I'm shutting down when I want to be wide open
I am raging on the inside right now.
The desire to throw things and scream and cry and just let it all out is practically overwhelming me.
For the past five minutes I have lain here with my hands on the keyboard, my face buried in a pillow (I'm on my stomach, stretched out across the couch) trying to figure out how to proceed.
I am scared. When I really stop to think about it, to analyze it all, it comes down to fear.
Scared of what, you say?
I haven't seen or heard a melody in almost a year. My creativity has run off to play with the kids down the street and always picks me last for kickball.
My health is failing me on so many levels, i.e. having to have my eardrums replaced in order to save my hearing, hypothyroidism, insulin resistance, PCOS, weight gain that came out of nowhere...
I'm scared to look in the mirror. I don't recognise myself any more.
I'm scared that I weigh 198 lbs and I'm only 5 ft 3 inches.
I'm scared that I even typed that.
I'm scared of what people will think of me knowing how heavy I am. I hate this. I don't want to care. But I do.
I'm scared of my past. Well, I'm more scared of other people's perception of my past, if that makes any sense. Which is silly.
I'm scared when it comes to music because I wouldn't know what to do with it even if I DID write something. But then I think, to hell with it, I just need to get something out. I feel like a pressure cooker. I feel like a ticking time bomb.
I'm scared of trying to schedule being creative around a 2 day a week 3 hour long Mother's Morning Out program. The idea that I can only attempt to write anything between the hours of 9:30am and 11:30am Tuesday's and Thursday's makes me feel crazy. My songs have never worked like that. They used to show up at all odd hours of the day (Some even ones, too) and I remember having the capability to hear them clearly, to play with them. Now they seem like they're downstairs, in another room maybe. I can hear them but faintly. Mostly not at all.
I am scared that my life seems to have been relegated to a calendar and scheduling and who has to be where when can you go here do that wait we forgot that we have to do this too I don't have socks you boys need a haircut we're out of milk oh shit a poopie diaper oh was that a melody idea CRASH what in the hell was that Hawke stop eating the dog food I need to bring the snacks for class tomorrow Gracie stop eating the garbage what is for dinner Honey we need to do a critique for the blog pay the bills laundry laundry laundry shower try to look presentable wait was that a melody idea oh Hawke is up from his nap time for snack pick up the boys...
*sigh*
Zack gave me a talking to earlier.
We take turns in this. He gets into a funk and I give him a talking to, call him out on his bullpoop and tell him he's being stupid and that he needs to get his head out of his ass and remember what's important.
Well he gave me that talk tonight.
It's much easier to give it than to take it.
I have no sense of direction right now. I have this amazing little studio in my back yard that my darling husband got for me and I have yet to spend more than a few hours in it.
TOTAL.
I don't know how to balance creativity and motherhood.
I'm either one or the other. I'm that way in so much of my life. All or nothing. Black or white. Feast or famine.
I don't know much of what this post is about. I guess it's to say,
"Hey everybody, I'm a big, fat, stinking mess."
And if ONE person tells me to "Just give it all to Jesus" I will LOSE IT.
I already know every single phrase we Christians pull out to give to other Christians during rants like this. It's like our own box of Pithy/Cliche tissues that we pull out when someone has icky "What the hell is wrong with me?" snot running down our faces.
I don't mean to sound harsh.
It's just....I don't know.
I just... ugh.
I need a hug. I need space. I need a little room to breathe. And, yes, I need God to help me figure this poop out.
All I know is that I am not being a very good wife and mommy right now.
One of my favourite authors is Katherine Paterson and she wrote one of my favourite books, Jacob Have I Loved. In the book she writes, "To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another." That's exactly how I feel right now and it frustrates the hell out of me.
I'm shutting down when I want to be wide open.
I long to have direction and a purpose again.
I long to not be, as Shaw once said, "a feverish selfish little clod of ailments..."
Ack. I'm done ranting.
Thanks for hearing me out, or not, if you didn't. ;-)
I found the Shaw quote I was thinking of by the by...
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." George Bernard Shaw
If I could, you know I would...
...but I cannot.
There is much afoot these days, in my physical world but in my heart also. I am fighting for some elbow room, fighting for my place to have time to create but it is proving harder than I thought. That just means I have to tighten my bootstraps and dig my heels in a little harder.
And right now Zack is "figure skating" in his socks in our living room.
Thank the Lord for my dear husband. That man makes me laugh like no one else can.
I will return.
I promise.
Young @ Heart
I have not blogged in a long longity long time, she stated, dutifully.
Captain Obvious.
Zack and I happened upon a documentary called "Young @ Heart" on PBS the other night. You can read about the whole thing here. I wept through most of it. At one point I was sobbing. The moment when this beautiful old woman began singing, "It's been seven hours and fifteen days...since you took your love away..." and I was done for.
My sweet husband was baffled by my tears and snotting about and hand to my heart gasping. I kept repeating, "This is blowing my mind. Is it blowing your mind?"
Zack looked at me with a bemused expression,
"It's not blowing my mind. I'm enjoying it, to be sure, it's interesting, but it's not blowing me away."
"Well, it's blowing me away."
After the show was over Zack asked me why I thought I was reacting so strongly to it.
"I don't know. I'm still trying to process it enough to put it into words."
A little bit later I made the attempt.
"I kept thinking about this time when I was eleven or so and mom and all of us kids were in a Taco Bell eating lunch. At a table for two next to the window were a little elderly couple quietly eating their lunch. I didn't take much notice of them but my mom did. In retrospect I realise she was watching them quite intently.
While we were still eating the couple got up and shuffled and tottered to the door and there the old man tried gallantly, albeit desperately, to open the door for his wife. As he struggled against the weight of the door tears began streaming down his face and his wife was patting him on the back saying, "There, there, darling, there, there...". My mom got up and helped him open the door and the couple thanked her and, while wiping away tears from his face he said to my mom, "I used to be so strong."
My mom sat back down at our table with tears in her own eyes and such a far away expression.
I'm just starting to grasp the concept that I will never be the "old" version of me. I'll just be me with a bit more wisdom and what not. I've often said that it's the mirror that changes, not me. I've never become the "30 year old" version of myself.
Does this make sense?"
(That was something like what I said. I can't possibly remember everything that was said. Obviously. I mean, I have been able to recall quite well conversations that were rather monosyllabic in nature like, "Can you pick up some milk?" "Yes." "Great, thanks." I think you know what I mean.)
Zack and I had quite an interesting conversation about oldness and elderlyish things. I quite like that by the time my kids are my age it will be quite normal for Grandma's and Grandpa's to have tattoos and peircings. You know? Most of the people I know have some form of body art. I remember Phoenix asking, "Mommy, what happened to so and so's mommy? She hasn't got a ring in her nose!" Every mommy he knew had a nose ring it seemed!
I'm sure it's been said somewhere before but, why is it, right when people become the most interesting, they get written off and shoved into a corner and deemed "old"?
I wonder how I will handle that label when it applies to me. When it might seem like an injustice when I most likely will FEEL so young and yet my body will have betrayed me.
Don't be surprised if you find I have joined the Young @ Heart chorus when I am old and lovely. I'll do a rousing rendition of "Paranoid Android".
In other news I am...overstimulated? Stressed? Overwhelmed?
My little hunting camper turned studio, Loretta, has basically been finished and is ready for recording but I haven't had the time to add the finishing touches. I.e. cushions and curtains and rugs. Oh my. And it's been cold. Ugh.
Hawke is teething and is sprouting what must be, by the way he's been acting, the largest, most toothy teethies ever known to mankind. He's fractious and frictious and perfectly incapable of getting comfortable whatsoever. In fact, as I type this at 2am, he is next to me, hooting and humming and squirming and fussing.
I am behind on everything.
Time with my husband.
Time with the boys.
Laundry.
Cleaning.
Grocery Shopping.
Emails.
Friendships.
Family.
Exercise.
Weight loss.
Sleep.
Time for myself.
And don't even get me started on studio stuff. Zack is taking this year to shoot only personal work and I have been nose deep in casting and production stuff and OneLight emails and DVD shipments and finances and planning and conceptualizing and...
I am tired.
Right now, I'm looking forward to being old. To the time when life will seem slower and I'll most likely look back on this time with fondness and "remember whens?". Even now I feel the second hand has sped up with late for a tea party white rabbit tendencies and I am chasing after it trying to give it a sedative.
"Father Time is not always a hard parent, and, though he tarries for none of his children, often lays his hand lightly upon those who have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life." ~Charles Dickens
Found: Christmas Songs
My sister-in-law, Ginger, asked me in an email the other day if I had recorded any Christmas songs.
At first I thought..."Uh...no...." and then I remembered, "...WAIT. YES. I have recorded some songs!"
I was a part of the Peachtree Presbyterian Christmas album in 2007 that the musicians there did to benefit Safehouse Outreach Atlanta. My old drummer, Noah Alexander, used to be their main sound guy dude and I think I'm not remiss in saying that he put it all together. He's a good one that Noah.
I wish he wasn't in L.A. playing with this band. That's not true. I am happy for him. No I am not. Yes I am. No I am not. Yes I am.
Anyway. I recorded my versions of Drummer Boy, What Child Is This and a song I wrote, Magi. (I'll type the words out below in case you care to know what exactly I'm singing.)
So, you can have them for free if you want.
Or, if you really want to be really awesome, you could DONATE a little sumthin' sumthin' to help them out. They didn't ask me to do this, but if you did, you would rock. A lot. Like the Casbah.
Magi
Oh we saw it
From far away
Wisely sought it
To see what made
The glow
And why the sky was so lit up.
Lord knows something must be up.
Moving quickly
Through the night
Ever onward
To see the sight
The glow
And why the sky was so lit up
Lord knows something must be up
A starlight baby boy
And shepherds with flocks
Angels are humming in lovely frocks
Waiting to enter onto the scene
Watching us travel
Watching us travel
Stars will often
Light a way
Leave you breathless
A cause to praise
The glow
And why the sky was so lit up
Lord knows something must be up
Chorus
He is like no other child I've seen
He is like no other child I've seen
He is like no other child I've seen
He is like no other King I've seen
Chorus
There you have it, friends. Hope you like them. More importantly, though, I hope you have the sort of peace that is beyond understanding, love unlimitless and joy everlasting as we enter into this season of remembering who these songs were written for in the first place.
Blessings.
Billy Collins...
...is a favourite poet of mine and I love this poem.
Just sharing. To share. You know. Sharingly. I've got my own words but they're all napping right now. Which is the unfortunate side effect from feeding them too many insecurities. I've tucked them all in and turned the lights down low and, hopefully, when they wake up they'll be gleefully ready to be written.
The Lanyard
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
~ Billy Collins, The Trouble with Poetry.
An email, that I sent and am posting here, to vent...
Post Partum Depression is a bastard.
Post Partum Depression sucks.
Sux.
Is a bear.
Leaves you bare.
A lot.
Especially when it doesn't occur to you that that is what you have. ( When it doesn't occur to one that that is what one has? Grammar. Love. ) And I didn't. For some reason I thought that the panic attacks and the anxiety and the anger and the nerves about to snap would all go away. That somehow it was my fault. That somehow I needed to get my BEEP together and pull myself up by my bootstrapseses and DEAL.
Zack was doing his best, God bless him. He'd look at me with an expression like,
"Where in the hell did you go?"
I didn't know. All I knew was that I was having the hardest time LIVING. Not in the "oh I want to die" kind of way. Just, wow. Life is very, very hard and so I'm gonna go upstairs and pull a Rip Van Winkle and all of you can just stuff it until things make enough sense in my head to wake up.
The crazy part? Life wasn't/isn't very very hard at all. AT ALL.
I have the following:
An amazing, adorable, talented, funny, hard working husband who loves me so much and is so good to me.
My sweet Phoenix and my stepsons Caleb and Joshua. All who warm my heart and are such good boys.
Hawke, who is a DREAM baby. Sleeps through the night. Hardly cries. Smiles and coos and travels like a champ.
A lovely little house.
I don't HAVE to work. ( I do, but I don't HAVE to. I just can't NOT work. Blech. )
I could keep going about food and clothing and running water and toilet paper and the internet and pretty, pink lamps and key lime pie and trips to New York and my family and fresh flowers in teapots and Hawke's hand on my face while nursing and my slightly out of tune piano and central heat and air and books and being able to read said books and the luxury of three pillows in bed at night and lipstick and ripe avocados and being alive for 31 years and Lindt chocolate truffles...
(deep breath)
My friend, Jenny Runkel, called me out on it. She called me one day about 6 weeks ago or so and while talking she simply said,
"Meghan, what's wrong? You sound sad."
"I am sad. And I don't know why."
She convinced me to go to the doctor. Jenny even talked to the doctor before I got there as she ended up having an appointment with him the same day as me only earlier and told him,
"My friend, Meghan, will be in here to see you this afternoon. She's going to tell you that's she's really fine and that it's not a big deal and that it's really nothing, but she's really sad and she just had a baby and she's not herself so don't let her wiggle out of it."
Or something like that. Jenny knows me really well. ;-)
So I go. And the doctor says,
"Oh, you're Meghan? Your friend Jenny, she told me about you!" And he told me what she said. And I cried and said she was right. He listened as I explained about how in theory I should be very very happy but that I wasn't, that I was very very sad and how guilty I felt because that didn't make SENSE. That I was avoiding emails and phone calls and most communication with people that I really like and love simply because I didn't have the energy. I couldn't DEAL. That I have a hard time admitting that I need help. That admitting I needed help was akin to saying I wasn't good for anything. As I said that I realised how silly it sounded.
He said three words that actually scared me.
"You are depressed."
Aw man. C'mon. Don't tell me that.
He prescribed me a little white pill called Lexapro.
I started taking it about 5 weeks ago.
2 weeks into it I started to recognise myself again.
Zack did, too.
I'm not all drugged up or weird or anything. I don't understand all of the medical science behind it per se. I just know that the parts of my brain that had decided to wage war against each other have now opted to sit around my cerebellum and sing Kumbaya. But efficiently. And with zest! Happily! This situation looks a bit stressful! It's okay! We'll make a list!
I'm still heavier than I ever have been ever ever ever. And I still have stressful things going on right now. That. I. Would. Totally. Write. About. But. I. Can't. On. The. World. Wide. Web. Oh. Em. GEE.
But.
But.
I am a blessed, blessed lady. And I'm thankful for the brains of scientists and researchers and doctors who were creative in coming up with a little white 10mg pill that helps brains like mine make sense to itself again. I'm thankful for Zack who has been so patient and good while I wrestled with this other me that wasn't me.
Does that make any sense?
I have 14 tons of laundry to fold. It's nearly 2am. There is so much to do. I'll make a list.
Tomorrow.
Right now, I need to go crawl into bed with my beloved and let this mind of mine have a rest.
G'night.
"Good morning, Eeyore," said Pooh.
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning, which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."
~A.A. Milne
How Hawke got his name, (or How Hawke got his name AND remained intact...)
Warning:
I say the word penis a lot in this blog post. See? I just said it. I have the ovaries to do it, too.
The following is to be sung to the tune of O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree.
O Circumcision O Circumcision
You are mean to boys penises!
O Circumcision O Circumcision
There's no point to your existence!
You take what God gave little boys
And cut it off, makes me say, "Oi!"
O Circumcision O Circumcision
You are mean to boys penises!
Yesterday an old friend of mine, Jen Gordon, posted the following article on her Facebook page.
Here is a small snippet of it:
"My wife and I were concerned that our son might one day develop an ear infection, and our research indicated that, although extremely rare, it is possible for an ear infection to lead to more serious health problems ... so, just hours after he was born, we had a doctor cut off his ears.
Completely insane, right? Then can someone please tell me how it ever became “routine” for parents to have part of their newborn sons' penises lopped off?"
I LOVED IT. It very succintly summed up why I've always been against circumcision unless it's absolutely medically necessary. I read it aloud to Zack and he said,
"It's hard to argue with such well put logic."
And this little discussion reminded me that I haven't shared how Hawke ended being called Hawke.
This will all tie together, I promise.
Shortly after I found out I was pregnant with Hawke, and we still didn't know what he was going to be, ( I mean, we knew he was going to be a baby but what KIND had yet to be determined) Zack and I began the fun times of determining what we were going to call this baby for the rest of its LIFE.
I already had the girls name picked out. There wasn't a need to pick out a boys name in my mind because I KNEW that God was going to give me a girl.
Dahlia Kathleen Arias.
Done and Done.
Zack suggested, gently, that we should probably come up with some little male names, too. Just in case. I remember he was driving, I was in the passenger seat, the boys all in the back of our big ol' conversion van. It was sometime in October, around a year ago now, and we were headed to Helen, Georgia.
Why?
'Cause. What could be better than driving to a small, over rated, Germanishly influenced decor, self described "Mountain Beauty with a touch of Bavaria" tourist trap when you're 13 weeks pregnant?
"Boy names! Great! Right!", I began to joke around. "Let's see...you have your two spies. Caleb and Joshua and I only have one bird! Phoenix! So, we should have another bird name."
Zack chuckled as I began to spout off different kinds of birds.
"How about Eagle?... Cardinal?... Falcon?... Robin?....Hawk?... Griffin?...", I trailed off as Zack looked at me and said,
"OOOOH! Hawk! I love that."
I looked at him increduously.
"I was joking. As in not being serious. As in kidding."
"No, really! I love the name, Hawk! We can put him in tree bark diapers and teach him how to hunt for his own food."
We laughed. I thought that it was done.
It wasn't.
We found out that we were having a boy on December 5th. On Zack's birthday to be precise. I had the ultrasound tech seal up the results without telling me if it was an innie or an outie and surprised Zack at his party with all of our family and friends around us and he opened it up while we all waited with bated breath.
"Well, it would appear that I make boys!"
I cried. But just for a little bit. (Now I can't imagine Hawke being a girl. He is so perfectly perfect. But at the time I so had my heart set on having a girl...)
So then the name hunt began in earnest. Some of you may remember some of the names we were throwing around.
Atticus.
Oscar.
Quinn.
Beckett. (my favourite)
And...Hawk was still on Zack's list.
After one of our pre-natal visits our midwife brought up the issue of circumcision.
"Here are some articles about it for you to look over and read. I personally don't recommend it but everyone has different thoughts about this."
"Oh, we're not going to circumcise him! Not even an issue!", I crowed.
Zack looked at me askance.
"We're not?"
Our midwife looked at both of us and said,
"Looks like you have a discussion ahead of you."
For a couple of weeks Zack and I went back and forth about the issue of whether or not we should leave our sons penis alone or not. Back and forth and back and forth.
It all culminated on December 23, 2008. We were in a TJ Maxx in Buckhead doing some last minute Christmas shopping and we had been HEATEDLY discussing our unborn child's penis and the state we thought we he should be allowed to exist with it in for the REST OF HIS LIFE. Things had gotten intense a couple of times. We simply could not come to an agreement on it. While in TJ Maxx Zack walked over to a rack of baby coats, all orange in colour, picked one up and said,
"Awwwww. Look! How cute!"
Now, this threw me a bit because up to this point Zack had never oooohed and aaaaahed over baby clothes. He's just not that kind of a guy. So I walked over very curious to see what was illiciting such a response from him.
"Look, it says Hawke and Company on it. Hawke! With an "e"!"
"Hmmm. Hawke with an "e". That's kind of cool."
And then, from out of nowhere, I had an epiphany right there in TJ Maxx.
"I'll make you a deal, Zack."
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
"I'll give you the name Hawke if you give me my son's foreskin."
Zack laughed, "Like, in a box? Okay!"
"NO! You know what I mean. I'll agree to the name Hawke if you agree to let him remain...intact."
Zack stood there rocking back and forth thinking about my proposition.
He sucked in air between his teeth,
"Geez. Hmmm. Okay. You have a deal."
Right then and there we shook on it. And just like that our son had the name, and the penis, he would have for the rest of his life.
I'll save the story for how he got the middle name, "Danger", for another time.
So, there you have it, folks.
I am going to go get ready for Zack and I's date night.
And kiss this guy hanging out in his bouncy seat, too.
Mimosa
In my previous post I mentioned that when I was much younger I imagined that my guardian angel was French. I couldn't tell you why, I suppose I thought it was romantic at the time. I don't remember making the decision to have a French guardian angel I just...assumed it. Nevertheless, it wasn't until I was twenty-two years old that I met my angel, Mimosa. Not in my waking life, both times were in dreams. Those two dreams, though, were some of the most real and intense dreams I've ever had. I don't usually remember my dreams at all but I remember my Mimosa dreams vivdly.
The first dream I had was so real and good that I can still see it.
Mimosa and I were sitting on a porch swing and we were both many years old and watching my grandchildren playing in the snow. I was not stunned at the idea of the snow, it seemed a given, normal - and not the wet, icy poor excuse for snow that we occasionally recieve here in Atlanta. It was perfect snow. Purposeful snow. Snow with confidence. I knew, the way one knows in dreams, that I was in New England somewhere. My grand-children, those darling creatures, rolled around in happy delight making forts and men of ice dressed in dapper scarves.
I remember I had red earmuffs on and a badly knitted scarf that I know I made myself. Mimosa had a face like like the moon, it gave off a faint radiance. Her skin was smooth, a dark mahogany, and she had a crooked smile. Her eyes were brown and always a little watery and, when I asked her about her eyes, she told me that there were so many beautiful things, and so many heartbreaking things in the world, that she was ever and always on the verge of tears. She had on a perfume like roses and when she moved the fragrance came off of her gently, without me realising it, everytime it was a surprise.
The swing we were on was creaking a bit and I got up to get some oil. The front door was hard to open, I had to push hard against it wanting to stick. My house, it was my house I’m sure, because of how sure I was in walking through it, was old in a good way with arched doorways, full of knowing and smelled of cinnamon and spice and something like the smell of cookies or perhaps a pie cooling. I didn't think to see what it was, it wouldn't have made any sense to do so at the time.
I hummed a little song to myself, and opened a door to some sort of pantry, flicked on a light and rummaged through an assortment of odds and ends in drawers and then pulled out the oil.
On the way out I caught a glimpse of myself in a hall mirror. Spry, a little rosy cheeked, my hair in tufts around my face and silver. My eyes were a bit droopy but I saw that they were still lovely and I had beautiful smile lines. I was still me.
Back out onto the porch I went and there was Mimosa swinging away on my porch swing. I oiled it up nice and slick, and the creak subsided and then left in a huff. It would be back.
Mimosa and I talked about everything. I wish I could remember it all. I was wise and full of stories and I made her laugh long and hard.
Mimosa told me that Jesus is an excellent dancer and that he can throw a mean curve ball. She told me that God has his very own snowflake designer and that the snowflakes sing praise songs on their way down. Mimosa knew lots of things. She told me that nobody realises how much God roots for us (he always wants both teams to win their soccer games) and that he hates to see us feeling lonely. She told me how he has a laugh so long and wide that you feel like you could swim around in it and that he knows by heart the recipie for the perfect chocolate chip cookie.
I looked at my hands and rubbed at the wrinkles, pulling at the skin to make them look smooth, clasped them together and played “Here is a church, here is a steeple…”
I heard someone call my name and I looked as an old man made his way up my front walk. He had a spring in his step and white hair. He wore a pea coat and a grey scarf. His eyes were kind and I was happy to see him. He was my friend and I introduced him to Mimosa and offered him a cup of coffee. He lived down the street from me with his wife and their two cats. His wife was an excellent gardener, I could always count on her to give me fresh tomatoes in season and their yard was a glorious mess of beauty, always in bloom.
My grandchildren were making a ruckus and calling me to play so down the porch steps I went to throw myself into the snow and wave my arms and legs about, creating my own elderly snow angel. As I lay there, all my precious ones piled up on top of me, my earmuffs went off somewhere and the snow got into my ears and I heard faint singing, a whole chorus.
I whooped and hollered with those kids. My feet were cold and I looked down and, no wonder, all I had on were a pair of Chuck Taylor’s.
I made my way up the front steps grunting and groaning, Mimosa squawking over “what a mess I was.” My down-the-street friend did a little dance and opened my front door for me. I walked inside and then I woke up.
The second dream I had with Mimosa was a few years later, when I was going through the hardest, most gut wrenching time of my life. My marriage to Phoenix's father was falling apart, my life was a mess, a charade of me trying to keep up an appearance that I had half a clue of what was going on. I was wretched. I was stuffing a lot of hurt and anger and rage and I could only last for so long before I'd lash out and say hurtful things. I now liken that person I was then to a lioness in a cage. One night I went to bed so tired and miserable and desperate that I asked God to please let me die. I know, I know. It sounds so dramatic but oh, at the time I felt it so keenly. I feel asleep crying and in my dream Mimosa came and scooped me up and held me in her lap just like a child and hummed and prayed and stroked my hair while I wept and wept. When I woke up I felt a little braver, a little better.
Interestingly enough, a couple of years later a dude named William Young published a book called The Shack and my brother in law gave it to me for Christmas. In that book he portrays God as a large black woman...if you haven't read it that won't make sense, but I found it highly amusing!
Anyway, just thought I would explain who Mimosa is. Perhaps you think me odd. But...huh.
I AM odd. And I am really okay with it.
So, you are more than welcome to think that.
I must now get some sleep. I've been up for nearly 24 hours.
G'night.
The Vitreous Humour
vitreous humour
n.
1. The clear gelatinous substance that fills the eyeball between the retina and the lens.
2. The vitreous body.
A while back Zack, out of the blue, said that he thought I should write a book and for every chapter have a song to go with it. I laughed, then thought about it, then laughed and then kept thinking about it.
Unrelated to his crazy idea (of which he has many, and often, it makes life very interesting...) I had been mulling over and thinking a lot about how people see. Not just in the literal sense either, but other's perceptions of what is happening or what is in front of them.
Let me try and explain.
I love that there are four Gospels because it provides an almost three dimensional view of the person of Jesus. They are all very different views but all recognisable as the same person. Or, for instance, if I were to find a model to sit for a portrait in front of ten different artists the outcome would be, I think, remarkably interesting. While the model would be recognisable by their basic form, the pictures painted would all be very different. I wonder then, which portrait is the TRUER portrait? Who is really seeing the model as they are? Seeing as how we are all so very different ourselves, with our own "filters", how can we know what we're seeing is really how it IS or is it how WE see it? The possible, and known, misconceptions that can take place are mind boggling to me. I, myself, have been a victim of, and a perpetrator of, this very thing.
I began to form an outline in my head of how I would go about trying to illustrate this and, with Zack telling me to, "Write what you know.", decided to go back to the death of my mother as my point of reference, her death and her person being the central force around which the rest of the "characters" orbit. Or, her death and her person being the model of which the "characters" are painting their view of her. In this way, I hoped to show how several different perceptions of the same thing can end up being vastly distorted from one another with similar instances even though everyone is perceiving the same thing/moment/person.
Am I making any sense?
I have the following characters/chapters:
The Preliminary Discourse
My Mother/Brendan (baby boy who was stillborn)
My Dad
Myself
Erin (sister, 18 months younger than I)
Brett (brother, 4 years younger than I and who has Downs Syndrome)
Caitlin (sister, 8 & 1/2 years younger than I)
Guardian Angel, to be sung in french (when I was 13 I firmly believed that my Guardian Angel was french. It wasn't till later that I met Mimosa in my dreams)
The Church -- (I'll need many voices for this, I want to try and capture the night some of the church members prayed that she would be raised from the dead.)
My Aunt Linda
My Grandmother
My mother and baby brother's chapter will be blank, at least I think so now, as the thought of attempting to write their perspective is daunting to me. I'm already challenged enough by the idea of attempting to write everyone else's perspectives too! Obviously, I can go to my dad and say, "Is this about right?". Not so with mom.
There will be a few melodic themes that will tie into each other, most not even noticeable to most people, but I will know how they flow together. The most noticeable will be between my mom, my dad and my brother, Brendan's, songs.
Right, so that gives a basic idea. The songs are coming faster than the words for the book are. I have parts of the book written, some with words so sparse they almost seem sad on the page but I am not in a rush. This is a labour I do not intend to bully out of me. Just like my sweet Hawke this "baby" can take as long as it needs to.
All that to say I actually quickly (and badly) recorded one of Erin's songs as a melody that sounded like her. It came to me from out of the blue and I just hit record using GarageBand. I didn't bother to correct the piano mistakes. I then sang over top of the piano the first words that came into my head. The structure of the song isn't necessarily set yet. For those of you who are songwriters you will get this and for those of you who aren't, and who are possibly thinking, wha?, it just means that, for me, the foundation has been laid but I haven't yet decided on the way the "place" will be laid out.
When I grow up
I want to be
Just like her
It's her I want to see in me.
I will take care of you
'Cause no one will care for us
One day I'll be taken care of
Someday I'll be worth enough
This goes here
And that goes there
I will keep us all together
I will tidy up our fear
Here is the song if'n you want to hear it...headphones are best.
After our mother's death Erin fell into, whether rightly or wrongly, the maternal role of the household. She clung to the routines our mother had made and desperately tried to keep things normal. She is dear and sweet and good and feisty and I admire her so much.
Just thought I'd share. Remember to take the recording with a grain of salt. Or with a grain of something equal in size to a grain of salt. In other words, don't expect too much. ;-)
Soon and very soon I will be able to really start properly recording the songs in their entirety, along with the other instruments that each one calls for. They really do, by the by, you know, call.
Ring ring...
"Hello?"
"Er, hullo. This is ah...the song you were just humming? The one you haven't named?"
"Oh, HI!"
"Um, yes...so, might I suggest a french horn to be added to me, please?"
"Request noted, I'll get on that. Finding someone who plays it, I mean."
It's 3:24am and in 6 hours I have to drop of my beloved at the airport where he will go to the Big Apple and capture beauty with a seeing black box and I will stay here and hold down the fort that isn't a fort it's our house but oh my perhaps I shall build a fort in my house.
G'night.
Department of Driver Services
As I type this as I am being sadly serenaded by the woefully bad hold music of the DeKalb County Recorders Court.
I cleverly managed to procure a speeding ticket on the way to having tea with my sister, Erin, and my friend, Kara Sutton way back in July. Erin was with me when it went down. I was deeply into a heated story involving something that happened with my...a person who is my (muffle muffle asdfhljd) and wasn't paying attention to the speedometer and then,
"Oh no. Tell me those lights aren't for me."
They were.
I'm notoriously bad at getting speeding tickets. Going fast is more fun than going slow. I know that that isn't RIGHT. It's not that I am blantantly giving the "man" the finger or that I don't care, I'm just...thinking about other stuff I guess. It's not malicious is my point.
Anyway, shortly after that we left for Australia and the boys started school right after we got back and our new employee started working for us and we were in meetings for the restructuring of UsedFilm Studios and then we had a OneLight Workshop and Zack and I started working out and somewhere in all of that I was apparently supposed to show up to court to pay my ticket.
I didn't.
I forgot about it.
So, today, in the mail, I received a very official notice stating that my driver's license is about to be suspended for failing to appear in court.
Ick. This arrived in the mail right after I had just come back from the YMCA where NOTHING happened even though it was SUPPOSED to. Namely I was supposed to have had my Fitlinxx appointment where the trainer person sets up the weight machines to remember who I am when I put a personalized pin number in them. It's very high tech for this analog girl, I gotta tell you. Anyway, I went rushing in there to drop off Hawke to make it to this appointment only to be told by the childcare ladies that they were closing. I about lost it right there because I was still getting over the migraine that I woke up with this morning and I dragged myself out of the house in an attempt to thwart my stupid head from ruining my day.
(deep breath)
And THEN I called Zack to lament about it and he was busy or something and wasn't LISTENING to me and I felt like he was bored or something so I did the very mature and grown up thing and HUNG UP ON HIM.
I know. I'm (cough) awesome.
I can't tell you why I did that other than it's possible I was momentarily reduced to having the behaviour responses of my eight year old self due to a flux in the barometric levels shifting on Clairemont Avenue.
Hang on, amazingly enough a person has come on the line.
Okay.
So.
I just have to pay a fine of something something (ouch) and my license won't be suspended. I'm really fine with that. The suspension part. Not the fine part. The fine part is not fine at all.
Hawke is now fussing because I made him lay down on his stomach. I am an EEVEEL mother for subjecting him to such a torturous endeavor.
Off to make the humble pie I'll be eating when Zack gets home...
The picture taking process...
...and my hatred of it leads me to believe that perhaps I should take up the camera.
I've always heard that photographers hate having their picture taken, that they prefer to take them.
I HATE having my picture taken.
Perhaps I would prefer to take them.
This is all stems, I know, from the fact that I am currently the heaviest I have even been in my life.
EVER.
To the point that I simply do not recognise myself anymore.
I really want to erase what I just wrote. As I write this I feel the tell-tale signs of an all out crying fest about to unleash itself and I really don't want to have that happen.
I feel so shallow and superficial for even letting it bother me. To even give it room to...breathe as it were. I have an amazing life, an amazing husband and amazing children and yet I find that I dwell on my weight a lot lately.
Sherri, the girl that we have just hired to join us on the Usedfilm Studios team, has very graciously offered to watch Hawke for me so that I can start working out.
This is a start. One I am grateful for.
Today Zack wanted to take a family "portrait" of all of us while Kara was here. The very thought of it made me want to throw up. We started to take some pictures of all us together and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I couldn't have been more grateful to Hawke for needing to eat when he did. I got out of there as fast as I could. Watched as Zack, Erik, Kara and Sherri danced and did silly things on the cyc wall and taking pictures of all of it at the same time.
I know of all the stuff about how we, as a society, are mass marketed to and that our perceptions of what is and isn't considered beautiful are all wonky but HELL, I still can't shake off this overwhelming...what's the word.
Self-Hatred.
I need to stop whining.
A woman named Jen Gordon I knew once wrote something like, "Put on your big girl pants and get to work!"
This is what I need to do.
But it feels hard.
And I know that I am not the only one that feels this way, especially all of you women out there.
I think what paralyzes me is that I know how at times how harshly I can judge, how critical I can be towards others, and I assume that everyone is being equally critical of me.
That was not an easy thing to admit. Nor was it easy to write. But dang it all, I refuse to be anything but authentic.
Even if it's not easy.
Ugh.
I'm not even sure of the point of this post anymore.
I have a lot of soul searching to do. Because this self hatred I'm dealing with is infecting me. It's eating me up. And it's a silly thing to be infected with.
Forgive the indulgent nature of this post.
Royskopp and...stuff.
Watch this, if you have time. If you feel like it.
I have this song in my head a lot these days. I find myself humming it at all times. I am pleased because I usually have either,
"All BYYYYY myself..." or "I wanna know what love IIISSSSS..."
At any point, when I stop, and nothing is in my head, one of these two songs will rise up in my brain and I will start singing them. There are even times when I inadevertantly combine them and it ends up being,
"I wanna know what love is all by myself..." and then I catch myself, and look around, and hope that no one has heard me because, let's face it, it sounds...odd.
If I could I would write more here. But my time for writing has been usurped by...oh LIFE. This is a good thing. Much better that than not writing merely because nothing happens and therefore have nothing to share.
Right now Zack and I have been beautifully consumed by this:
There is more to the story and if you have time, I recommend that you go back a blog post on Zack's blog to get more perspective.
My piano and I are on speaking terms again. Not that we meant to stop speaking to each other, but it became harder and harder to hang out because so much time had passed and, like in life ( I know you know what I mean ), how do you START again? It feels awkward and overwhelming. Does that make sense? I laid my fingers on the keys and let a little song play out and shyly we made amends and left me grinning at how stupid I was to let so much time go by.
I wish I could get over my insecurities enough to do this in real life.
I adore my husband. I am madly in love with my husband. I never, ever thought I would know what it is like to be in a marriage that inspires me and spurs me on and would be filled with so much joy.
Joy. I have joy. I am stupid busy and my life has been dramatically changed and flipped upside down and shaken up but it's the best sort of earthquake I didn't know I needed.
Just wanted to put that out there.
Light is to Photography as Sound is to Music
As I write this I am sitting in a gorgeous house (Zack is sitting here, to my left and wants me to write that it's, "like a drug dealers house in Miami..."), on a river in Surfer's Paradise, on the Gold Coast in Australia. It's a little after 10:30pm here which means it's about 8:30am back in Atlanta. We are here because Zack was invited to teach, along with JoeyL and Nichole Van, as a part of this workshop and the opportunity has been amazing.
The other night I was talking with Ainslie, her daughter Jade, and Will and they asked me how Zack and I met.
So, I went into our story. I gave them the...condensed version. Not because I couldn't tell them the whole thing but because we didn't have time!
"You need to turn this into a screenplay or a book!", Ainslie said. Jade agreed. Will informed me that it was, "Five times better than The Notebook." He even confessed to have teared up a little bit during the telling of our story.
Which brings me to the title of this post. I've been thinking of writing down our story for quite some time now. It's not your typical run of the mill kind of a story. It's messy at times. There is a lot of pain. But oh, there are beautiful moments, too. So many beautiful moments. Movie moments.
I need to write it down.
I may put snippets of the book here as I go, to give you an idea of how it's progressing.
I am a little homesick.
I am tired.
I have run out of words.
I need to store them up carefully, not spend them carelessly. I need to be a conservationist of syllables. I am spread too thin right now and I feel it deep down.
In the meantime, you should all go over and read this post by This Is Yellow. Her writing is what my writing wants to be when it grows up. And I'm fairly certain I'm older than her. ;-)
Here are a couple of pictures of Hawke, just because. He's 11 weeks old now. Here he was a "model" for Zack for a lighting demonstration.
Head tilt = Ah. Dor. Able.
)
Looking at toes...they're his favourite things right now.
Absolutely Nothing...
Let me try describe what is in my head at the moment. Or, to be more specific, how I AM.
I think that is what I am going to do.
I chopped all of my hair off yesterday. Well, I didn't. I paid a man a lot of money to do it and I LOVED IT when I left. Today, I do not love it. Today I think I am too...round to have this haircut, thus ensuing a lot of moments of me making faces at myself whenever I happen upon a mirror.
I am in Zack's boxers ( he has more than one pair but I see that that could be read as though he didn't and I suppose I could've started this sentence with "I am in a pair of one of Zack's myriad choices of boxers.", but I didn't and now here we are stuck inside of these parantheses...) and a tank top and just before I started this random writing I was peeling the skin off of my chest where I forgot to put sunscreen on when we were at the beach. Which, Lord knows, I only got to experience for about 45 minutes for the 2 whole days we were there but I made a damn fine dinner of Chicken Cordon Bleu one night and took a bath in a jacuzzi tub that did not jacuzzi.
I am rambling. I know this. It's my blog. I can do that. No, I have not been drinking. No, I am not on anything. This is how my mind works. ;-)
Hawke is to my right, on his very own couch cushion and I am on the other one. This is an important detail you see, as any attempt to try and share a cushion and all parties involved begin to collapse in on one another. It is a couch that eats you and that doesn't go well at all with my moderate claustrophobia. I can start to freak out when my arm gets caught in my jacket sleeve.
What did the General do with his armies? He put them in his sleevies!
Speaking of arms, Hawke's left arm is thrown over his face in the cutest "woe is me" pose imaginable and he is sound asleep. I have just given him a bath in a collodial oatmeal mixture that is made by a company who's name sounds like a sneeze.
"Ah-VEE-no!"
Currently Craig Ferguson is on the television, his silly snake mug (the one he drinks from, not his FACE) on the screen as I type this, but the sound is muted. I don't normally watch television but I've had it on for a while now and I realise, as I write, it is because I am lonely. Mostly for Zack. I miss that man something fierce. Typically I can go for days by myself and be happy as a lark.
There are adults on the screen there and it gives me a false sense of something. I might just use that last sentence as a lyric in a song. When that ever happens again. When it comes down to Hawke and the house and OneLight stuff and laundry or the piano - all the aforementioned tend to win. As in NOT the piano.
My piano is sullen. I can feel it staring at me.
I am fond of attributing personalities and human like characterisitics to things that aren't human. This actually has a name, "anthropomorphism". I learned about that from an older gentleman who went to my church when I was little. He overheard me making up a conversation between two dandelions that I had picked and a calculator. I remember this vividly although, for the life of me, I cannot remember what the conversation was ABOUT.
He loomed over me, his head blocking the sun, and said,
"Ah, a fellow anthropomorphist."
I, naturally, said,
"Huh?", in the eloquent way of a seven year old.
It's nice to have a name for my quirky habit and when I meet other people who do this I relax a little bit. I can only maintain "normal" conversations skills for so long and then I start slipping up and saying the things I'm really thinking and, depending on the kind of person I'm talking to, that can be very good with nods and laughs and exclamatiions of recognition or very bad with a lot of perplexed expressions and awkward moments.
I get the latter mostly. ;-)
But then I think, don't we all feel like this?
In thinking about anthropomorphism...I once had an entire story line going on with my pack of Crayola markers. It got quite intense but then I lost Orange and he was an intregal part of my narrative and so I lost interest.
Does anyone write limericks any more?
See, if Zack were here all that I am writing out would be things that I was actually saying out loud.
Did I mention I miss him? He's out in San Francisco where he was speaking at places like Twitter and Google. Literally. There are places where these names are. They "exist" in buildings and people work there and make these names, that we throw around casually, like...you know, happen.
Well. This feels very vulnerable. I have thought quite a few times now in the 7 minutes I have been sitting here since putting the period after "vulnerable" that perhaps I won't post this.
Aw heck. Might as well.
My right leg has fallen asleep and is now exploding with fireworks and I want to brush my teeth and the TV is off now and Hawke hasn't moved but he's breathing which is good and so I'm going to take us upstairs gingerly because of my leg and brush my teeth and try to go to sleep.
I feel naughty for purposefully leaving out the proper punctuation for those words up there.
"Devotees of grammatical studies have not been distinguished for any very remarkable felicities of expression. "
~Bronson Alcott
:-)
Amen.
The Effects of Everything -- or "Hi. My boobs are huge."
I am having the sort of day where I am crying for no apparant reason and my head hurts and nothing fits properly. My thoughts are jumbled and illogical and nothing is RIGHT.
In other words I just had a baby 19 days ago and my body is in full on rearrangement mode in the attempt to get everything back the way it was.
It sucketh mucheth.
I am dealing with the following:
- Instead of not being able to see my feet because of my ever growing tummy I am now unable to see them because of my mammaries. Seriously. For all you menz out there who possibly read this, I'm sorry. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. But oh HALP. I am a human cow.
- I am drowning in boys. Hawke makes boy number four. Two of them I didn't personally bring into this world but nonetheless I feel the weight and responsibility of raising them keenly. Right now, however, the three big boys, Caleb, my Phoenix and Joshua are all on my last nerve. I'm not proud of that. It just is what it is. Zack thinks it's very funny, for instance, to point to Hawke and say,
"Look. We have ANOTHER one."
- Where did this appetite come from? WHAT THE HECK. I am ravenous all the time. The women who are reading this are saying,
"You're breastfeeding, lady, go figure."
I know this. But Jeezy Chreezy. Most women gain their weight DURING pregnancy and then lose it after. ME? I'm going at it backwards.
- I haven't played the piano properly at all lately.
- I feel bad because I am not pleased as punch at my new role of essentially being a milk truck for Hawke. Someone tell me this is normal? My life revolves around his nursing. Logically I know that this will eventually have to end, I can imagine say...at least 5 years from now and think, "Okay, he won't be nursing THEN. At some point between now and then things will normalize. I'll get a little bit of me back." It's not that I don't like nursing. I find it amazing that my body can provide food for my sweet boy but GOOD LORD. I don't feel like I'm making sense anymore.
- I don't feel like I'm making sense anymore.
- At all.
- I have cabin fever out the wazoo.
- What is a wazoo?
- I miss my husband. He's here, physically. But, what with my sleep deprivation and taking care of Hawke and mood swings and weirdness, and with him working and helping around the house and taking care of the boys, we haven't had a proper conversation in a long time. This makes me very, very sad. Zack is my best friend. In the whole world. I know that it will all feel normal again, it just makes me ache that it's not right now. I'm pretty sure I just butchered the usage of commas in this sentence.
This post isn't very interesting. Just me trying to process. Thanks for bearing with me.
I look forward to being myself again. I'm going to try and not be so hard on myself when I get there.
18 days overdue + impromptu prayer + Fox Bros. BBQ + Zorro, the Gay Blade = Hawke Danger Arias
So.
Where to begin?
This is going to be a long post. I can feel it. It is not going to be a post full of prose and my usual ruminating and I am not going to wax poetic. I'm too damn TIRED.
;-)
As I write this it is 6:15pm and my little nugget is sound asleep. He is now 14 days, 3 hours and 29 minutes old or 20,369 minutes old in total.
Wait. Now he's 20,371 minutes old.
Let me address a question I'm sure some of you are asking.
Why in the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks was I allowed to go 18 days past my due date?
The answer to this could potentially be quite long. I'll try to keep it short.
Because I was having a homebirth ( I mean, I DID have a homebirth but I'm getting to that part...) the option of being induced was only an option if there was something wrong with the baby or I had gone TOO far past my due date. At which point my midwife would've said, "Okay. Off to the hospital with you."
Without stepping on too many toes I personally think that induction of babies has run rampant in this country, with a lot of babies being born before they're supposed to based out of fear and hospitals and doctors worrying that they could have a lawsuit on their hands if, and that's a BIG IF, a baby didn't make it because a mother was allowed to go to 42 weeks or even beyond. That, or some doctors find it easier to schedule THEIR life when they know when the babies are "due" to be born.
Not all babies are "done" at 40 weeks. They're just not. Hawke needed 42 weeks and 4 days before he was ready.
It would be as if one had an apple tree and watched the fruit start to grow and then once the first fruits started to ripen then decided that ALL of the rest of the fruit must be ripe, too. Sure, one could pick the fruit, but not all of them would've been ready. Not all of the apples would be bursting with sweetness!
Does that make sense?
It makes sense to me. And my Hawke is BURSTING-SO-FREAKING-FULL-OH-MY-GOODNESS-NOM-NOM-NOM-I-COULD-JUST-EAT-HIM GOODNESS.
Okay.
I'm off of my soapbox now.
I had been having false labour pains all week. To the point that I actually called Debi, my midwife, and said, "Okay, I think I'm in labour."
To which she replied,
"Uh huh. Sure. Call me when your contractions are 3 minutes apart."
She's a smart lady. She's heard a lot of pregger ladies in labour over the phone. She wasn't impressed with me. ;-)
And she was right. My 5 minute apart contractions went AWAY. I don't know where. Somewhere else. This made me VERY MAD. Zack and I had gone to dinner to Scalini's the night before, when I was exactly 42 weeks, so that I could ingest their Eggplant Parmigiana. And I mean ingest as I am not a fan of eggplant. Eggplant is not a very pretty vegetable. It in no way resembles an egg for one, much less a purple egg. I digress. Zack's entree was better. The garlic rolls were to die for. I digress again.
Thursday came. No baby. I went and got a pedicure and tried to avoid eye contact with everyone there because I knew if ONE person asked me when I was due I was going to punch them in the eye.
Friday came. I slept until 3pm that afternoon, which ended up being a very good thing. Looking back on it now one of the more amazing things that happened was that Melanie Dilley showed up on my doorstep. Her husband, Scott, was working on building a dog run in our backyard for Gracie (he's also the guy that did our studio buildout) and apparently Melanie had stopped by to see Scott. I hadn't seen her since December! I heard a knock on my door and I opened it and there she stood, lovely as ever, a straw hat hanging down her back and in her fantastic British accent she said,
"I'm here to pray for you."
"Oh! Well, okay. Great!"
So she came in and very simply placed her hand on my shoulder, while I sat at the dining room table, and she prayed for me. Prayed for Zack, prayed for Hawke, prayed for our other 3 boys, prayed for the house. She prayed a lot of things. And it blessed me so much to have good words spoken. To have someone else speak things aloud that needed to be said. To interceed. I needed that prayer time.
While that was happening Zack was at the studio doing a shoot with Dallas Austin for a magazine (that shall remain nameless at this time because I can't remember if we're allowed to say which one it is or not) and apparently Dallas's manager or someone had gone down the street to Fox Bros. BBQ restaurant and brought some back to the studio. So when Zack came home he wanted BBQ 'cause he had been smelling it for a few hours.
So we went. And it was good. They have this appetizer called Texas Fries that has more calories than one should eat in a week.
Let me say that by this point I had decided that the baby was never going to come. My friend, Que (who's son Aiden's middle name is also Danger!) wrote to me to say that at one point she wondered if she had contracted some crazy disease where she had all the SYMPTOMS of being pregnant but wasn't ACTUALLY. I started to think that maybe that was REALLY HAPPENING TO ME.
We came home and tried to watch "So I Married An Axe Murderer" because Zack had never seen it and I think it's funny but we got about 30 minutes into it and I could tell he hated it. Then he put on "National Lampoon's Vacation" because I had never seen it and he thinks it's funny and we got about 30 minutes into it and he could tell I hated it.
"How about Zorro, the Gay Blade?", Zack asked.
I was incredulous.
"Really? Really? Ugh. No.... ", and here Zack smiled his "I'm going to show all my teeth and look really stinkin' cute" smile.
"Geez. Fine."
We started that and 5 minutes into it I was hooked. That movie is hysterical.
"2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a Peso. All who love Zorro, stand up and say so!"
During the whole movie I was feeling...funny. I dunno how to describe it. My lower back was aching and I kept having to pee. And by that I mean MORE than I usually do which is crazy because I was already doing so much of that already. I was only comfortable sitting on a Yoga ball that my step-mom let me borrow on the day I THOUGHT I was in labour.
We watched Zach Galifinsdrasdfildgguwdsld (Galifinakis) Live at the Purple Onion after that. So funny. Not recommended if you're uptight or offended easily. Just a warning.
But oh my goodness I was laughing so hard. And Zack and I were eating Red Vines and I forgot momentarily that I was miserable. We headed up to bed around 2:30am.
An hour later I was sitting up in bed thinking, "Boy was I STUPID for thinking I was in labour before. These HURT." The contractions just started, BAM. No slow building up or anything. Just all of a sudden they were 2-3 minutes apart and lasting a minute or more. Zack called my sister, Erin, who lives in Conyers and then called Debi. Debi was just leaving the Athens area where another lady had just had her baby. Poor Debi. Back to back babies!
By 4:30 am Erin was at our house and I was still working through contractions and when I wasn't having a contaction Zack was making me laugh and I was euphoric because DEAR GOD FINALLY THE BABY WAS COMING OUT.
I had a water birthing tub all set and ready to go in the upstairs landing of our house, right by the bathroom and down the hall from our bedroom. A La Bassine birthing tub. I loved that thing.
Debi and her assistant arrived sometime around 6 am? I got into the tub and basically never left.
Well, I got out to use the bathroom. And one time I had this crazy idea that I would feel better if I could labour on my bed but one contraction into that idea and I was cussing like a sailor and saying, "THAT WAS A BAD IDEA."
Erin told me later that she knew I was really head deep into active labour when I became very curt with everyone.
"Turn the lights off. And cut the music. No more talking. Shut the dog up."
Debi checked me around 2pm and said that I was only at 6 inches. This made me almost want to give up. I hit that point where I thought, "Who in the heck am I kidding? What was I thinking?" And I was dealing with all kinds of negative images floating through my brain. And right then I remembered what Melanie had said to me after she had finished praying. She said,
"You're going to hit a point where you're going to wonder how you're going to do it. You're going to start beating yourself up and questioning everything. Go ahead and start thinking now about how you're going to deal with that."
So, when I hit that point, my way of dealing with it? I gave up. Or gave in. In a good way. Weirdly there were two "daydreams" that helped me. Everytime I had a contraction, (Which hurt like a MOFO. With Phoenix I had laboured for 12 hours on induced pitocin contactions but was eventually given an epidural and, also, 8 and 1/2 years had gone by since I laboured with Phoenix so I had FORGOTTEN...)
Anyway...
Where was I? Oh yes, everytime I had a contraction I imagined that I was a...this is kind of weird but...a squid. I don't know why. The imagery of my arms and legs being all limp and my stomach area being the area of concentrated energy made me think of a squid. The other "daydream" image was every contraction was really me being hit in the stomach with a cannonball that sent me flying through the air and, again, my arms and legs just sort of dangled.
I can't believe I just wrote that. But. Hey. There you go. Not romantic. I wasn't reveling in the life that was about to make his entrance into the world. I wasn't breathing with hee hee hoo hoo's and going to my happy place.
I was a squid who was also a multiple cannonball victim.
20 minutes later the most primal, insane feeling came over me. I knew I had to push. That was kind of cool. In hindsight. In the moment I felt almost animalistic or something. And apparently by the way I cried out, Debi, who was downstairs said,
"She's ready to start pushing."
Everyone rushed upstairs and Debi checked me again and I was at 10cm.
I pushed for 3 minutes.
And he was out.
With Phoenix I pushed for almost 3 HOURS.
Hawke?
3 MINUTES.
Here he is about...oh...10 minutes old.
May 16, 2009. 7 lbs 12 oz. 21 inches long. Head circumference 14 and 5/8 inches. Born at 2:46pm.
We have more pictures, and Zack has some video footage, but, interestingly enough, not as many as some might think. Zack was busy helping, and sitting with me, and holding me while I pushed. And the pictures we do have I'll share eventually.
It was an amazing, amazing experience. And I think it's sad that in the state of Georgia having one's baby at home is illegal. That my amazing midwife, Debi, would have been arrested if found out. It was redeeming, too, because my mother was going to have had our baby brother at home and their deaths and the complications surrounding it made some of my family think that Erin and I were crazy for wanting to have our babies at home but it was OKAY. I haven't spoken to Erin about this but I think I wouldn't be remiss in saying that we both have a feeling of, "There you go, Mom. We got to do what you wanted to do."
Ah, but there I go, inching my way back up on my soapbox.
I'll share more, later, about Caleb, Phoenix and Joshua's reactions and what they think of him. They love him, by the way... ;-)
Right now, I'm going to go snuggle with my newest boy. Who is now 20,462 minutes old.
Nothing to Report.
My life has become monotonous.
My due date came and went.
I'm now 8 days overdue.
I can't really do much anymore as I am limited in what I can do physically.
I'm not going to write anything more as it only serves to make me even more peevish.
The next time I post something there shall be something about a BABY in it. With PICTURES. And DETAILS.
Bull Shop
Alright then lovelies.
Since "What Is Left..." went over so well I thought perhaps I could share with you what I quickly recorded today.
I've had the phrase, "I'm like china in a bull shop.", rolling around in my head for MONTHS now. Really. And then, the other night, a torrent of words came out of me while Zack and I were sitting at the dining room table.
"Zack, quick, grab that piece of paper over there." And he did. And I wrote what you see below.
(there are chords off to the side from another song I was working on. I don't remember what that one is now.)
The music itself, especially the piano part, is something I've been muddling around with for a couple of weeks. By muddling I mean that I would walk past the piano (which is OUT OF TUNE. I know this. It's driving me nuts...) and my fingers would play out the pattern for a few seconds and then I'd be off to do something pressing like...laundry or making sure that homework was being done. ;-)
This afternoon however, right after Zack had taken all of the boys to Caleb's soccer game, right when I was about to lay my head down on the couch cushions for a much longed for nap, what happened? My piano locked me in it's gaze and everything sort of clicked in my head.
Now. I am due to have a baby in TWO DAYS. So my lung capacity is non existent. Also, I recorded this with GarageBand in our dining room. There are piano mistakes. There are vocal mistakes. There is a ton of room noise and, if you listen very closely, you might be able to hear the boys cleaning the kitchen, as that is what they were doing when I decided to throw a little accordion on this after dinner.
Okay, I'm doing the classic preamble that every musician does when what they're offering is less that absolutely PERFECT. (which for me, it never is.)
Just again, give me your honest thoughts, but keep in mind to listen to the song and the melody and not the production value.
Please. ;-)
Who knows, if I get enough of these songs together, we might have the makings of my newest album here, folks.
Here are the words:
Bull Shop (click the song title to download the song)
I try
To paint over
All of my unsightly spots
And glue back on all of the
Parts that fell off.
I'm not gonna lie
When I say
I'm falling
Apart at the seams
From the way
I've been trying
So
Hard
I'm like china
In a bull shop.
I try
To smooth down
All of my jagged parts
And protect with vigor
As much as I can of my heart.
I'm not gonna lie
When I say
I'm falling
Apart at the seams
From the way
I've been trying
So
Hard
I'm like china
In a bull shop. (everytime they've come around I've met the ground again...everytime...)
Everytime they came around I met the ground again
Everytime they've come around I've found the ground again
Everytime you've come around I've found I've made more sense
Everytime you've been around I've found I've made more sense