How she passes ever-so deliberately these days of gestation. I am beyond thankful to see it tick bye me, knowing that with each passing minute I am closer to meeting my child and no longer sharing a body in this way. But I feel I am also entering a really sweet time of pregnancy, the kind where Joel begins to rest his hands on my belly as I lean back on him. The kind where I sit in a yoga studio with 18 other pregnant women as we listen to each other breathe. The kind where I realize for one of the first times in my life thus far that I am a grown woman, capable at bringing forth life. The kind where maybe, just maybe, I begin to uncover a fabulousness deep within that has nothing to do with vintage cocktails and tailored suit-jackets.
I've had a few very sad days. I've been swallowing the biggest bowls of self-pity, and while it's never my nature to try and "fix" a mood my soul needs to feel, it was unpleasant to say the least. I am a woman whose entire adult life has been based on self-care, cultivating relationships, fashion, photography, the study and consumption of all things fine and bubbly. I suppose I knew pregnancy would change things, but only in that a baby would change hings. I never imagined BEING pregnant would actually birth an entirely new identity. I always looked at it as 9 months to endure being miserable. Oh dears, I have never been good at just enduring. I have no choice but to be me and dig into this newness to discover what jewels of wisdom and human joy that I can. I believe the self-pity was therefore ingrained in the fear of this new identity. I didn't want to give up my fashion for maternity frump, and I sure as hell didn't want to stop sitting in restaurants sipping martinis wearing red lipstick and intoxicating Joel with my eyes. But for this time, for this moment, I am those things. I was frustrated because I felt incapable of enjoying myself in social situations without alcohol (I am an introvert, after-all), and therefore sat in the company of those I love lock-jawed and bitterly disappointed in myself for requiring wine in order to connect.
I believe the sad self-pity has passed for now. I managed to have a great time at a recent social event (it helped that my friend isn't drinking for lent!), and this boosted my confidence. I can do this! I can be pregnant and be fabulous, damn it. It's like my yoga teacher said last night as my quads shook in
extended triangle pose, "Your legs are STRONG! They can do this." And they did.
This week, one of my very best soul sisters wrote me this in an email:
"i also want you to know that i remember you mentioning that you were afraid you'd lose yourself to some degree in the tidal changes of pregnancy and motherhood...and i want to tell you that i see you becoming more yourself day by day, sitting at your victorian desk sifting through handful after handful of sand. the piles of earth are riddled with rocks and glass, you marvel at the smoothness and you let yourself be cut by the remnants of what has gone before, what is happening, what will happen. none of it escapes your notice and this is the candace i know and love...you are aware, you are present, maybe you're even afraid. but you are there. it's even more elemental than that....you are. "
It shook me up enough to realize that even though I have to change course and walk down a less familiar trail for the next months, that all things I am and do are still me. I am in no danger of losing Candace, and I refuse to succumb to that fear.
To the battles ahead that we are well-equipped to endure,
To refusing to make decisions based in fear and shame,
To the sifting through murk and mire to re-discover your inner shine,
To March,
Dear Baby Femme Star:
My sweet capsule of energy, this week marks the first official time I felt truly excited to become a mother. Everyone tells me this is a pretty normal process for the beginning of pregnancy, since for the most part, you are just sick and tired. The catalyst for this excitement was nothing less than empowerment. After beginning an awesome book about parenting (and subsequently reading half of it in one sitting), I could suddenly see a vision of myself as a successful and happy mother. "Bringing up Bebe" is a wonderful account of the differences in American pregnancy/parenting vs. French pregnancy/parenting. A lot of what the French do makes so much sense to me that it quelled so many anxieties about parenting styles. There is a lot I've learned, but mainly the notion that the French seem to make the transition from 'woman' to 'mother' a more seamless, holistic move. They are still encouraged to take care of themselves, to be as beautiful as they can (and to take the time to do so), and to live their life integrated with a child, not because of and totally catering to a child. They are calm, less anxious, and generally more trusting of their children's ability to learn at a very young age. What was revived in my soul this week, in the place of anxiety and dread, was nothing less than hope. My goodness, it feels divine.
Lets talk about boundaries, shall we? One of my dear friends recently reminded me that we must implement emotional boundaries as well as psychological/interpersonal boundaries. I suppose I forgot that I cannot possibly internalize every person's opinion of my life, marriage, pregnancy, etc. I cannot adopt every birthing method or parenting strategy. I am a sensitive person with a rather thin skin, and have only found a way to thicken it in my early 30s. Oh child, how I hope that you will learn this lesson much sooner in life. How I hope to spare you from the agony of extracting all those critical voices from your being, only to discover your own voice is the true critic and that you are using others as a scapegoat. When we hear criticism of our own choices, and afterward become prickly, defensive, and downright hurt by another's opinion, I believe what is truly painful is actually our own doubts revealed to us within this opinion. Take the time to internalize your doubt, truly examine it in light of new information, but let it stop before it destroys hope and crushes your spirit. There is such a difference between healthy self-doubt and insipid absorption of the world around you. May the voice inside you be always gentle, always educated, always kind, and always empowered. Selah.
Your father had the most endearing dream about you, and as his eyes welled up in tears while telling me, I felt a wave of familial bliss come over me. Oh! I am so eager to meet you and kiss your chubby face and see your father's prodigious soul within your green eyes.
~The Voice
p.s. Additionally, Joel and I could use your voice to weigh in on our debate about Harper's Bazaar vs. Vogue. This month, Bazaar all the way. What did you think?
_______________________
Musings of a Scientist:
You are a miracle, my child...not because babies are astonishing, nor because birth amazes, but because for an arrangement of energetic fields to coalesce into a pattern that can understand that it is mostly ordered emptiness is a transformation so beautiful it could make one weep.
A Walk
My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance -
and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.
~Rilke
To whom or what do you turn for comfort when there is no way to accept what is happening? For me, comfort lies in the words of those long dead. For some reason, Rilke in particular always seems to capture the impossibilities of how I feel, what I mean to say, and how I attempt to go on. I want to write just like him. He's less elusive than Plath, more subtlety spiritual than Arnold and Eliot, more reverent than Pound, more literal than Neruda, more humble than Whitman or Thoreau, and deeply more sorry than Hughes.
Last night, I had to say fare-thee-well to one of my heart's chambers, my Red. My burden of loss is nothing compared to the mortal fear she faces, but a significant loss nonetheless. Nothing is ever final as we wander this earth, pursuing our dreams and uncovering our paths, and in this I know the friendship will always remain integral to my being - even if she isn't here physically. She is moving home to San Francisco to help her mother fight the sudden onslaught of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. On the way home, after a few cleansing tears, I found myself pleading with the cosmos for an exception, for something to change so we don't have to endure this suffering, this impossible loss. There is nothing like tragedy to test your convictions, as I spoke with something I don't even believe interacts with daily human activity. But sometimes, whether or not it's real or provable science, the biology of the human soul cries out to the universe - nothing could be more natural than for a created being to plead with that which is responsible for its existence, call it god, science, or as I do - both.
I've learned many things from my Red. To name a few:
- The availability of a friend can be equally comforting as the words they might say.
- There are so many different ways to live a life. No one is more correct than the other.
- There is nothing better than the sound of a cork popping at 11am.
- The pace of the cook is just as important as what you cook. Pour yourself wine, turn on music, spend time omitting love and care into the food and it will do the same for you.
- Never give up hope on someone, no matter how badly they may treat you or how flippantly they may hold your love.
- Flirting with service staff gets you free wine. Copious cleavage helps too.
- Believe confidently that how you naturally love others is enough, even if they complain otherwise.
- A messy room can be cathartic.
- People first. Always people first.
- Wear scarves as shirts and skirts as dresses.
- In the name of love, learn to speak another soul's language.
- Women need other women.
- Self-deception is despicable.
- Everyone is on their own journey, and it is up to them to do the work. Walk alongside whilst both working hard, but never, ever do the work for them.
She's in the arms of her mother today and soon we will also say goodbye to her husband, who owns another chamber of my heart - it's really rather sectioned-out, this beating beast in my chest. It seems to keep getting bigger and bigger. One who is well loved is one who loves well. Until we are all loved-well, we must extend relentless patience and compassion to others.
And so we are grasped by what we cannot grasp,
p.s. If you want to follow the progress of Jessica's mother's battle, Jess is writing about it here:
El Tiempo Para Gustar.
