I know in a deep way that it's not politically correct to compare one's nearly-to-term pregnant wife to the famed (and only non-Japanese) Grand Sumo Champion, Akebono (Chad to his friends), but I couldn't help myself. Jenn had twisted the sides of her tee shirt into two tails and tied them together so the knot rested atop her belly Dukes of Hazzard-style. Additionally, due to her pregnant state, her, um, undergarments weren't fitting as snuggly as they once did. Thus, in the dim bedroom light, her garb created the effect of a loose, loincloth. I studied her profile.
"You look like a sumo wrestler," I said helpfully.
"I'm telling Susan!"Jenn said, referring to a good friend of ours who is particularly outspoken, all the more so since she has sobered up. (Here's a link to Susan's courageous blog: http://writingmywaysober.blogspot.com/ )
"Wait, wait. Here, try this." I braced both hands on my upper thighs, lifted one of my legs and stomped down on the carpet.
Jenn refused to even give it a shot despite how much pleasure it would have brought me. Women can be so selfish sometimes.** Why, I even offered to get her some rice to sacrifice to the Shinto gods, but again, my wife would have none of it. (Upon further research, I discovered that the white substance the sumos casually toss to the mat is actually salt).
Jenn is a little over eight months along now. Her naval has become a tight slit, and her stomach gives notice that, in almost no time at all, the rest of her will be rounding the corner. In the evenings when she works on her jewelry, Jenn rests bracelets, lanyards, and necklaces across her belly as if it were a work bench.*** If she sits completely still, she can even support a steaming mug of coffee without much spillage. When we hug now, Jenn tucks her pelvis and then leans in with the top half of her body so we can make actual contact.
The idea that we will be parents in a month (or less) is still nearly beyond my comprehension. Is this how it is for all first time parents? I am at once already in love with this little person in my wife's belly even while feeling a sense of dread at the arrival of this being who is about to obliterate everything I've ever known. Had Jenn's gestation period been an elephantine two years, I'm still not sure it would have been enough time to prepare.
Years ago, I was speaking to a friend who already had two kids. After watching him interact with his sons most of the night, I told him that I didn't feel I was ready for the rigors of parenthood. "You're never ready for it," he said. "You just have to do it and learn as you go along."
Jenn and I were visiting a friend recently, a lovely and gentle gay man who has done much childcare and nanny-ing in his life. Commenting on Jenn's pregnant state and parenting on general, he decided to share his philosophy. I expected him gush all romantic on the topic. Here's what he said:
Kids are awesome. At first they're these wrinkled tiny animals that make ear-piercing, inhuman sounds at all hours, and then they become adorable little parasites (adorable because they're *your* little parasites). When you're crazy and exhausted and wanting to take a breather, they sense your need to pull away and glom on even harder just when you most need to get away from them. Haha, an exciting adventure awaits you!
We were both laughing by the end of his description. It was refreshing to hear someone peel the sugarcoat off impending parenthood and say something besides how in love we are going to be when our daughter arrives (yes, we know); how we are about to undertake the hardest and most beautiful thing we are ever going to experience (yes, we know); how our lives will never be the same (like this is a good thing, with the implication being that there was something wrong with how our lives were before we got pregnant ... and yes, we know); and how we are in for the greatest adventure of our lives and how utterly sleep deprived we will soon be (yes, we know.)
Jenn's cousin--a new mother herself--nailed it in an email when she said she hadn't needed a baby to make her life complete, but that they were "really happy there little Amelia is here."
Me myself, I had wanted kids for years, then let go of the idea of parenthood six or so years ago and was content ... or at least accepting. And now? I have lived long enough to know that fatherhood will be an earthshaking event, but one that won't make or define me as a person. What kid needs that "without-you-I-was-nothing" kind of pressure?
The past four weeks Jenn and I have been attending Ecstatic Baby workshops. Birthing classes, in other words. Since our arrival in Albuquerque, my entry into the culture of the Baby has included being in contact with two different midwives plus the instructor for this class. Honestly, I have felt very little connection with any of them. Of course, it didn't help that at the second meeting with our midwife, she greeted Jenn and I in the front lobby, extended her hand, smiled warmly, and said, "Hi, I'm Cassie."
"We know," we informed her. "We met you two weeks ago at our first appointment."
The midwife gave a sheepish look, but seemed to take her forgetfulness in stride and brought us back to the examination room. The exchange was pleasant enough, but it would also be the last time we'd see her for the next six weeks. Cassie explained that she was taking a month-and-a-half off to renew her energy and travel around. She would be leaving us in the hands of her midwife-in-training--Sky.
To date, we have met with Sky three times. She smiles a lot and says all the right things, but I get the feeling she is more focused on her personal life and passing her (no doubt challenging) mid-wife boards than forming a bond with us, the people whose birth she may or may not be attending. This is consistent with the rest of my experience of the wacky world of midwifery. Save for Saint Margy (the midwife we left behind in Oregon), as a rule, midwives are slow to return calls or emails--if they return them at all--and many seem a a bit, well, ungrounded. Ironically, in a field that is, by necessity, top heavy with feminine energy, it seems that what they need most is a strong dose of solid, grounding, masculine energy.
Before we left Oregon, we attempted to set up appointments with midwives here in New Mexico, and were often stymied in our efforts to procure even a current or active phone number. For one midwife, I left messages on several listed message machines. A week later, I got a call back from someone who said the midwife in question hadn't been at that number for five years. The woman on the phone didn't actually use the words "disappeared under suspicious circumstances," but I could read between the lines. Worst of all (and I know this will be a great surprise to the reader), almost across the board, midwives don't laugh at my jokes, a sin that, under ordinary circumstances might be forgiven, if only they showed evidence of humor themselves.
However (and this is a sincere "however"), I do not doubt the professionalism or credentials of our chosen midwife (or midwives in general). Cassie has been in the field for over 30 years and has delivered countless babies. Jenn was told at her baby/mother's group that if we wanted a hands-on, active midwife presence during our labor, Cassie was not our gal. Indeed, she is know for standing back and letting the mother have their own specific experience and will step in, we were told, only as needed. This is as it should be.
In one of our birthing classes, we watched a video that showed a woman grunting, panting, straining, and lowing from the confines of a small, water birth pool. In the background, a gray-haired, hippie--the midwife--stood in the doorway beaming. My first reaction was to wonder what the hell she was doing? Shouldn't she be in the pool as well, arms elbow deep in the mother's vagina while shouting commands with MASH-like urgency like, "Push, dammit, push!"
It is said that for any professional sports event--basketball, baseball, football--one should be able to leave without any knowledge of the name of the referee. If a spectator/fan knows who an official is at a particular game, it is generally because the ref (and pardon my French) fucked-up. The same rule applies to home births. What Jenn and I have learned is that if the midwife has done her job well, barring an emergent situation, the mother, father, and anyone else invited to the sacred event will have little memory that the midwife was even there.
What a wonderful goal: to do one's job so well and put one's ego aside so thoroughly that no one even knows you were on the scene.
"Good," Jenn said upon hearing this philosophy. "That's exactly what I want."
I find Jenn unspeakably brave.
**Author's note: Things have pretty much gone to pot since they expunged "obey" from most wedding vows. I'm just saying.
***Speaking of Jenn's jewelry, here's a link to her Etsy website: http://www.etsy.com/people/blessingbeads
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wallow-ing in Fire
Jenn is at home working on jewelry and enjoying newly scoured air thanks to the air purifier we bought yesterday. As I write this, eastern Arizona is ablaze. The Wallow Fire is sending plumes of smoke, ash, and particulate matter as far east as Iowa--1310 miles away. The fire itself has consumed roughly 670+ square miles. In comparison, Rhode Island is 1044 square miles. Due to high winds and drought conditions, the fire is only 5% contained. I'm not sure what this five percent figure means, but it's clear we are in the midst of an environmental disaster.
A week ago I drove home from work through a dense fog of smoke drifting in from the west. I quite literally could not see the Sandia Mountains--the 28 mile range lining the eastern part of the city; nor could I see the vast west mesa on the opposite side of town. The entire outdoors was permeated with the familiar (and usually pleasant) odor of campfire while 3000 plus firefighters worked around the clock to get a handle on this thing.
Jenn and I attended a birthday party for a friend last night. One of the attendee's told us her ex-husband used to be on a local fire fighting brigade. He told her that when it came to forest fires, Mother Nature contributed as much to putting out fires as anything, and that human intervention really had very little to do with it. This is bleak news for the southwest, and Albuquerque in particular, where but a few wisps of clouds have been spotted in the sky over the last two weeks, and the setting sun has taken on the shape and color of a bisected blood orange.
It is times like these that the male imperative dictates that we do, well, something. Anything. I feel a powerful need to act, and if my wife wasn't on the verge of having our child, I very well might head west to see how I could contribute. As it stands, all I can do is pray.
I'm feeling a bit freaked out. The New Mexican spring winds, which generally last a month-and-a-half have now been swirling around unabated for nearly three months. A spokesman for the firefighters admitted yesterday that they have only achieved what little progress they have due to the winds dying down for the last two days. As I write, from my vantage point at my regular Starbucks table, I look out the picture window to see sprigs of tall grass bowing under the force of the easterly wind. Not good.
And those poor forest animals.
(Two days later) The fire is now approximately 190 miles east Albuquerque.
"It's not like we weren't feeling challenged enough," I whined to Jenn this morning, "what with a baby on the way, making arrangements for a home birth, and trying to create a viable living. No, Spirit had to set us square in the path of the worst forest fire in the history of the Southwest."
Jenn laughed, as well she should. It's bullshit, of course. We moved to New Mexico because we felt guided to do so, and relocation was absolutely, 100% our choice. Sometimes the soul makes decisions that the mind doesn't understand. It is not inconceivable that Jenn and I chose this abysmal-yet-perfect time to move to Albuquerque because, on a spiritual level, we needed to experience being on the edge of a massive forest fire.
I am reminded of a famous East Indian master who, after a bomb went off near his compound, injuring several people, said, "Why not here too?" I took this to mean that, Hey, bombs are being set off all across the planet, why should this little slice of India be the exception.
Could the same be said for earthquakes, forest fires, Republicanism, and other natural disasters?
(June 16th) Intellectually, I see the wisdom of radical acceptance. Emotionally, however, I'm feeling pissed and scared. Pissed because a couple of nimrods decided it would be a good idea to leave a
campfire unattended in the middle of an incredibly windy season in the water-starved Arizona forest; scared for the health of my family, for the trees and the critters, for the planet and ozone layer. Having said all that, I hold these beliefs as true and self-evident:
--That there is such a thing as karma, and that karma, rather than a form of punishment, is the ripening of positive and negative spiritual seeds we have sewn in this, and previous lives.
--That reincarnation is a fact, and each life offers us the opportunity to heal whatever needs to be healed from our previous incarnations.
--That aside from psychedelic past life insights during ayahuasca ceremonies, I have no memory of any of my past lives and am okay with this. As far as I'm concerned, I could remember a thousand previous lifetimes, but my work this life around would still be my work this life around.
--That--apropos of nothing--if the upcoming NFL season isn't canceled, the Packers stand a better-than-average chance of repeating as Super Bowl champs.
--That any fear or anger I generate in my mind only harms myself, yet I continue to generate it.
This last point brings me back to (cough, cough) the approaching forest fire. Lets see if this link works from June 16th:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/fire-now-largest-in-Arizona-history_2011-06-15
http://nmfireinfo.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/wallow-fire-update-6102011-1030-am/
Reportedly, the Wallow Fire is now 29% contained after burning over 700 square miles, but high winds are predicted for the next 3-4 days. The skies are once again hazy, and I wore a surgical mask on my drive to the cafe this afternoon. I don't know if the masks help or not, but they've become a kind of forest fire security blanket that allows me to feel as if I actually am doing something to protect my lungs.
The same friend who's ex- was a fire fighter, handed out bumper stickers to all takers at another recent gathering. It says this: "Visualize Rain."
Thus, to all my devoted readers out there--a small-but-mighty force that, by all estimates, number in the tens of ones--and especially to our soggy friends in the Northwest who are heading into their eighth straight month of clouds and rain, here is my message-in-a-bottle: Please take a moment to offer up a prayer for the entire Southwest. Visualize Rain.
A week ago I drove home from work through a dense fog of smoke drifting in from the west. I quite literally could not see the Sandia Mountains--the 28 mile range lining the eastern part of the city; nor could I see the vast west mesa on the opposite side of town. The entire outdoors was permeated with the familiar (and usually pleasant) odor of campfire while 3000 plus firefighters worked around the clock to get a handle on this thing.
Jenn and I attended a birthday party for a friend last night. One of the attendee's told us her ex-husband used to be on a local fire fighting brigade. He told her that when it came to forest fires, Mother Nature contributed as much to putting out fires as anything, and that human intervention really had very little to do with it. This is bleak news for the southwest, and Albuquerque in particular, where but a few wisps of clouds have been spotted in the sky over the last two weeks, and the setting sun has taken on the shape and color of a bisected blood orange.
It is times like these that the male imperative dictates that we do, well, something. Anything. I feel a powerful need to act, and if my wife wasn't on the verge of having our child, I very well might head west to see how I could contribute. As it stands, all I can do is pray.
I'm feeling a bit freaked out. The New Mexican spring winds, which generally last a month-and-a-half have now been swirling around unabated for nearly three months. A spokesman for the firefighters admitted yesterday that they have only achieved what little progress they have due to the winds dying down for the last two days. As I write, from my vantage point at my regular Starbucks table, I look out the picture window to see sprigs of tall grass bowing under the force of the easterly wind. Not good.
And those poor forest animals.
(Two days later) The fire is now approximately 190 miles east Albuquerque.
"It's not like we weren't feeling challenged enough," I whined to Jenn this morning, "what with a baby on the way, making arrangements for a home birth, and trying to create a viable living. No, Spirit had to set us square in the path of the worst forest fire in the history of the Southwest."
Jenn laughed, as well she should. It's bullshit, of course. We moved to New Mexico because we felt guided to do so, and relocation was absolutely, 100% our choice. Sometimes the soul makes decisions that the mind doesn't understand. It is not inconceivable that Jenn and I chose this abysmal-yet-perfect time to move to Albuquerque because, on a spiritual level, we needed to experience being on the edge of a massive forest fire.
I am reminded of a famous East Indian master who, after a bomb went off near his compound, injuring several people, said, "Why not here too?" I took this to mean that, Hey, bombs are being set off all across the planet, why should this little slice of India be the exception.
Could the same be said for earthquakes, forest fires, Republicanism, and other natural disasters?
(June 16th) Intellectually, I see the wisdom of radical acceptance. Emotionally, however, I'm feeling pissed and scared. Pissed because a couple of nimrods decided it would be a good idea to leave a
campfire unattended in the middle of an incredibly windy season in the water-starved Arizona forest; scared for the health of my family, for the trees and the critters, for the planet and ozone layer. Having said all that, I hold these beliefs as true and self-evident:
--That there is such a thing as karma, and that karma, rather than a form of punishment, is the ripening of positive and negative spiritual seeds we have sewn in this, and previous lives.
--That reincarnation is a fact, and each life offers us the opportunity to heal whatever needs to be healed from our previous incarnations.
--That aside from psychedelic past life insights during ayahuasca ceremonies, I have no memory of any of my past lives and am okay with this. As far as I'm concerned, I could remember a thousand previous lifetimes, but my work this life around would still be my work this life around.
--That--apropos of nothing--if the upcoming NFL season isn't canceled, the Packers stand a better-than-average chance of repeating as Super Bowl champs.
--That any fear or anger I generate in my mind only harms myself, yet I continue to generate it.
This last point brings me back to (cough, cough) the approaching forest fire. Lets see if this link works from June 16th:
http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/fire-now-largest-in-Arizona-history_2011-06-15
http://nmfireinfo.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/wallow-fire-update-6102011-1030-am/
Reportedly, the Wallow Fire is now 29% contained after burning over 700 square miles, but high winds are predicted for the next 3-4 days. The skies are once again hazy, and I wore a surgical mask on my drive to the cafe this afternoon. I don't know if the masks help or not, but they've become a kind of forest fire security blanket that allows me to feel as if I actually am doing something to protect my lungs.
The same friend who's ex- was a fire fighter, handed out bumper stickers to all takers at another recent gathering. It says this: "Visualize Rain."
Thus, to all my devoted readers out there--a small-but-mighty force that, by all estimates, number in the tens of ones--and especially to our soggy friends in the Northwest who are heading into their eighth straight month of clouds and rain, here is my message-in-a-bottle: Please take a moment to offer up a prayer for the entire Southwest. Visualize Rain.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
On Reassurance
When I arrived home two Fridays ago, Jenn was nowhere to be found.
"Hello?" No answer.
I worked my way through the house toward our bedroom to check out back where Jenn could sometimes be found gardening. She was lying on a thin, maroon blanket on a berm of sandy soil in our backyard, crying. She lifted her head to look at me, her face puffy and red.
Lets back it up a bit: When we spoke on the phone that afternoon, I was in the midst of a busy work day. In-and-of-itself, this was already a bit of a miracle, since my schedule was (and is for the time being) extremely part-time. Until my caseload builds up, I have been spending my days seeing a handful of clients, studying DBT therapy, completing paperwork, writing, and looking for more contract work. I was in the middle of one of these activities when Jenn called. I could hear in her voice that she needed something, perhaps just to talk or some sort of reassurance.
"Hi, what's up?" I said.
Brief pause. "Nothing."
"Are you sure? It sounds like somethings up."
"No, I'm doing ... okay," she said. "What are you doing?"
"Well actually, I'm in the middle of a bunch of paperwork and some reading, so I don't have a lot of time. What have you been up to today?"
One thousand one, One thousand two. "Working on some jewelry."
Under normal circumstances, Jenn can be a bit of a Chatty Cathy on the phone, so when she resorts to one or two sentence answers, it often means she is either:
a) Tired
b) Online, or
c) Upset up about something
This day, there was a subtle difference in the quality of her voice, a nuance that, to the unpracticed ear, might have gone unnoticed, but to me, her partner, it stood out in stark relief to the lovely weather that day. I silently chose C and glanced at the clock.
"Are you going to take a nap?" I asked.
"I don't know," Jenn said with an implied rather than stated question mark.
"Wellllll," I said, impatient to get back to what i was doing, "I have to get going,"
Another brief pause. "Okay."
"Look, are you sure you don't want to talk?" I was wanting to be available, but still kinda hoped she'd say no.
Jenn paused for a moment. "No, I think I'll just hang out with it for a while."
"Okay, talk to you soon."
Click.
On my way home, I worked myself into a slow burn: Jesus Christ! She knew when we moved here that I was going to be gone a lot. What, does she expect us to live off. And what's going to happen once the baby arrives? I've been here for nearly two months and haven't brought in a dime. What, does she want me stay home with her AND somehow make enough money for us to live off of? Fuckity-fuck-fuck! We've already spent a third of our savings, and what's wrong with that fucking HR rep from my old agency anyway? I worked there for five-and-a-half years, they're advertising for clinicians and she still won't return my calls. I don't fucking have time for this shit. And another thing ...
From the above rant, the astute reader may surmise that by the time I arrived home, I was totally, and I mean totally in touch with my Higher Self. As many of my friends can vouch, I am nothing if not the picture of compassion and nurturance. So when I saw my pregnant wife lying on the ground in our backyard weeping, my instincts kicked in, and I acted. I went for a short, head-clearing bike ride, came back to the house, and laid down next to Jenn while she continued to cry.
"Would you hold me?" she asked.
"Absolutely." I draped one arm across her pregnant belly and with the other stroked her hair.
I'm not a nap taker, never have been. This may be a little odd for someone with chronic insomnia and sleep apnea, but there's something in my nature that has always resisted lying down when it's still light out. While Jenn wasn't asking me to join her in a nap, as I lay with her while she deeply felt her emotions, I started to get a little, um, antsy.
"Wow," I said looking up at the sky, "check out those clouds."
Jenn gave me a you've-got-to-be-kidding sideways glance.
"Bad idea?" I said.
"The worst," she replied, not looking up.
I readjusted my cuddle and focused my energies. A few more minutes passed.
"Would it help if I patted you on the back and said, There, there?" I asked. Running joke, bad timing. Jenn, once again demonstrating her good sense and declined to respond.
Mel Brooks defined humor this way: Tragedy is when I cut my finger; comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
I'm not sure what it is about human suffering that makes me want to crack jokes. Or maybe I do. Freud theorized that humor was actually the unconscious negation of death. In the face of suffering, there is nothing quite so uplifting as a verbal (or literal) pie in the face. However, it is also a way of modulating my own feelings, as well as, in my own way, trying top help the person gain a little perspective. I have been working on reigning in untimely jokes a little, but it's a slow go. I guess this time, I simply wasn't in the mood to show some restraint.
I hugged Jenn a little closer and we lay there a while as she sniffled. Seven minutes passed.
"Do you want to talk?" I said at last.
It poured out of her as if it were the one question she had been longing to be asked: "I've been feeling so raw today, and scared. I feel like I'm counting on you to help me feel safe and secure, but then when you're in your shit it's hard for me not to get drawn into mine, and I know it's my job, but when you're in your stuff around money, I don't know what to do, and then I remind myself to relax, that's there is nothing for me to do, but I feel so helpless because there's nothing for me to do, and I'm here away from my family and friends and don't have any support, which reminds me what Elizabeth said when we were up at their house -- that making a baby is enough -- but it doesn't feel like enough and ... "
There's a great young comic named Mike Birbiglia. During his concert (free on Netflix) he relays funny episodes from his life without the angry "me-against-the-audience" vibe that so many comics exude. During one of his bits, he described how, when he was moving a mattress into his new apartment building, an attractive woman entered at the same time and held the door open for him. The woman said half-joking that she was letting him because "no rapist would have a bed like that."
"What I should have said," he tells the audience, "was nothing. What I did say was, 'You'd be surprised.'"
As the sun started to sink on the horizon, I had much the same feeling--I ought to say nothing, be supportive, offer a hug, but the vibe I worked up on the drive home was still rattling around inside of me. On top of that, I felt it was necessary to say what I was about to say for the pure pragmatic reason that it was true.
Here's what I said: "We talked about this when we decided to move here. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you agreed--"
"I know." she said, interrupting with a tone that said, "Don't lecture me."
Undaunted, I continued. "I'm not even working full-time yet, so I'm only going to get busier. It's the trade-off we made so you can stay at home and be a stay-at-home mom for at least six months, if not more."
Jenn listened, but was wearing an expression that said this was pretty much the last thing she felt like hearing in that moment.
I knew my timing was off, but kept going. "I asked you a couple of times what was going on, and you more or less said nothing. I knew this wasn't true, but I don't want to go fishing anymore. If you tell me nothing's going on or that you don't need to talk, I'm going to take it on face value. It feels like you not taking care of yourself. Meanwhile, I'm working my ass off trying to find work while our bank account is melting away like a fucking ice cap, and we've already spent more than a third of our savings ... "
Jenn has the special talent of non-defensiveness. Somehow, through my tirade, she was able to hear what I was trying to communicate without re-bursting into tears or soaking me down with the garden hose.
I mistook Jenn's reasonableness for agreement, we forced a few jokes, hugged, and headed inside toward the kitchen.
"Are you hungry," I asked hopefully.
She turned toward me and looked me in the eye. "You suck at reassurance." she said.
I didn't deny it. I knew she was right, but I also had a reaction to the observation and was just about to verbalize it when Jenn beat me to the punch.
"I know it's not your job to reassure me, that I need to be able to do it myself ... "
I nodded my head.
" ... but you still suck at it. All I wanted was for you to hold me for a while."
"I did," I said by way of clever retort. "I laid down with you for a while."
"Yeah," she said, "but you always do it with some sort of time frame." She mimed me looking at my watch. "It's like, 'Okay, I've held her for ten minutes, time to check out the scores on ESPN.' "
"Hey, be fair. The NBA playoffs are in full swing right now." The joke was met with pure steel.
"Look," I said, "if you're not telling me what you need, then I get impatient. At least give me a hint so I'm not left to guess."
"Yeah, but that's just it. Sometimes I don't know what I need or how to put it into words. I just want you to hold me."
Oh.
Externally I said nothing. Internally, I made a mental note: Must hold wife without knowing what's going on.
Fast forward to yesterday. Jenn and I woke-up early, took our friends to the airport, had a nice breakfast, and went to our first birthing class, called, "Ecstatic Birthing." We followed this by heading home, having some lunch, and discussed our reaction to the class. Jenn turned, grabbed me by my shoulders, and told me her love and gratitude for being in relationship with me was growing daily, and that she was happy and proud to be my partner.
Lovely : )
Shortly thereafter, we retired to the boudoir for a "nap," and after a time--miracle of miracles--I actually did fall asleep for a bit. When I woke-up, I had this thought: What a great day. I looked over at Jenn and told her I wanted to leave in a few minutes to go write--to work on this very blog entry, as a matter of fact. I'm not sure what was going on for her, but she started to cry. Jenn seemed to be in the middle of having more of those (insert eye roll) pesky feelings again.
This time, I was ready. She had told me what she needed in these moments. I'd like to say that this time I didn't ask what was going on or hesitate to act; I merely wrapped my wife in my arms and gently stroked her hair. However, that wasn't how it played out.
"What just happened?" I asked, feeling irritated. "I thought we were having a good time."
Jenn and I hung out for a bit, but I lacked the patience to sit in mid-day silence and the clarity to understand what was going on for her. With some hesitation, I left to go do my own thing.
I am a professional Re-Assurer by trade--a psychotherapist--and I do it well, but in my own personal life, I am discovering, that, well, lets just say it's a work in progress.
"Hello?" No answer.
I worked my way through the house toward our bedroom to check out back where Jenn could sometimes be found gardening. She was lying on a thin, maroon blanket on a berm of sandy soil in our backyard, crying. She lifted her head to look at me, her face puffy and red.
Lets back it up a bit: When we spoke on the phone that afternoon, I was in the midst of a busy work day. In-and-of-itself, this was already a bit of a miracle, since my schedule was (and is for the time being) extremely part-time. Until my caseload builds up, I have been spending my days seeing a handful of clients, studying DBT therapy, completing paperwork, writing, and looking for more contract work. I was in the middle of one of these activities when Jenn called. I could hear in her voice that she needed something, perhaps just to talk or some sort of reassurance.
"Hi, what's up?" I said.
Brief pause. "Nothing."
"Are you sure? It sounds like somethings up."
"No, I'm doing ... okay," she said. "What are you doing?"
"Well actually, I'm in the middle of a bunch of paperwork and some reading, so I don't have a lot of time. What have you been up to today?"
One thousand one, One thousand two. "Working on some jewelry."
Under normal circumstances, Jenn can be a bit of a Chatty Cathy on the phone, so when she resorts to one or two sentence answers, it often means she is either:
a) Tired
b) Online, or
c) Upset up about something
This day, there was a subtle difference in the quality of her voice, a nuance that, to the unpracticed ear, might have gone unnoticed, but to me, her partner, it stood out in stark relief to the lovely weather that day. I silently chose C and glanced at the clock.
"Are you going to take a nap?" I asked.
"I don't know," Jenn said with an implied rather than stated question mark.
"Wellllll," I said, impatient to get back to what i was doing, "I have to get going,"
Another brief pause. "Okay."
"Look, are you sure you don't want to talk?" I was wanting to be available, but still kinda hoped she'd say no.
Jenn paused for a moment. "No, I think I'll just hang out with it for a while."
"Okay, talk to you soon."
Click.
On my way home, I worked myself into a slow burn: Jesus Christ! She knew when we moved here that I was going to be gone a lot. What, does she expect us to live off. And what's going to happen once the baby arrives? I've been here for nearly two months and haven't brought in a dime. What, does she want me stay home with her AND somehow make enough money for us to live off of? Fuckity-fuck-fuck! We've already spent a third of our savings, and what's wrong with that fucking HR rep from my old agency anyway? I worked there for five-and-a-half years, they're advertising for clinicians and she still won't return my calls. I don't fucking have time for this shit. And another thing ...
From the above rant, the astute reader may surmise that by the time I arrived home, I was totally, and I mean totally in touch with my Higher Self. As many of my friends can vouch, I am nothing if not the picture of compassion and nurturance. So when I saw my pregnant wife lying on the ground in our backyard weeping, my instincts kicked in, and I acted. I went for a short, head-clearing bike ride, came back to the house, and laid down next to Jenn while she continued to cry.
"Would you hold me?" she asked.
"Absolutely." I draped one arm across her pregnant belly and with the other stroked her hair.
I'm not a nap taker, never have been. This may be a little odd for someone with chronic insomnia and sleep apnea, but there's something in my nature that has always resisted lying down when it's still light out. While Jenn wasn't asking me to join her in a nap, as I lay with her while she deeply felt her emotions, I started to get a little, um, antsy.
"Wow," I said looking up at the sky, "check out those clouds."
Jenn gave me a you've-got-to-be-kidding sideways glance.
"Bad idea?" I said.
"The worst," she replied, not looking up.
I readjusted my cuddle and focused my energies. A few more minutes passed.
"Would it help if I patted you on the back and said, There, there?" I asked. Running joke, bad timing. Jenn, once again demonstrating her good sense and declined to respond.
Mel Brooks defined humor this way: Tragedy is when I cut my finger; comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
I'm not sure what it is about human suffering that makes me want to crack jokes. Or maybe I do. Freud theorized that humor was actually the unconscious negation of death. In the face of suffering, there is nothing quite so uplifting as a verbal (or literal) pie in the face. However, it is also a way of modulating my own feelings, as well as, in my own way, trying top help the person gain a little perspective. I have been working on reigning in untimely jokes a little, but it's a slow go. I guess this time, I simply wasn't in the mood to show some restraint.
I hugged Jenn a little closer and we lay there a while as she sniffled. Seven minutes passed.
"Do you want to talk?" I said at last.
It poured out of her as if it were the one question she had been longing to be asked: "I've been feeling so raw today, and scared. I feel like I'm counting on you to help me feel safe and secure, but then when you're in your shit it's hard for me not to get drawn into mine, and I know it's my job, but when you're in your stuff around money, I don't know what to do, and then I remind myself to relax, that's there is nothing for me to do, but I feel so helpless because there's nothing for me to do, and I'm here away from my family and friends and don't have any support, which reminds me what Elizabeth said when we were up at their house -- that making a baby is enough -- but it doesn't feel like enough and ... "
There's a great young comic named Mike Birbiglia. During his concert (free on Netflix) he relays funny episodes from his life without the angry "me-against-the-audience" vibe that so many comics exude. During one of his bits, he described how, when he was moving a mattress into his new apartment building, an attractive woman entered at the same time and held the door open for him. The woman said half-joking that she was letting him because "no rapist would have a bed like that."
"What I should have said," he tells the audience, "was nothing. What I did say was, 'You'd be surprised.'"
As the sun started to sink on the horizon, I had much the same feeling--I ought to say nothing, be supportive, offer a hug, but the vibe I worked up on the drive home was still rattling around inside of me. On top of that, I felt it was necessary to say what I was about to say for the pure pragmatic reason that it was true.
Here's what I said: "We talked about this when we decided to move here. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you agreed--"
"I know." she said, interrupting with a tone that said, "Don't lecture me."
Undaunted, I continued. "I'm not even working full-time yet, so I'm only going to get busier. It's the trade-off we made so you can stay at home and be a stay-at-home mom for at least six months, if not more."
Jenn listened, but was wearing an expression that said this was pretty much the last thing she felt like hearing in that moment.
I knew my timing was off, but kept going. "I asked you a couple of times what was going on, and you more or less said nothing. I knew this wasn't true, but I don't want to go fishing anymore. If you tell me nothing's going on or that you don't need to talk, I'm going to take it on face value. It feels like you not taking care of yourself. Meanwhile, I'm working my ass off trying to find work while our bank account is melting away like a fucking ice cap, and we've already spent more than a third of our savings ... "
Jenn has the special talent of non-defensiveness. Somehow, through my tirade, she was able to hear what I was trying to communicate without re-bursting into tears or soaking me down with the garden hose.
I mistook Jenn's reasonableness for agreement, we forced a few jokes, hugged, and headed inside toward the kitchen.
"Are you hungry," I asked hopefully.
She turned toward me and looked me in the eye. "You suck at reassurance." she said.
I didn't deny it. I knew she was right, but I also had a reaction to the observation and was just about to verbalize it when Jenn beat me to the punch.
"I know it's not your job to reassure me, that I need to be able to do it myself ... "
I nodded my head.
" ... but you still suck at it. All I wanted was for you to hold me for a while."
"I did," I said by way of clever retort. "I laid down with you for a while."
"Yeah," she said, "but you always do it with some sort of time frame." She mimed me looking at my watch. "It's like, 'Okay, I've held her for ten minutes, time to check out the scores on ESPN.' "
"Hey, be fair. The NBA playoffs are in full swing right now." The joke was met with pure steel.
"Look," I said, "if you're not telling me what you need, then I get impatient. At least give me a hint so I'm not left to guess."
"Yeah, but that's just it. Sometimes I don't know what I need or how to put it into words. I just want you to hold me."
Oh.
Externally I said nothing. Internally, I made a mental note: Must hold wife without knowing what's going on.
Fast forward to yesterday. Jenn and I woke-up early, took our friends to the airport, had a nice breakfast, and went to our first birthing class, called, "Ecstatic Birthing." We followed this by heading home, having some lunch, and discussed our reaction to the class. Jenn turned, grabbed me by my shoulders, and told me her love and gratitude for being in relationship with me was growing daily, and that she was happy and proud to be my partner.
Lovely : )
Shortly thereafter, we retired to the boudoir for a "nap," and after a time--miracle of miracles--I actually did fall asleep for a bit. When I woke-up, I had this thought: What a great day. I looked over at Jenn and told her I wanted to leave in a few minutes to go write--to work on this very blog entry, as a matter of fact. I'm not sure what was going on for her, but she started to cry. Jenn seemed to be in the middle of having more of those (insert eye roll) pesky feelings again.
This time, I was ready. She had told me what she needed in these moments. I'd like to say that this time I didn't ask what was going on or hesitate to act; I merely wrapped my wife in my arms and gently stroked her hair. However, that wasn't how it played out.
"What just happened?" I asked, feeling irritated. "I thought we were having a good time."
Jenn and I hung out for a bit, but I lacked the patience to sit in mid-day silence and the clarity to understand what was going on for her. With some hesitation, I left to go do my own thing.
I am a professional Re-Assurer by trade--a psychotherapist--and I do it well, but in my own personal life, I am discovering, that, well, lets just say it's a work in progress.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)