A note to readers: This blog entry is not inspirational, but it is relevant to the motherhood theme.
Being a mother had a huge influence on my writing. I hated the day-to-day of my maternal role so much that I got off my ass, went back to work and became a writer and editor for the U.S. Army. It's not that the love for my offspring wasn't there; it's the satisfaction factor that was missing.
As the millions of parents who do this know, working full time and parenting kids, too, is a big, fat, hard job with enormous potential for guilt and benign neglect. But if somebody gave me a do-over, I would go back to work again in a heartbeat.
Lovable as children are, to them you are Mommy or Daddy, not your whole self. For many adults, that's fine; they seem hard-wired to love all the details of nurturing, including putting their own wants and needs on the back burner when necessary. But for attention junkies like me, it's hard to take.
Writing as a profession brought many rewards, including a salary and recognition. Writing erotica for fun is more of a release and kind of self-inflicted therapy. My main characters are usually some version of myself, but they are better-looking, more confident, sometimes more loving, sometimes even more selfish. They are me all wrapped up, sometimes in foil paper and silk ribbons, sometimes in old newspaper and duct tape.
These days, most of the writing I do is (to dress it up in finery) epistolary. By that, I mean that writing to a listserv meets my need to express my ideas and opinions. 'What/' you say? 'Not exchange ideas and opinions?' I do enjoy the exchanges, but my interest in them is trumped by a fierce need to speak my own piece.
Keeping a journal would be more honest, but somehow the knowledge that nobody else will read it flummoxes me and leaves me, well, speechless. It takes an audience – even an imaginary one – to defrost my thoughts.
For someone who has struggled with a lifelong conviction of her own inadequacy, I find myself endlessly interesting. You can find me in the PDR under 'histrionic personality disorder.'
- Volponia Fox
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Words and Lives
As an only child until I started school, I learned to entertain myself by making up Stories on the Floor, as my mom called them. These were my own serial romances involving dolls and toy animals. My three male dolls (Mr. Peanut, a Scotsman in a kilt with a little bagpipe and a Sabra with curly hair and sandals sent from Israel by an old friend of my mom's) were pressed into service as husbands of all my female dolls at various times. I learned at a young age that marriage is necessary for a happy ending.
I was thrilled at age 6 when my parents gave me a baby sister, and thrilled again at age 9 when they gave me another one. (This was my perception: my parents always gave me a doll for Christmas, so when they thought I was mature enough, they gave me a live baby to play with instead, then rewarded me for responsible baby-tending by giving me another one.) In time, I introduced both my sisters to my imaginary world and made up bedtime stories for them. When I progressed from sewing doll clothes to sewing clothes for myself, I also made clothes for my sisters for special occasions.
When our parents planned to go out, they always told me, “You’re in charge of the house.”
In our parents’ absence, my sisters told me, “You’re not the boss of me.” In due course my sisters grew up, as children do, and acquired lives of their own that did not include me.
In the meanwhile, I fantasized about mothering a daughter. If big sisterhood had its charms, motherhood would probably be even better. Surely a mother-daughter relationship would be unbreakable.
An image of my daughter appeared in my dreaming mind. She always had darker eyes, hair and skin than mine or my sisters', but that didn't surprise me. Many of my friends, starting in my teens, could be described as some flavour other than white bread, and I assumed that the father of my future child would come from my current dating circle.
I wanted to create a baby girl of my own in the same way I could create a story. However, I knew that "unwed" motherhood was associated with deep shame, poverty and squalor, so I thought that any baby I might compose would have to be co-authored by a man who would be willing to share the credit and the responsibility.
I was vaguely aware that baby boys were considered preferable in most cultures.
Having no brothers, I had no idea how to raise a son, assuming this would have to be done differently from raising a daughter. Unfortunately, I also had no idea how to conceive a child that was guaranteed to be female.
I seriously considered being childless (or "child-free" as the Zero Population Growth crowd call it) for life, officially because I didn't want to add to global overcrowding, but actually so that I could launch a writing career while holding down a necessary day job. I wasn't sure I could become the grown-up self I wanted to be if I had to juggle raising an unpredictable child with all my other roles.
The beautiful brown baby girl in my dreams would not go away.
I learned that most men want sex sooner rather than later, and prefer not to worry about possible consequences. Pregnancy seemed to me to be a curse, not a blessing: a humiliating medical condition inflicted on fertile women by individual men who also wanted us all to be barefoot and in the kitchen, or by a natural order that wanted the human race to continue at any expense.
I felt very lucky to have dodged that bullet. I educated myself about birth control, and usually used several methods at once.
Then I met and lived with a man who wanted to marry me. As a child-free adult, I didn't consider this level of commitment to be necessary, but I was impressed by his proposal. I said yes.
After much discussion, I agreed to have one baby. I wouldn't promise to have any more without further discussion.
Looking back, I realized that I wanted to start a new story: the word (or the idea) made flesh, as various religious sources describe the creation of the world.
When my beautiful brown baby girl was born, I felt as if I had written my first novel. She seemed to be the completion of a fantasy that had been gestating for years.
When her father threatened to take her away from me forever, I escaped with her and stayed in a shelter for a week. My parents invited us to live with them while I furthered my education in order to support us, so Daughter and I lived in the family home for two years.
I learned, or relearned, that stories are an essential part of everyone’s childhood. I told Daughter all the stories I could remember from her father about her royal Nigerian roots. (Her father’s ancestry has been explained in books on the history of the Niger Delta – in the culture of 1900, she would have had a social status roughly equivalent to that of Princess Anne’s daughter.) Her grandparents and aunts told her stories about our family, including my place in it. She was nurtured on stories.
Conflict within any family can be defined as a credibility gap between clashing stories.
In due course, my daughter grew up, moved away, married and had two children. Like her aunts, my daughter has cut me out of her life for reasons that seem valid to her.
My relationships with the young have taught me that no one can control them, and even fictional characters, if imagined vividly enough, seem to have lives and wills of their own. My own stories about past happiness still comfort me. In some sense, it doesn’t matter how much is verifiably “true.”
I can no longer produce an actual baby, but whenever I focus on the world inside my head, I realize that many story-eggs are still in there, waiting to be brought to life. Like breast-milk, inspiration seems to increase with use. The stories of the living haven’t ended yet. Stay tuned.
---------------------
I was thrilled at age 6 when my parents gave me a baby sister, and thrilled again at age 9 when they gave me another one. (This was my perception: my parents always gave me a doll for Christmas, so when they thought I was mature enough, they gave me a live baby to play with instead, then rewarded me for responsible baby-tending by giving me another one.) In time, I introduced both my sisters to my imaginary world and made up bedtime stories for them. When I progressed from sewing doll clothes to sewing clothes for myself, I also made clothes for my sisters for special occasions.
When our parents planned to go out, they always told me, “You’re in charge of the house.”
In our parents’ absence, my sisters told me, “You’re not the boss of me.” In due course my sisters grew up, as children do, and acquired lives of their own that did not include me.
In the meanwhile, I fantasized about mothering a daughter. If big sisterhood had its charms, motherhood would probably be even better. Surely a mother-daughter relationship would be unbreakable.
An image of my daughter appeared in my dreaming mind. She always had darker eyes, hair and skin than mine or my sisters', but that didn't surprise me. Many of my friends, starting in my teens, could be described as some flavour other than white bread, and I assumed that the father of my future child would come from my current dating circle.
I wanted to create a baby girl of my own in the same way I could create a story. However, I knew that "unwed" motherhood was associated with deep shame, poverty and squalor, so I thought that any baby I might compose would have to be co-authored by a man who would be willing to share the credit and the responsibility.
I was vaguely aware that baby boys were considered preferable in most cultures.
Having no brothers, I had no idea how to raise a son, assuming this would have to be done differently from raising a daughter. Unfortunately, I also had no idea how to conceive a child that was guaranteed to be female.
I seriously considered being childless (or "child-free" as the Zero Population Growth crowd call it) for life, officially because I didn't want to add to global overcrowding, but actually so that I could launch a writing career while holding down a necessary day job. I wasn't sure I could become the grown-up self I wanted to be if I had to juggle raising an unpredictable child with all my other roles.
The beautiful brown baby girl in my dreams would not go away.
I learned that most men want sex sooner rather than later, and prefer not to worry about possible consequences. Pregnancy seemed to me to be a curse, not a blessing: a humiliating medical condition inflicted on fertile women by individual men who also wanted us all to be barefoot and in the kitchen, or by a natural order that wanted the human race to continue at any expense.
I felt very lucky to have dodged that bullet. I educated myself about birth control, and usually used several methods at once.
Then I met and lived with a man who wanted to marry me. As a child-free adult, I didn't consider this level of commitment to be necessary, but I was impressed by his proposal. I said yes.
After much discussion, I agreed to have one baby. I wouldn't promise to have any more without further discussion.
Looking back, I realized that I wanted to start a new story: the word (or the idea) made flesh, as various religious sources describe the creation of the world.
When my beautiful brown baby girl was born, I felt as if I had written my first novel. She seemed to be the completion of a fantasy that had been gestating for years.
When her father threatened to take her away from me forever, I escaped with her and stayed in a shelter for a week. My parents invited us to live with them while I furthered my education in order to support us, so Daughter and I lived in the family home for two years.
I learned, or relearned, that stories are an essential part of everyone’s childhood. I told Daughter all the stories I could remember from her father about her royal Nigerian roots. (Her father’s ancestry has been explained in books on the history of the Niger Delta – in the culture of 1900, she would have had a social status roughly equivalent to that of Princess Anne’s daughter.) Her grandparents and aunts told her stories about our family, including my place in it. She was nurtured on stories.
Conflict within any family can be defined as a credibility gap between clashing stories.
In due course, my daughter grew up, moved away, married and had two children. Like her aunts, my daughter has cut me out of her life for reasons that seem valid to her.
My relationships with the young have taught me that no one can control them, and even fictional characters, if imagined vividly enough, seem to have lives and wills of their own. My own stories about past happiness still comfort me. In some sense, it doesn’t matter how much is verifiably “true.”
I can no longer produce an actual baby, but whenever I focus on the world inside my head, I realize that many story-eggs are still in there, waiting to be brought to life. Like breast-milk, inspiration seems to increase with use. The stories of the living haven’t ended yet. Stay tuned.
---------------------
Saying Yes to the Impossible
As I sit here writing this, my 17 month old son is sound asleep and my belly is getting in the way of my writing because I’m 24 weeks pregnant. (And this baby boy is going tap-tap-tap.) I feel like I must be a little bit out of my mind to be having a second baby so close to the first—or at all, for that matter. Two babies under two and me 44 years old. Who has time to talk about inspiration when there is laundry to do and a (new) baby’s room to plan?
A friend asked me last week—two days before my 44th birthday—if I felt like I was more creative this pregnancy than I was with the last one (oh so long ago, back in 2009). At first I said no—I’m tired constantly and I’ve had to turn my back on my best friend caffeine, I’m now spend a good chunk of what used to be my writing time chasing after a toddler instead, I have a thousand things to do to get ready for this baby, etc. I have missed anthology deadlines, I’ve put aside big project ideas because I don’t have time for them, I have half-written stories and essays gathering digital dust on my laptop.
But as the conversation progressed I mentioned two new story sales that week, signing the contract for my newest anthology, being invited to join the OGG blog and being excited about writing nonfiction. It didn’t take me long to realize that I am inspired. Is it this pregnancy, is it the cute toddler who runs me ragged, is it this stage of my life? I don’t know. But I seem to have inspiration coming out my ears. If only I had more hours in the day…
I don’t know if it’s parenthood—or impending motherhood—that inspires me, or if it’s something more. Motherhood brought with it a sense of… I don’t know what to call it… peace? Calm? Something. All I know is that things that once mattered to me no longer seem all that important. I’ve learned to let go of my expectations and in the process I’ve become more productive. In some ways, at least.
In those early months after my baby was born and my husband was deployed, I expected nothing of myself except to take care of the baby and, if there was anytime left, to take care of myself. Granted, that’s about all I was capable of for the first six weeks, but then something miraculous happened: I found my new mommy groove and discovered that routine was my best friend. Suddenly, I had blocks of time—small blocks, but still blocks—where I could do something other than wash bottles and laundry. I could write! Or, if not write, I could daydream and plot and think about writing! It was a good feeling.
I joke that I “conceived” my first anthology the same month I conceived Patrick. I didn’t yet know I was pregnant when I started pitching anthology ideas because—get this—I felt like I wasn’t challenging myself. Suddenly, I was dealing with prenatal appointments while figuring out how to be an editor (and while also doing my own writing). Then I signed a second contract, and a third and fourth… and then I was pregnant again. Suddenly, I’d gone from not feeling challenged to feeling like maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. A couple of months ago, I didn’t think I had time in my schedule for one more thing—but I’d thought that a year ago, too. And the year before that. What is too much? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.
And then I was offered a contract to edit a fifth anthology and I faced a moment of truth: back-to-back anthologies, writing projects and deadlines, a 17 month old, a home, a spouse, a social life I didn’t want to give up… I took a deep breath and I said yes. Yes, I’ll edit another anthology that’s due to my publisher the same week my second baby is due to be born. For that matter, yes, I’ll have a second baby at the age of 44 with a husband whose naval career might have him deployed again in a few years, leaving me alone with two young boys. Yes to all of it—the crazy, sleepless nights with a newborn, the insane deadlines of a writer and editor, the unpredictability of military life, the limitations of a body solidly in middle age despite the youthful-looking baby belly. Yes. More. Yes.
This is the inspiration of parenthood for me—the ability to let go of my expectations of what I can do and what I can’t do and to throw caution to the wind and say yes. Watching my son learn and grow and do everything with a rebel yell has made me braver. I have discovered a new appreciation for my own strength and abilities, both physically and mentally. Parenthood has made me say yes to the possibilities that once seemed impossible. Maybe that’s because I know the grim statistics about women in their 40s being able to have children and I still beat the odds—twice. I no longer believe anything is impossible.
The experience of motherhood has made me feel as if I’ve discovered a new well of creativity. A well grounded in life—the creation of it and the nurturing of it-- and an appreciation for it. A well that bubbles patiently while I care for a toddler or take a nap because pregnancy is exhausting. A well that will be there, fertile and ready to be tapped… whenever I can find the time.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Boy With Curious Eyes
He began his journey to the life of the mind in Panama
A small immigrant boy with curious eyes
One straight, one crossed. Each going their own way.
Drawing was his first great love
The drawing boy hunched down close
Over the paper, and curiously eyed uncrossed unfolded, drew.
His first day of school he angered the school bully
That was a part of his journey too.
I told him to aim for the nose
As my father had never told me.
Because over the years my anger grew.
Which he did and made him bleed.
And so kept himself free.
He played with his cousin Daniela, who had AIDS
Day in day out.
They argued, cried, conspired
Squabbled, loved, drank from the same glass
And he was never afraid.
They loved each other until she was gone
And the boy of uncrossed eyes moved on.
As his eyes unfolded, he fell in love with God
The fatal bargain in him bloomed
I wouldn’t help what had so unhinged me.
Silent, willfully I let the spirit fail and sighed.
Unnourished his spirit, I stood aside
until the great fever passed.
Now I can’t get it back again. Maybe he will.
One should not hate the mountain.
At night we read. The Ink Drinker. Frog and Toad,
His favorites, and Curious George, which he was.
And then came the dinosaurs. And then too old. Too old.
Why did I stop there too?
And how the dinosaurs do miss him.
At night a frog and toad sit at my door and scold.
They blame me too.
Next week, a life later he graduates.
Savvy and knowing. His heart too lacking in illusions.
And how the world has turned and lost its innocence.
His eyes uncrossed and unfolded
Since he first disappeared behind school doors emboldened
When we were all so different.
C. Sanchez-Garcia
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Praying For A Metaphysical Naughty Chair
Everything I know about parenthood I have gleaned from Supernanny - like a daring outsider, foraging through the trash for nuts.
For example, I know that kids are:
1. Practically wild animals.
2. In need of many juice boxes.
3. Capable of shitting on the floor, then putting the shit on the walls.
4. Incapable of sleep.
5. Always angry.
And sometimes, they seem to be all of these things at once. So what happens is, Supernanny comes in and tells the dying, zombie-like incompetent parents that they haven't ruined their lives by squeezing out these imps from the very depths of Satan's bowels.
They just need an extra chair on which to seat the child, and all will be well.
Seriously. That's what happens! A "naughty chair" is employed by this heroic boss of a woman - Supernanny - and suddenly the child does not shit on the walls. The child ceases to be perpetually angry. And sometimes it even goes to sleep, as though it is not some crazed super soldier from the future with its sleep-organs cut.
I tell you, that chair is a miracle sent from God. Makes me wish I could employ the technique in every day life, for regular sized people. I mean, it seems vastly unfair to me that just because I don't have children, I can't make use of a miracle item like the naughty chair.
Just think about how much time and effort and misery it would save! Your friend makes her three thousandth passive aggressive comment about your outfit? Get her on that naughty chair. Watch her cry and stamp her feet for 29 minutes (because of course, the beauty of the naughty chair is that you have to sit on it for your age in minutes: 5 years old? 5 Minutes. And if you just so happen to be 67...) while you enjoy one blissful moment of not feeling like you've been jellyfished to death.
And how about that boss of yours? The one who expects you to do twice the work for none of the reward and then shafts you when you complain? Definitely a couple of stints on the naughty chair, for that one. In fact, it kind of makes me wish God had a naughty chair, to save me the effort of forcing them on to it myself.
He could just reach down and pluck them off the ground, then sit them on a metaphysical chair of total punishment until they've thoroughly thought about what they've just done. And then the beauty part! Oh the part I always long for more than any other thing.
Because the only way to get off the naughty chair is to apologise, and mean it. Little kids have to actually apologise, and mean it! Which just makes me wonder when we all lost this ability, in between all of our "well, I'm so sorry you feel that way" and "sorry if it hurt your feelings".
There's all of these ifs and wells and clauses to apologies, now, whereas the world of Supernanny exists in a perfect, incredible bubble of SAY SORRY OR SIT THERE FOREVER.
I love it. Makes me want to be a parent. Or at least, it makes me want to be a parent as badass as Supernanny.
For example, I know that kids are:
1. Practically wild animals.
2. In need of many juice boxes.
3. Capable of shitting on the floor, then putting the shit on the walls.
4. Incapable of sleep.
5. Always angry.
And sometimes, they seem to be all of these things at once. So what happens is, Supernanny comes in and tells the dying, zombie-like incompetent parents that they haven't ruined their lives by squeezing out these imps from the very depths of Satan's bowels.
They just need an extra chair on which to seat the child, and all will be well.
Seriously. That's what happens! A "naughty chair" is employed by this heroic boss of a woman - Supernanny - and suddenly the child does not shit on the walls. The child ceases to be perpetually angry. And sometimes it even goes to sleep, as though it is not some crazed super soldier from the future with its sleep-organs cut.
I tell you, that chair is a miracle sent from God. Makes me wish I could employ the technique in every day life, for regular sized people. I mean, it seems vastly unfair to me that just because I don't have children, I can't make use of a miracle item like the naughty chair.
Just think about how much time and effort and misery it would save! Your friend makes her three thousandth passive aggressive comment about your outfit? Get her on that naughty chair. Watch her cry and stamp her feet for 29 minutes (because of course, the beauty of the naughty chair is that you have to sit on it for your age in minutes: 5 years old? 5 Minutes. And if you just so happen to be 67...) while you enjoy one blissful moment of not feeling like you've been jellyfished to death.
And how about that boss of yours? The one who expects you to do twice the work for none of the reward and then shafts you when you complain? Definitely a couple of stints on the naughty chair, for that one. In fact, it kind of makes me wish God had a naughty chair, to save me the effort of forcing them on to it myself.
He could just reach down and pluck them off the ground, then sit them on a metaphysical chair of total punishment until they've thoroughly thought about what they've just done. And then the beauty part! Oh the part I always long for more than any other thing.
Because the only way to get off the naughty chair is to apologise, and mean it. Little kids have to actually apologise, and mean it! Which just makes me wonder when we all lost this ability, in between all of our "well, I'm so sorry you feel that way" and "sorry if it hurt your feelings".
There's all of these ifs and wells and clauses to apologies, now, whereas the world of Supernanny exists in a perfect, incredible bubble of SAY SORRY OR SIT THERE FOREVER.
I love it. Makes me want to be a parent. Or at least, it makes me want to be a parent as badass as Supernanny.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Gifts from the Daughter
The day my period started was the first time I attempted suicide. It was a sign that god had absolutely, irrevocably, turned his back on me and that I would be stuck being female the rest of my life. (I was raised deeply religious and actually believed that god cared and listened to intense prayer.) Even one more hour living as a female seemed too long, so I went to the garage and slung a rope over the rafter.
Needless to say, that didn't work. Either did my other attempts. When a cousin successfully committed suicide several years later, I realized that I had to make some hard choices or eventually I would end up like him. While I was ambivalent about living, my family's calloused reaction to his death for some reason made me want to live marginally more than I wanted to die. Marginally, but enough to matter. Since then, I've been in an uneasy truce with my body.
The only time I was ever completely comfortable in my skin, oddly enough, was when I was pregnant. I'd never been interested in the trappings of female life I saw around me - makeup, clothes, weddings, cheer leading, babies, marriage, etc. - but being pregnant made me feel a bit normal, as if I'd somehow found a way to sneak into the side entrance to the temple of femininity, and once inside, I'd get a good enough grasp on their rituals to perform like a native. Not so. When I went to Lamaze classes and they asked people how they were feeling or what they were thinking, I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut. You know what happens when you try to force the similar polar ends of two magnets together? Yeah. It was like that. A zone around me that the other women wouldn't enter. They were already plotting play dates for their children and bonding. I was the presence hovering in the corner who had no clue how she was decorating the nursery or why that was even necessary. After those horrible classes though, I'd go home and stroke my growing belly and be massively, sweetly, totally content for the first time in my life.
Over two weeks past the due date there were still no signs that I was ever going into labor, so the hospital induced it. After twelve hours of hard, fruitless labor, my daughter was in such distress that they did an emergency cesarean. Her scores were so low when she was born that we really didn't think she'd make it. You know things are bad when the person cut open on the operating table has one third the number of doctors and nurses hovering over her than the baby does. Three days later though, she was well enough to leave the hospital. At the Lamaze reunion (why did I go?) to show off our babies, the teacher and other mothers made it clear that both being induced and resorting to a cesarean were huge, unforgivable failures on my part. The temple doors slammed shut.
By that point, I was fine being on the outside, because I had plenty of company between R and then M, and later C. Many women get postpartum depression, and with a history of clinical depression on both sides of my family I was a great candidate for it, but the calm that had come over me during the pregnancy continued. Sleepless nights with a crying baby were nerve wracking, but overall, I had sort of a sanguine reaction to the whole thing. After near death, a few hours of crying were hardly the end of the world. M was wonderful and thriving and I enjoyed being her mother. The best part was that the calm acceptance pregnancy brought to me trickled over into the rest of my life. I'd always wanted to write, but my parents forbade it, so I didn't. But now I was an adult with a child and a job, so why couldn't I make decisions about my own life now? Wasn't I technically a grown up? So I started writing. As frustrating as writing can be, overall it leaves me with a sense of contentment that I've learned to treasure. What a gift. My daughter gave that to me.
Needless to say, that didn't work. Either did my other attempts. When a cousin successfully committed suicide several years later, I realized that I had to make some hard choices or eventually I would end up like him. While I was ambivalent about living, my family's calloused reaction to his death for some reason made me want to live marginally more than I wanted to die. Marginally, but enough to matter. Since then, I've been in an uneasy truce with my body.
The only time I was ever completely comfortable in my skin, oddly enough, was when I was pregnant. I'd never been interested in the trappings of female life I saw around me - makeup, clothes, weddings, cheer leading, babies, marriage, etc. - but being pregnant made me feel a bit normal, as if I'd somehow found a way to sneak into the side entrance to the temple of femininity, and once inside, I'd get a good enough grasp on their rituals to perform like a native. Not so. When I went to Lamaze classes and they asked people how they were feeling or what they were thinking, I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut. You know what happens when you try to force the similar polar ends of two magnets together? Yeah. It was like that. A zone around me that the other women wouldn't enter. They were already plotting play dates for their children and bonding. I was the presence hovering in the corner who had no clue how she was decorating the nursery or why that was even necessary. After those horrible classes though, I'd go home and stroke my growing belly and be massively, sweetly, totally content for the first time in my life.
Over two weeks past the due date there were still no signs that I was ever going into labor, so the hospital induced it. After twelve hours of hard, fruitless labor, my daughter was in such distress that they did an emergency cesarean. Her scores were so low when she was born that we really didn't think she'd make it. You know things are bad when the person cut open on the operating table has one third the number of doctors and nurses hovering over her than the baby does. Three days later though, she was well enough to leave the hospital. At the Lamaze reunion (why did I go?) to show off our babies, the teacher and other mothers made it clear that both being induced and resorting to a cesarean were huge, unforgivable failures on my part. The temple doors slammed shut.
By that point, I was fine being on the outside, because I had plenty of company between R and then M, and later C. Many women get postpartum depression, and with a history of clinical depression on both sides of my family I was a great candidate for it, but the calm that had come over me during the pregnancy continued. Sleepless nights with a crying baby were nerve wracking, but overall, I had sort of a sanguine reaction to the whole thing. After near death, a few hours of crying were hardly the end of the world. M was wonderful and thriving and I enjoyed being her mother. The best part was that the calm acceptance pregnancy brought to me trickled over into the rest of my life. I'd always wanted to write, but my parents forbade it, so I didn't. But now I was an adult with a child and a job, so why couldn't I make decisions about my own life now? Wasn't I technically a grown up? So I started writing. As frustrating as writing can be, overall it leaves me with a sense of contentment that I've learned to treasure. What a gift. My daughter gave that to me.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
To My Imaginary Daughter
By Lisabet Sarai
Dear Anne,
Today is Mother's Day, as well as my own mother's birthday. She would have been eighty three today, if she hadn't died of leukemia at age fifty two. Our relationship had its difficulties (what mother-daughter relationship doesn't?), but I do miss her, more than thirty years later. I wish she could have lived to see her kids settled and more or less successful, at least partially as the result of her diligent and principled parenting. I suspect she would have been proud. I wish I could call her and wish her a happy day, send her a card or a gift.
As for me, I guess I'll never be a mother, except in my imagination. Your birth is the closest I'll ever get.
I created you perhaps two decades ago, in a fantasy story I wrote for your father. The tale was rather archly entitled "Labor of Love". It turned on the notion that suffering through the agonies of giving birth could be another act of devoted submission, akin to enduring the whip or the cane.
When your father and I were together, I never dreamed he wanted children (or marriage for that matter). I thought our connection, intense as it was, was mostly about sex. I believed that he was still in love with his former flame, your namesake. Only later, after we'd parted (though never definitively), after I'd married someone else, did I learn how much he desired a legacy, how much he regretted being the last shoot in his family tree. I started to play with the thought of my bearing him a child. What would it be like, if we were a long term couple? What would you be like?
Intelligent, obviously. I'm smart and he's practically a genius. Highly sexed, most likely, and probably very verbal. Aside from that, you're hard to visualize. What would be the result of our melding our disparate genetics? Would you be tall like him, or tiny like me? Would your hair be straight or curly, black or blonde? I suppose at this point, I could choose, couldn't I?
I wonder if he remembers you.
I'll be honest; I was always ambivalent about having kids. My own mom was so over-protective. I worried that I'd continue her neuroses. Heck, I nearly have heart attacks watching other people's children do dangerous things! If I had a daughter of my own, I might never let her out of my sight.
Still - I find children fascinating, partly because I recall the wonders of my own childhood so vividly. I could relive those magic times with my child. I think I'd know how to raise a daughter (though a son would be totally baffling). With my help, she'd grow up believing in herself, open to the world, eager to try new things. She'd know how to enjoy her own sexuality while still acting responsibly. I think about all the milestones: her first words, her first steps, her first day of school, her first period, her first kiss.
I never went through those things with you, but I can imagine them.
I like to think that you do actually exist, in some other strand of reality. If your father and I had done as good a job communicating out of bed as we did in it, you might have been the result. Perhaps that happened in some parallel world, created by different choices. By this time, you've graduated college. Perhaps you're in grad school, or even well launched in your career. Perhaps you're married yourself, with children of your own.
I never would have guessed it then, but I know now your dad would love being a grandfather.
You showed up recently, in a story I wrote called "Like Riding a Bicycle", which will be published in an anthology about kinky couples later this year. The story was a thought experiment. If your father and I had married, would we still be engaged in D/s, decades later? If not, what would it take to start again? Of course, the characters aren't really me and your dad. They never are. But the germ of that story, like so many of my tales, lies in the mysterious heart of the connection he and I shared. Anyway, the narrator (the male of the couple) mentions the disruptive effect of children on his kinky relationship with his spouse. He refers to you by name.
Anne.
It's fun to picture you coming to visit me - to visit us - on Mother's Day, perhaps with your lover, husband or children in tow. I'd cook dinner, because that's what I like to do, and we'd sit around the table afterward, drinking wine and reminiscing about your past, and perhaps mine. Your dad would be playing with your kids, I suspect. You wouldn't go home till late, because we enjoyed each other's company so much. And later still, in bed, your father and I would compliment each other on how well you turned out.
Wherever you are, I hope that your world has given you the gifts you deserve. I hope you'll forgive me, too, for not having the insight or the courage to bring you physically into my world. We can't change the past, and I don't know if I would do so, even if it were possible. I do somewhat regret, though, denying you the chance to exist.
On Mother's Day, I hope you'll think kindly of your poor, confused old mom.
Love,
Lisabet
Dear Anne,
Today is Mother's Day, as well as my own mother's birthday. She would have been eighty three today, if she hadn't died of leukemia at age fifty two. Our relationship had its difficulties (what mother-daughter relationship doesn't?), but I do miss her, more than thirty years later. I wish she could have lived to see her kids settled and more or less successful, at least partially as the result of her diligent and principled parenting. I suspect she would have been proud. I wish I could call her and wish her a happy day, send her a card or a gift.
As for me, I guess I'll never be a mother, except in my imagination. Your birth is the closest I'll ever get.
I created you perhaps two decades ago, in a fantasy story I wrote for your father. The tale was rather archly entitled "Labor of Love". It turned on the notion that suffering through the agonies of giving birth could be another act of devoted submission, akin to enduring the whip or the cane.
When your father and I were together, I never dreamed he wanted children (or marriage for that matter). I thought our connection, intense as it was, was mostly about sex. I believed that he was still in love with his former flame, your namesake. Only later, after we'd parted (though never definitively), after I'd married someone else, did I learn how much he desired a legacy, how much he regretted being the last shoot in his family tree. I started to play with the thought of my bearing him a child. What would it be like, if we were a long term couple? What would you be like?
Intelligent, obviously. I'm smart and he's practically a genius. Highly sexed, most likely, and probably very verbal. Aside from that, you're hard to visualize. What would be the result of our melding our disparate genetics? Would you be tall like him, or tiny like me? Would your hair be straight or curly, black or blonde? I suppose at this point, I could choose, couldn't I?
I wonder if he remembers you.
I'll be honest; I was always ambivalent about having kids. My own mom was so over-protective. I worried that I'd continue her neuroses. Heck, I nearly have heart attacks watching other people's children do dangerous things! If I had a daughter of my own, I might never let her out of my sight.
Still - I find children fascinating, partly because I recall the wonders of my own childhood so vividly. I could relive those magic times with my child. I think I'd know how to raise a daughter (though a son would be totally baffling). With my help, she'd grow up believing in herself, open to the world, eager to try new things. She'd know how to enjoy her own sexuality while still acting responsibly. I think about all the milestones: her first words, her first steps, her first day of school, her first period, her first kiss.
I never went through those things with you, but I can imagine them.
I like to think that you do actually exist, in some other strand of reality. If your father and I had done as good a job communicating out of bed as we did in it, you might have been the result. Perhaps that happened in some parallel world, created by different choices. By this time, you've graduated college. Perhaps you're in grad school, or even well launched in your career. Perhaps you're married yourself, with children of your own.
I never would have guessed it then, but I know now your dad would love being a grandfather.
You showed up recently, in a story I wrote called "Like Riding a Bicycle", which will be published in an anthology about kinky couples later this year. The story was a thought experiment. If your father and I had married, would we still be engaged in D/s, decades later? If not, what would it take to start again? Of course, the characters aren't really me and your dad. They never are. But the germ of that story, like so many of my tales, lies in the mysterious heart of the connection he and I shared. Anyway, the narrator (the male of the couple) mentions the disruptive effect of children on his kinky relationship with his spouse. He refers to you by name.
Anne.
It's fun to picture you coming to visit me - to visit us - on Mother's Day, perhaps with your lover, husband or children in tow. I'd cook dinner, because that's what I like to do, and we'd sit around the table afterward, drinking wine and reminiscing about your past, and perhaps mine. Your dad would be playing with your kids, I suspect. You wouldn't go home till late, because we enjoyed each other's company so much. And later still, in bed, your father and I would compliment each other on how well you turned out.
Wherever you are, I hope that your world has given you the gifts you deserve. I hope you'll forgive me, too, for not having the insight or the courage to bring you physically into my world. We can't change the past, and I don't know if I would do so, even if it were possible. I do somewhat regret, though, denying you the chance to exist.
On Mother's Day, I hope you'll think kindly of your poor, confused old mom.
Love,
Lisabet
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)