1.
A small, round face. A little white shell, the kind they imitate for soap dishes. A pale moon, just a thumbnail in the distance. Two black blinking eyes, wide open and waiting. Face like a little glow worm. Or a messenger.
My son was barely 24 hours old when I began thinking of him as The Holy Man. The little visionary’s mouth contorted in half open revelation, grotesque almost, twisted into a grimace with eyes wide enough to catch a comet or a command from The Highest. He fasted. He seized. He saw great visions unknown to us. He built himself out of mythmakers and fell headfirst into his name.
Canal. I looked up this word as if the etymology would shine a little more magic onto the universe. It did not. I am not brave enough to look up the word fall, not yet.
Holding you was awkward – your tiny bones, my exhaustion radiating, your tense body contorted and on constant startle, us a duo live wired and unfamiliar with each other. I shifted you into my right arm. You grimaced up at me. I tried to hold you against my chest. You were the antithesis of cuddle. I tried to swaddle you. Your arms fought their way out like tin soldiers. My cousin Shannon wanted to hold you. He took you in his arms, bundled, stood and rocked you in that slow acquired sway that all mothers learn to do even when they are alone waiting in line at the grocery store. You immediately relaxed. How did you do that? I asked. He’s a daddy, Mom answered. I stared at you then off into the wall.
Other women have said that they recognized their babies when they first saw their face but you were a complete mystery, beautiful and purple and unknown. Is he okay? I remember asking because I felt as if I should but it was like I knew that everything was fine and really wasn’t very worried at all only that I knew I should be but I was so full of adrenaline and energy I’d just pushed you out after all that time and I really truly thought that everything was going to be fine. You were absolutely beautiful and I had full faith that you would have no troubles. I spoke more to fulfill a role than to truly make certain.
If only my intuition had been clearer. If only I’d known more about the role.
That’s how the first few months went. Hi Finn, I’ll play your mother in tonight’s performance. I could not comprehend the actuality of having a son. Why do people say my baby? I wondered before having you. It’s its own baby, not anyone else’s. I was wrong. You are my baby, I am the one to care for you. You are not yet fully your own person. I am the one to make sure that you have the best possible chance with what you were given (and if I was certain there is a Giver I’d be a happier woman). I am the one to make you cry when you need your nose unstuffed or your tube changed. I became a mother sometime after my breakdown in December. I had felt more like a nurse until that point. My family would chide me when I told them that. A mother is a nurse, Mom’d say and leave it at that. You don’t understand, I’d say.
I say that a lot.
But I remember your little face in the bassinette, one day old, 2 in the morning. You never slept. Your little newborn eyes, lids stretched around pupils, completely black, no whites. Wide awake listening to the trains go by. Blinking black eyes in a tiny round pale face. Blinking in your bassinette at the side of my bed in the first of September, my baby, beginning.
My son was barely 24 hours old when I began thinking of him as The Holy Man. The little visionary’s mouth contorted in half open revelation, grotesque almost, twisted into a grimace with eyes wide enough to catch a comet or a command from The Highest. He fasted. He seized. He saw great visions unknown to us. He built himself out of mythmakers and fell headfirst into his name.
Canal. I looked up this word as if the etymology would shine a little more magic onto the universe. It did not. I am not brave enough to look up the word fall, not yet.
Holding you was awkward – your tiny bones, my exhaustion radiating, your tense body contorted and on constant startle, us a duo live wired and unfamiliar with each other. I shifted you into my right arm. You grimaced up at me. I tried to hold you against my chest. You were the antithesis of cuddle. I tried to swaddle you. Your arms fought their way out like tin soldiers. My cousin Shannon wanted to hold you. He took you in his arms, bundled, stood and rocked you in that slow acquired sway that all mothers learn to do even when they are alone waiting in line at the grocery store. You immediately relaxed. How did you do that? I asked. He’s a daddy, Mom answered. I stared at you then off into the wall.
Other women have said that they recognized their babies when they first saw their face but you were a complete mystery, beautiful and purple and unknown. Is he okay? I remember asking because I felt as if I should but it was like I knew that everything was fine and really wasn’t very worried at all only that I knew I should be but I was so full of adrenaline and energy I’d just pushed you out after all that time and I really truly thought that everything was going to be fine. You were absolutely beautiful and I had full faith that you would have no troubles. I spoke more to fulfill a role than to truly make certain.
If only my intuition had been clearer. If only I’d known more about the role.
That’s how the first few months went. Hi Finn, I’ll play your mother in tonight’s performance. I could not comprehend the actuality of having a son. Why do people say my baby? I wondered before having you. It’s its own baby, not anyone else’s. I was wrong. You are my baby, I am the one to care for you. You are not yet fully your own person. I am the one to make sure that you have the best possible chance with what you were given (and if I was certain there is a Giver I’d be a happier woman). I am the one to make you cry when you need your nose unstuffed or your tube changed. I became a mother sometime after my breakdown in December. I had felt more like a nurse until that point. My family would chide me when I told them that. A mother is a nurse, Mom’d say and leave it at that. You don’t understand, I’d say.
I say that a lot.
But I remember your little face in the bassinette, one day old, 2 in the morning. You never slept. Your little newborn eyes, lids stretched around pupils, completely black, no whites. Wide awake listening to the trains go by. Blinking black eyes in a tiny round pale face. Blinking in your bassinette at the side of my bed in the first of September, my baby, beginning.
Labels: journal, memory work, writing practice
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