bar, a tiny bar, with fresh local beers on tap and a row of flavored bitters for various whiskey drinks. A few people came in, settled into tables, and Ben and I sat at the bar. The door was open and the breeze was cold. We sat with our coats on and complimented the beer. It was very crisp and delicious. Everyone at my office thought I’d spent the entire day at jury duty, and that knowledge was deeply satisfying. It was getting later, darker, but I wasn’t very tired or drunk. I had plans and so I had to leave, but I could have stayed longer. It was one of those days that came out of nowhere and pulled me along. It was one of the best days I’d ever had.