Zinnia likes to dance. This morning we bounced around the house to the amazing and contagious rhythms of Outkast's Hey Ya. We did this in celebration of yet another epic poo ... by her, not your humble author (although I'd like to think I would be equally celebratory if I had been the one to "cut one off"). Zinnia's pooping posture is unmistakable: she curves her mouth into a half smile, clenches her fists, and makes inhuman grunts while her eyes water. It's actually quite cute, and I like to support her by grunting along with her.
In the evening, when I return home from work, I often scoop Zinnia up, put on some danceable tune, and start bopping around the living room while Jenn takes a moment to eat some food, fire off an email or two, and check her Facebook page. If one didn't know better, one would almost think Jenn wanted some sort of life aside from taking care of our daughter.
(Two Days later) True to the above, I am happy to report a fairly epic poo of my own this very A.M. Yes, I know, this crosses into the realm of TMI, but by God, if a man can't stand behind his word, then is he really a man?
Zinnia's first love music-wise was a subliminal CD we had looping for eight hours straight the night she was born. It was the sound of rain with a sleep message underneath. The track was my idea for several reasons. A) Jenn is from Oregon and loves the rain; B) Zinnia's middle name is Rain; and C) We didn't--as planned--get it together in time to make a CD of Songs to Give Birth By. We did, however, go over my music library, and Jenn picked out a number of her favorites, but when it comes down to it does one really want to listen to Richard Thompson's 1952 Vincent Black Lightening or KC and the Sunshine Band's "Shake, Shake, Shake" when one is pushing a human being out of one's vagina?
During Jenn's labor, in her altered state, the rain track started to take on the sound of sizzling bacon. I asked her several times in between contractions if she wanted me to turn off, but she said she didn't care, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to say for someone who is in the process of having her body turned inside-out.*
Now that Zinnia is ten plus weeks old, her musical palate has become more discerning. We have played and danced to the fabulous Bobby McFerrin's "Medicine Man," (sometimes several times a day) and Zinnia has added Rafi to her repertoire, as well as Jimmy Free, a CD Jenn's mother gifted us. Free is a violin improvisational virtuoso who plays regularly in the Portland Airport. I heard him there once myself; he is a striking, with sharp features, tall with long hair, and even in the bustle of an airport he conveyed his passion through his music. We have paced Zinnia to sleep with Free's moody stylings for the past month.
Without success, I have tried to get her to relax to my favorite sports podcast--The BS Report-- but this only served like a shot of espresso to our little urchin's system. Ditto for any movie we pop in. Zinnia, in all her amazingness, knows immediately when Jenn or my attention is wavering to other, less baby-related pursuits. When either of our focus drops below 93%, she starts to squirm and fidget, and doggedly refuses to go to sleep. She is a living, breathing meditation practice.
I have a friend who has a decorative garden rock that has two words etched into its surface: Grow, Dammit This is what it is like to pace with Zinnia at the end of an exhausting day. If she starts to squirm or for that matter, even if she emits adorable cooing noises, I sometimes look down at her cherubic face and feel all the goodwill draining from my body. At these times I pray for her to sleep, dammit, and ask myself if it would really be so wrong to dose her bottle with half a tab of crushed Xanax. With each step, I feel my agenda for the evening melt away--eat a slow-paced dinner, paperwork, interacting with Jenn, watch a movie. By the time Zinnia crashes, I have just enough energy to look at the sports scores, read a little classic literature (i.e. Calvin and Hobbes), bid Jenn good night over my shoulder, and crash to sleep.
Zinnia's development--like every baby's--appears to be a moving target. Just when we start to get into some sort of routine, she mixes it up. Today, she rolled from her back to her tummy--a first! Sure she was aided by the divot in our pillow-top mattress, but let us not mince hairs. What this means is tomorrow she may do it again, and if not then, then certainly in the near future. And pretty soon it will be daily event, then numerous times a day. And when certain synapses in her brain connect, Zinnia will figure out that she can combine flipping onto her belly with the constant churning pistons of her legs, and--wham!--there she'll be, scooting across the floor like a turtle. She may face plant once or twice until she learns to brace herself with her pudgy arms, but before long the gestalt of Zinnia's movement will coalesce--right arm, left knee/left arm, right knee--and she will be scooting across the tiled floor, dust bunnies in her wake, as she pants and beams, drunk with new found freedom.
The felines of course, will have to learn to exist in the upper reaches of the canopy of our home (e.g. beds, counters, tables, and cat tree). The plug covers will be driven home, and all sharp edges will be filed down or safely insulated. I, of course, will sadly be required to store my collection of sterling silver Ninja shurikens--throwing death stars--which I generally leave strewn about the house in case of sudden attack.
Jenn and I will blink once, twice, and now Zinnia will be on her feet, precarious at first, with one of us holding onto her hands. She'll peer upward at us with pride--Look what I can do!--wobble, beam, wobble, beam, and plop down on her bottom. Repeat.
At this point, it is tempting to take the scenario of Zinnia's growth all the way to her adulthood when she herself has become a mother of two-slash-world-renown peace activist-slash piano virtuoso, but instead let us leap ahead to my deathbed.
There are two quotes I've longed most to say out loud before I shed this earthly coil. Neither is remotely profound except in that they both reflect my deep appreciation for a good running joke. The first was, "Gotta have more cowbell," which is a line from a classic SNL skit. To my complete amusement and delight, I was given the opportunity to say this last Summer at a time and place that was 100% apropos to the conversation at hand. Before the words had even crossed my lips, Jenn looked at me with a take-it-away half-smile. One notch off the ol' bucket list.
The second line I have not yet had the opportunity to utter (thank God), but anticipate it playing out thusly: Jenn, Zinnia, and my grand kids (Slate and Remmington) are standing vigil around my deathbed as I prepare to join Mama Gaya. I have been vibrant and active my entire life, which makes it all the more surprising that scaling the peak of Kilimanjaro with Jenn has put such a strain on my 93 year-old heart. We're at home, of course, and I am lying comfortably in bed. My breath is shallow, and I have not opened my eyes for two days. The doctor presses a stethoscope to my chest, looks up at Jenn and Zinnia and shakes his head. Suddenly, my eyes shoot open, and my spindly arm lashes out, grabbing the doctor by the wrist.
"Doc," I whisper.
"Yes," he says.
Doc, ..." I signal him to come closer.
He lowers his head toward my lips. "What is it, Tom?"
"Will I ... will I ever play the violin again?"**
End scene.
I am 14 years older than my wife. My running joke is that every time we see a June-September relation ship in the movies or TV, I curl my lips in disgust and tell her how much these cradle robbing bastards piss me off. The joke is a not-so-subtle nod to my own mortality.*** Whenever the topic of my potential demise comes up--which isn't often, mind you--Jenn says a little sadly, "I don't like to think about it." I know the feeling. If everything proceeds as nature intended, I will be shut of this life well before my wife, and God willing, well, well before Zinnia. Sewn in the soil of marriage and parenthood are the seeds of complete heartbreak.
It has been over a month since my last posting. Zinnie is smiling often now, and laughing too. Last night, the three of us were sitting in bed playing a game. Jenn would press her face into Zinnia's belly and make a growling sound, which would send Zinnia into a fit of giggles. Jenn repeated this a number of times, and each time Zinnia giggled until we were all laughing. Then Jenn realized that in-between Zinnia's bouts of laughter, she was actually imitating a growl. When Jenn would growl, Zinnia growled back in the cutest baby voice I have ever heard. We laughed until we cried.
*Years ago, Carol Burnett described the male equivalent of what it would be like to give birth. "Grab your lips," she instructed men, "and now pull them over your head."
** Jenn has promised me that if I am incapacitated, she will ask the violin question in my stead. "If you're comatose," she said with a bit of an eye roll, "the corner of your mouth will probably twitch upward into a smile." I can only hope.
*** Freud theorized that all humor was simply a negation of death. I believe I offered this Mel Brooks quote earlier in an previous blog entry, but it bears repeating: "Tragedy is when I get a splinter in my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Change
Zinnia has a new trick. I go "buda-buda-buda-buda" with my tongue in a high pitched voice, and she bursts into a smile as if it were the most amusing thing she has every seen and, frankly, ever hoped to see. I can hang my hat on that smile, and I am finding fatherhood more engaging by the day.
Yesterday, Jenn bought Zinnia a new toy to amuse our daughter while she sits in her bouncy chair on the kitchen counter. The sounds it produces were taken from the original Spike Jones albums--a sliding whistle, the sound the Flinstone's feet make before they take off in their Stone Age car, and a saccharine-high voice saying "Wow," "Whoopee," and worst of all, "All Right!" The first time I heard it I felt as if I had entered one of the rings of hell.
Silence is one of the first casualties of parenthood.
Two weeks ago, Jenn and Zinnia attended a small birthday gathering for our young friend, Sofia. It was on Wednesday night, and I had planned on attending, but after seeing my sixth client of the day, I decided I wasn't in the mood and instead went home. The place was blessedly empty--no infant child, no wife, no cats. Pure silence. It was delicious, an ice cream sundae of silence, a square of dark chocolate nothingness, a full body massage of quietude, as if someone had hit the mute button on the entire planet. It was the second time I had been in the house alone since Zinnia was born.
My soul craves solitude, which makes it strange, then, that for my chosen profession, I have chosen a field that requires me to interact all day to a wide array of avatars--sacred beings and children of God masquerading as the walking wounded. I occasionally fantasize of being a librarian--a very well paid librarian, to be sure. It would be a job that would require me to talk to exactly no one all day while I lovingly shelve classic, hardbound literature to their rightful place. Or not.
Jane Austen, you saucy wench. What are you doing way over here in the M's? Out galavanting with Henry Miller I see.
And yet there are moments in the counseling room--quite a number, actually--that are so unspeakably poignant, it melts my heart. Often, people come in wanting desperately to "un-guard" lower their walls, yet find themselves in the midst of a battle between me, myself, and that heartless bastard/bitch, I.
In the last section of A Course In Miracles, there is a chapter for psychotherapists. Not as strange as it sounds. The women who channeled The Course was a PhD psychologist and an atheist. One day, she started receiving the text as if it were being dictated to her directly from God. Naturally she thought she was going nuts, but at last she surrendered to the process and with the help of a friend/co-worker, she started to write it all down. She would go to sleep, wake-up the next morning, and the voice would pick up exactly where it left off.
Anyway, in the section for psychotherapists, The Course pointed out that many people come to therapy not so much because they want to feel better, but because they/we want to feel more comfortable in our suffering. From my observation, there is more than a grain of truth to this. To actualize and move toward the greatness of who/what we are, we must need, with eyes wide open, risk the old, obsolete, smaller version of ourselves and plunge headfirst into the unknown. We humbly and with great intention walk into the ego-crushing, trash compacter of compassion.
Sometimes I play it small to keep expectations low or because fully manifesting means more responsibility, more a leadership role, and more--gasp!--people in my life. Me, the librarian wannabe.
(It's Alive!!! Zinnia just woke-up from her nap in the bedroom.)
I gave notice at my job this week. It was a mutual decision, and though the woman who owns the agency was willing to give it another go (with a number of changes), when I suggested that what we really needed to do was come up with an exit strategy, she looked more than a little relieved.
Later that day, of course, the shrill voice of my ego offered up a variety of valuable questions. Questions like, "Are you crazy?" and "How do you hope to make a living in this economy?" and "Good, God, man, you have a wife and baby to support!" (Which technically isn't a question, but close enough.)
Earlier in the week, I was on the phone with my mother and decided to send up a test balloon of honest sharing and let her know about the upcoming meeting at work. I shared this not from any illusion of receiving emotional support, but more with the somewhat deluded goal to that we could communicate in a way that would involve slightly more depth and gravity. It's purely self-serving. If I don't take these occasional chances, I start to feel a bit bored, and our phone calls take on a more obligatory, son-to-aging-mother tone.
So I shared, and what is so amazing is that after all these years my mother's radar is still soooo sensitive to the merest hint of a challenge swirling about in the lives of her progeny. Thus, when Jenn gave her a call yesterday to wish her a happy birthday, my mother naturally asked how my work meeting went.
"You'll have to talk to Tom," Jenn said,
One Mississippi, Two Missi--
"He quit his job, didn't he?" My mother took a moment to ponder the best course of action. At last she spoke. "Now I'm going to have to worry all day."
When I got home from work that evening, Jenn relayed the exchange with a mirthful (not to say mocking) smile. She found it humorous that my mother would decide she could make herself of most use by using her walker to pace nervously about. It also reminded me a little of how, when I'm traveling, I use my superhuman power to keep whatever plane I'm in from crashing. "Never fear," I say to my fellow passengers as I rip off my glasses like Superman. "My anxiety will keep us from afloat."
(And apropos of nothing, was that a great disguise or what? Nobody in Clark Kent's world could figure out that beneath his nerd glasses, he was actually a superhero for whom it was imperative to keep his identity secret.)
I do feel trepidation about the job decision, but also excitement, hope, and gratitude. I love my clients and have felt challenged as a therapist for the first time in years. Earlier in the week, I was dead certain I had made the right choice, then I walked down the aisle of the local food co-op and asked a gray-haired employee whom I recognized from my previous life in Albuquerque how long he had been working there. His body sagged a little, and he said almost apologetically, "Nineteen years." I tried not to grimace. Then he added, "But I hope to retire in the next five years."
Yikes!
There was something about this interaction that had me not just thinking, but knowing--that I had made a terrible mistake. I had visions of Jenn, Zinnia, and myself moving back to Oregon, tail between respective legs, as we unloaded the U-Haul at her father's house. I would find a job working with severely emotionally disturbed (and violent) adolescent sex offenders.** Jenn would hawk her jewelry on Portland's rain-slicked street corners.
Fortunately, I have a spouse who when I'm (to use therapeutic parlance) in my shit, reminds me that I'm Tom Fucking Bender, someone who is the calming voice of reason when I too have decided that the best course of action is to fret. When I got home the night of my business meeting, Jenn not-so-gently reflected back to me why I had decided to leave my place of employ; how I had wanted to spend more time with her and Zinnia; that I wanted a job I could leave at the office at day's end; and how I had bitched umpteen times about things I was dissatisfied with.
(Days later)
It is 6:30 a.m. Zinnia is growing by the day. She is smiling more, crying less, has more neck control, and makes cute baby noises that we echo back with delight. I feel overwhelmed by the generosity and response of others--food, money, visitors, etc. Last night we received a baby swing from my sister, Linda (with a contribution from her friend), both of whom are in town from five days from New Jersey (Jersey, eh? What exit?). Jenn's mother is flying in tomorrow for one of her monthly visits and has offered to watch Zinnia while I take the much-deserving mama up the mountain for a (cover your eyes Jenn) birthday massage and tarot reading. (Okay, you can open them.)
I am happy to be spending my life with you, Jennifer. I'm not sure how a man could be more blessed than I since we've met, and I fully anticipate the blessings to continue to roll in.
I love you. Happy (almost) Birthday.
**I actually did apply for such a position years ago, but only because their ad was sufficiently vague to draw me in. It was the only time in my life I ever cut an interview short. "Let me save you some time," I said to the person entering the room for part two of the interview. "I'm not interested." The interviewer thanked me sincerely for being forthright and saving him the energy.
Yesterday, Jenn bought Zinnia a new toy to amuse our daughter while she sits in her bouncy chair on the kitchen counter. The sounds it produces were taken from the original Spike Jones albums--a sliding whistle, the sound the Flinstone's feet make before they take off in their Stone Age car, and a saccharine-high voice saying "Wow," "Whoopee," and worst of all, "All Right!" The first time I heard it I felt as if I had entered one of the rings of hell.
Silence is one of the first casualties of parenthood.
Two weeks ago, Jenn and Zinnia attended a small birthday gathering for our young friend, Sofia. It was on Wednesday night, and I had planned on attending, but after seeing my sixth client of the day, I decided I wasn't in the mood and instead went home. The place was blessedly empty--no infant child, no wife, no cats. Pure silence. It was delicious, an ice cream sundae of silence, a square of dark chocolate nothingness, a full body massage of quietude, as if someone had hit the mute button on the entire planet. It was the second time I had been in the house alone since Zinnia was born.
My soul craves solitude, which makes it strange, then, that for my chosen profession, I have chosen a field that requires me to interact all day to a wide array of avatars--sacred beings and children of God masquerading as the walking wounded. I occasionally fantasize of being a librarian--a very well paid librarian, to be sure. It would be a job that would require me to talk to exactly no one all day while I lovingly shelve classic, hardbound literature to their rightful place. Or not.
Jane Austen, you saucy wench. What are you doing way over here in the M's? Out galavanting with Henry Miller I see.
And yet there are moments in the counseling room--quite a number, actually--that are so unspeakably poignant, it melts my heart. Often, people come in wanting desperately to "un-guard" lower their walls, yet find themselves in the midst of a battle between me, myself, and that heartless bastard/bitch, I.
In the last section of A Course In Miracles, there is a chapter for psychotherapists. Not as strange as it sounds. The women who channeled The Course was a PhD psychologist and an atheist. One day, she started receiving the text as if it were being dictated to her directly from God. Naturally she thought she was going nuts, but at last she surrendered to the process and with the help of a friend/co-worker, she started to write it all down. She would go to sleep, wake-up the next morning, and the voice would pick up exactly where it left off.
Anyway, in the section for psychotherapists, The Course pointed out that many people come to therapy not so much because they want to feel better, but because they/we want to feel more comfortable in our suffering. From my observation, there is more than a grain of truth to this. To actualize and move toward the greatness of who/what we are, we must need, with eyes wide open, risk the old, obsolete, smaller version of ourselves and plunge headfirst into the unknown. We humbly and with great intention walk into the ego-crushing, trash compacter of compassion.
Sometimes I play it small to keep expectations low or because fully manifesting means more responsibility, more a leadership role, and more--gasp!--people in my life. Me, the librarian wannabe.
(It's Alive!!! Zinnia just woke-up from her nap in the bedroom.)
I gave notice at my job this week. It was a mutual decision, and though the woman who owns the agency was willing to give it another go (with a number of changes), when I suggested that what we really needed to do was come up with an exit strategy, she looked more than a little relieved.
Later that day, of course, the shrill voice of my ego offered up a variety of valuable questions. Questions like, "Are you crazy?" and "How do you hope to make a living in this economy?" and "Good, God, man, you have a wife and baby to support!" (Which technically isn't a question, but close enough.)
Earlier in the week, I was on the phone with my mother and decided to send up a test balloon of honest sharing and let her know about the upcoming meeting at work. I shared this not from any illusion of receiving emotional support, but more with the somewhat deluded goal to that we could communicate in a way that would involve slightly more depth and gravity. It's purely self-serving. If I don't take these occasional chances, I start to feel a bit bored, and our phone calls take on a more obligatory, son-to-aging-mother tone.
So I shared, and what is so amazing is that after all these years my mother's radar is still soooo sensitive to the merest hint of a challenge swirling about in the lives of her progeny. Thus, when Jenn gave her a call yesterday to wish her a happy birthday, my mother naturally asked how my work meeting went.
"You'll have to talk to Tom," Jenn said,
One Mississippi, Two Missi--
"He quit his job, didn't he?" My mother took a moment to ponder the best course of action. At last she spoke. "Now I'm going to have to worry all day."
When I got home from work that evening, Jenn relayed the exchange with a mirthful (not to say mocking) smile. She found it humorous that my mother would decide she could make herself of most use by using her walker to pace nervously about. It also reminded me a little of how, when I'm traveling, I use my superhuman power to keep whatever plane I'm in from crashing. "Never fear," I say to my fellow passengers as I rip off my glasses like Superman. "My anxiety will keep us from afloat."
(And apropos of nothing, was that a great disguise or what? Nobody in Clark Kent's world could figure out that beneath his nerd glasses, he was actually a superhero for whom it was imperative to keep his identity secret.)
I do feel trepidation about the job decision, but also excitement, hope, and gratitude. I love my clients and have felt challenged as a therapist for the first time in years. Earlier in the week, I was dead certain I had made the right choice, then I walked down the aisle of the local food co-op and asked a gray-haired employee whom I recognized from my previous life in Albuquerque how long he had been working there. His body sagged a little, and he said almost apologetically, "Nineteen years." I tried not to grimace. Then he added, "But I hope to retire in the next five years."
Yikes!
There was something about this interaction that had me not just thinking, but knowing--that I had made a terrible mistake. I had visions of Jenn, Zinnia, and myself moving back to Oregon, tail between respective legs, as we unloaded the U-Haul at her father's house. I would find a job working with severely emotionally disturbed (and violent) adolescent sex offenders.** Jenn would hawk her jewelry on Portland's rain-slicked street corners.
Fortunately, I have a spouse who when I'm (to use therapeutic parlance) in my shit, reminds me that I'm Tom Fucking Bender, someone who is the calming voice of reason when I too have decided that the best course of action is to fret. When I got home the night of my business meeting, Jenn not-so-gently reflected back to me why I had decided to leave my place of employ; how I had wanted to spend more time with her and Zinnia; that I wanted a job I could leave at the office at day's end; and how I had bitched umpteen times about things I was dissatisfied with.
(Days later)
It is 6:30 a.m. Zinnia is growing by the day. She is smiling more, crying less, has more neck control, and makes cute baby noises that we echo back with delight. I feel overwhelmed by the generosity and response of others--food, money, visitors, etc. Last night we received a baby swing from my sister, Linda (with a contribution from her friend), both of whom are in town from five days from New Jersey (Jersey, eh? What exit?). Jenn's mother is flying in tomorrow for one of her monthly visits and has offered to watch Zinnia while I take the much-deserving mama up the mountain for a (cover your eyes Jenn) birthday massage and tarot reading. (Okay, you can open them.)
I am happy to be spending my life with you, Jennifer. I'm not sure how a man could be more blessed than I since we've met, and I fully anticipate the blessings to continue to roll in.
I love you. Happy (almost) Birthday.
**I actually did apply for such a position years ago, but only because their ad was sufficiently vague to draw me in. It was the only time in my life I ever cut an interview short. "Let me save you some time," I said to the person entering the room for part two of the interview. "I'm not interested." The interviewer thanked me sincerely for being forthright and saving him the energy.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Eye Contact
Two weekends ago, I hit a wall. I came home from a round of paperwork at the place I like to call my office, but what other, less genteel folk refer to as Starbucks. Jenn and I immediately started preparing for an outing to Lowe's to look for a couple of stools, to be followed by a stop at Trader Joe's for various sundries.
As we drove out of Lowe's parking lot heading for Paseo Del Norte, I was engulfed by a brooding discontent. Zinnia had started to wail as soon as we left the store, and I suddenly felt her and Jenn weighing down on me like an emotional ballast. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to simply, blissfully, deliciously be alone; to once again having a quiet home without a baby crying or music playing or a wife who wanted me to spend time with both her and our new daughter.
My heart hardened as we progressed to the Trader Joe's, and I drove in a fuming silence that shocked and surprised me with the ferocity of its arrival.
Fuck, I thought, its even gotten to the point where I'm checking in before I go for a fucking bike ride.
I grew more sullen as we turned into the TJ's parking lot and had very little to say while we trolled the store looking for food items. As we wove our way up-and-down the store's trademark narrow aisles, we were forced to do what i refer to as the Trader Joe's Shuffle: stop, back-up, turn sideways, while the maddening crowd squeezes past with slightly embarrassed "excuse me's."
Any dust mites of goodwill I had left were wearing dying off, and worse, I still couldn't think of a thing to say to Jenn, who seemed caught off guard by my sudden withdrawal. We checked out, silently loaded Zinnia in the back seat, and made for home. At last, when we were a few miles down Paseo, I spoke: "I need to go for a bike ride when we get home." Not a question.
"Alright," Jenn said, not looking up from where she sat in backseat.
When we got home, I put all the groceries away as if performing some sort of penance for the dark cloud I had brought to our lives. I went to the rear bedroom to change into my riding duds while Jenn went to our bedroom to soothe a now-quiet Zinnia Rain. I joined them while I laced up my shoes, and we sat across from each other in silence.
Last weekend I was a volunteer assistant at a workshop called Relationship Boot Camp. The workshop was lead by a lovely couple and based on the work of Terrence Real, a man who has been doing couple's work for 30 years. In his book, "The New Rules of Marriage" (highly recommend), Real discusses five losing strategies that individuals can fall into:
1) A Need to Be Right
2) Controlling their partner
3) Unbridled self-expression
4) Retaliation
5) Withdrawing
As Jenn and I sat across from each other in our bedroom, I asked myself if what I what I was about to say was an example of number three, Unbridled Self Expression. I interpret this to mean being brutally honest no matter how much it hurts one's partner or, more to the point, because we know it will hurt one's partner. A person may use this strategy ostensibly in the name of, "Hey, I'm just sharing my truth." In reality, we are using our words like blunt instruments for maximum damage.
I decided this wasn't my intention and spoke: "There is very little," I said in measured tones, "that I am enjoying about being a parent right now."
Jenn's eyed welled. "I know." She looked hopeless and incredibly alone.
"Look, I know you're taking on the lion's share of childcare, and not that it's a competition, but even if I were putting in 60 hours a week at work, I would still consider your job the harder of the two. It's just that--and you said as much as the other day--for the time being there is very little I get to experience about parenting that is pleasurable right now. I know I'm being unfair as hell, but I come home after seeing six clients and doing a group, and then have maybe a half-hour to eat and be with Zinnia before she goes into her two hours of wailing. I'm exhausted, have a shitload of paperwork every night, and have exercised exactly once in the last eight days. I can't wait for Zinnia to get a little older so there's actually something there for me to relate to. I know I'll get there, but I'm not there yet and I can't fake it"
"I don't want you to," Jenn said. She holding Zinnia in her lap, but not really seeing her, more intent on not effecting our daughter with the intense sadness she was feeling.
As I mentioned in a previous entry, I have been told any number of times, Oh look, Zinnia is looking at her papa. More often then not, she was glancing at the ceiling fan or a light or her little hanging ducky bell. I wasn't hurt by this fact. I just wasn't terribly engaged.
I got up to leave, and walked over and stood by where Jenn was sitting. "I'm going go for my bike ride," I said. I paused next to her chair. Jenn was bracing Zinnia under her arms, and both her feet were resting on Jenn's belly, giving her the appearance of a listing, drunken sailor.
Then something happened.
I looked down at my daughter and all her excruciating cuteness.
She turned her head and looked back at me.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
I leaned in closer and looked at her.
She held my gaze.
We stared at each other for a good 45 seconds.
In Navajo culture, it is said that a person's soul has fully entered the body when the baby laughs for the first time. They even have a ceremony celebrating the occasion. For me, it was when Zinnia turned her wobbly head that day and made intentional eye contact. It was perhaps the first solid time I viscerally experienced her as a sentient and sacred being.
I thought about her face for the entire bike ride. I was in.
As we drove out of Lowe's parking lot heading for Paseo Del Norte, I was engulfed by a brooding discontent. Zinnia had started to wail as soon as we left the store, and I suddenly felt her and Jenn weighing down on me like an emotional ballast. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to simply, blissfully, deliciously be alone; to once again having a quiet home without a baby crying or music playing or a wife who wanted me to spend time with both her and our new daughter.
My heart hardened as we progressed to the Trader Joe's, and I drove in a fuming silence that shocked and surprised me with the ferocity of its arrival.
Fuck, I thought, its even gotten to the point where I'm checking in before I go for a fucking bike ride.
I grew more sullen as we turned into the TJ's parking lot and had very little to say while we trolled the store looking for food items. As we wove our way up-and-down the store's trademark narrow aisles, we were forced to do what i refer to as the Trader Joe's Shuffle: stop, back-up, turn sideways, while the maddening crowd squeezes past with slightly embarrassed "excuse me's."
Any dust mites of goodwill I had left were wearing dying off, and worse, I still couldn't think of a thing to say to Jenn, who seemed caught off guard by my sudden withdrawal. We checked out, silently loaded Zinnia in the back seat, and made for home. At last, when we were a few miles down Paseo, I spoke: "I need to go for a bike ride when we get home." Not a question.
"Alright," Jenn said, not looking up from where she sat in backseat.
When we got home, I put all the groceries away as if performing some sort of penance for the dark cloud I had brought to our lives. I went to the rear bedroom to change into my riding duds while Jenn went to our bedroom to soothe a now-quiet Zinnia Rain. I joined them while I laced up my shoes, and we sat across from each other in silence.
Last weekend I was a volunteer assistant at a workshop called Relationship Boot Camp. The workshop was lead by a lovely couple and based on the work of Terrence Real, a man who has been doing couple's work for 30 years. In his book, "The New Rules of Marriage" (highly recommend), Real discusses five losing strategies that individuals can fall into:
1) A Need to Be Right
2) Controlling their partner
3) Unbridled self-expression
4) Retaliation
5) Withdrawing
As Jenn and I sat across from each other in our bedroom, I asked myself if what I what I was about to say was an example of number three, Unbridled Self Expression. I interpret this to mean being brutally honest no matter how much it hurts one's partner or, more to the point, because we know it will hurt one's partner. A person may use this strategy ostensibly in the name of, "Hey, I'm just sharing my truth." In reality, we are using our words like blunt instruments for maximum damage.
I decided this wasn't my intention and spoke: "There is very little," I said in measured tones, "that I am enjoying about being a parent right now."
Jenn's eyed welled. "I know." She looked hopeless and incredibly alone.
"Look, I know you're taking on the lion's share of childcare, and not that it's a competition, but even if I were putting in 60 hours a week at work, I would still consider your job the harder of the two. It's just that--and you said as much as the other day--for the time being there is very little I get to experience about parenting that is pleasurable right now. I know I'm being unfair as hell, but I come home after seeing six clients and doing a group, and then have maybe a half-hour to eat and be with Zinnia before she goes into her two hours of wailing. I'm exhausted, have a shitload of paperwork every night, and have exercised exactly once in the last eight days. I can't wait for Zinnia to get a little older so there's actually something there for me to relate to. I know I'll get there, but I'm not there yet and I can't fake it"
"I don't want you to," Jenn said. She holding Zinnia in her lap, but not really seeing her, more intent on not effecting our daughter with the intense sadness she was feeling.
As I mentioned in a previous entry, I have been told any number of times, Oh look, Zinnia is looking at her papa. More often then not, she was glancing at the ceiling fan or a light or her little hanging ducky bell. I wasn't hurt by this fact. I just wasn't terribly engaged.
I got up to leave, and walked over and stood by where Jenn was sitting. "I'm going go for my bike ride," I said. I paused next to her chair. Jenn was bracing Zinnia under her arms, and both her feet were resting on Jenn's belly, giving her the appearance of a listing, drunken sailor.
Then something happened.
I looked down at my daughter and all her excruciating cuteness.
She turned her head and looked back at me.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
I leaned in closer and looked at her.
She held my gaze.
We stared at each other for a good 45 seconds.
In Navajo culture, it is said that a person's soul has fully entered the body when the baby laughs for the first time. They even have a ceremony celebrating the occasion. For me, it was when Zinnia turned her wobbly head that day and made intentional eye contact. It was perhaps the first solid time I viscerally experienced her as a sentient and sacred being.
I thought about her face for the entire bike ride. I was in.
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