There are many things about home that make me happy. I like the exact shade of pale green on our living room walls. I like lying in bed with one cat curled up against either side. I like the confused look Winnie gets when she has to clamber over my bump to sit on my chest. The way Chloe head-butts my hand and meows in my face as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning. I like reading on our plushy cream couch; lying there with D’s hand on my belly.
There’s been a subtle shift in what I look forward to the most in the future: it centers around home, not work. I think sometimes that medicine has consumed enough of my life: I want to be an excellent surgeon, clinician, and teacher, but I don’t feel the drive to run pell-mell to the next best training program. I want to make a happy, safe, and healthy home, with lots of children. I want D to feel free to pursue his career wherever it takes him.
I’m not sure how this change happened, but I see it for what it is: a desire for greater balance in my life, and the willingness to make the choices that would lead me there. I’m grateful for the sense that this is okay, for all the people and experiences that have laid the groundwork. I feel the baby kicking and I think, I am the only one in this world who can be her mother. I look at D and think, I am the only one who can be his wife. There are other doctors, and students, and daughters.
I used to be afraid of whether I’d be able to make the choices when the time came. I still struggle with the pressures at work a bit, but somehow it seems like relatively little to give up, when I think about the things that truly bring me joy in life. I know difficult moments are still ahead, but that’s mostly why I’m writing this down now. For the future.
Week Twenty-Seven
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Labor
“I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children.” – Genesis 3:16
The only thing about having something growing inside you is that you know at some point it will have to come out. I used to think about the potential space that is the cervical canal and vagina, the nine-pound babies I’d hold in the NICU, and wonder how one exactly gets from point A to B. When I was a med student on the labor and delivery floor, I’d ask women in labor what it felt like, with little success. One woman in between contractions managed to tell me it felt like a train was running her over, which has scared me ever since.
It’s interesting that labor is one of the few divine mandates of suffering. I think about that phrase “greatly multiply”—what would labor have been like before the fall? Not comfortable, but maybe more manageable. Imagine that.
Somehow labor is tied up in the fall, a fundamental part of the female experience that, while being about good, reflects our separation from God. I think about how we are meant to experience it. How life can only come about through great pain.
I occasionally think about whether I’d have the resolve to try giving birth without an epidural. There are the physical benefits, and I think part of me wants to push against the modern medical tendency to medicate away suffering. At the same time, I’ve spoken with enough women to know that labor is painful no matter whether you get an epidural or not, and there seems to be a point reached where the pain becomes almost impossible to rationally tolerate.
Regardless, by proof of the fact that women have multiple children, the price is worth the pain. In that way labor is in a sense a condensed, physical enactment of the spiritual life, a foreshadowing of what Christ came to do, a reflection of the chronic struggles we walk through day-by-day. Great joy as a result of great pain, perhaps pain we would not have chosen had we known what it was. Pregnancy is a nine-month anticipation of and inner preparation for that process. Here we go.
Week Twenty-Seven
The only thing about having something growing inside you is that you know at some point it will have to come out. I used to think about the potential space that is the cervical canal and vagina, the nine-pound babies I’d hold in the NICU, and wonder how one exactly gets from point A to B. When I was a med student on the labor and delivery floor, I’d ask women in labor what it felt like, with little success. One woman in between contractions managed to tell me it felt like a train was running her over, which has scared me ever since.
It’s interesting that labor is one of the few divine mandates of suffering. I think about that phrase “greatly multiply”—what would labor have been like before the fall? Not comfortable, but maybe more manageable. Imagine that.
Somehow labor is tied up in the fall, a fundamental part of the female experience that, while being about good, reflects our separation from God. I think about how we are meant to experience it. How life can only come about through great pain.
I occasionally think about whether I’d have the resolve to try giving birth without an epidural. There are the physical benefits, and I think part of me wants to push against the modern medical tendency to medicate away suffering. At the same time, I’ve spoken with enough women to know that labor is painful no matter whether you get an epidural or not, and there seems to be a point reached where the pain becomes almost impossible to rationally tolerate.
Regardless, by proof of the fact that women have multiple children, the price is worth the pain. In that way labor is in a sense a condensed, physical enactment of the spiritual life, a foreshadowing of what Christ came to do, a reflection of the chronic struggles we walk through day-by-day. Great joy as a result of great pain, perhaps pain we would not have chosen had we known what it was. Pregnancy is a nine-month anticipation of and inner preparation for that process. Here we go.
Week Twenty-Seven
Friday, May 15, 2009
Creating
“I rummage around in my flat file, find some persimmon-tanned paper that looks like cowhide, grab a few pastels.. I begin to rough in Alba’s head.. my hand is moving across the paper like the needle of a seismograph, recording Alba’s form as I absorb it with my eyes. ..I begin to lay in pastel. I start by sketching in highlights in white.. then I rough in the shadows, in dark green and ultramarine.. I use two pink pastels, a light pink the hue of the inside of a shell and a dark pink that reminds me of raw tuna. With rapid strokes I make Alba’s skin. It is as though Alba’s skin was hidden in the paper, and I am removing some invisible substance that concealed it. .. Over this pastel skin I use a cool violet to make Alba’s ears and nose and mouth..
“The drawing is finished. It will serve as a record—I loved you, I made you, and I made this for you—long after I am gone, and Henry is gone, and even Alba is gone. It will say, we made you, and here you are, here and now.”
–page 407-409, The Time Traveler’s Wife
We are on vacation, the three of us. D is taking a nap in the room he picked because the quilt in it was green, his favorite color. His hands are curled in the way they always do when he’s unconscious, and I wonder if the baby will curl her hands the same way. I am sitting in a chair by the screen door enjoying the Kauai breeze, the prickly aftertaste of pineapple still at the edges of my tongue. The baby is kicking inside. She has been kicking a lot lately, hard kicks that punch out my skin and jump up against D’s hand.
I was reading this novel and missing drawing. I wish time could stand still so I could take a few refresher courses on pastels and oils, could teach myself to quilt, could learn the mechanics of photography. I would like to draw our cats, take photographs of the baby, paint a tree across the yellow walls of our nursery.
I think sometimes about the time and energy that was invested into all these things growing up that I don’t even do anymore now—painting, piano, drawing. I haven’t seriously played in a decade, and my sorry collection of paints has solidified somewhere in a back closet. I wonder if it was all a waste, but then at times like these when my narrowed life has fallen away and I can think beyond work and call, I feel glad to feel the urge, the conviction that I could pick those things up again.
I have had more time to think about the baby coming, and one of the things I’m looking forward to the most is having an excuse to be creative and let my imagination run amuck. I hope I get to make up lots of stories, finger painting and collect picture books. Maybe I’ve changed, but that seems more important than driving in because someone showed up in the emergency room with flashes and floaters. Ah well.
Week Twenty-Six
“The drawing is finished. It will serve as a record—I loved you, I made you, and I made this for you—long after I am gone, and Henry is gone, and even Alba is gone. It will say, we made you, and here you are, here and now.”
–page 407-409, The Time Traveler’s Wife
We are on vacation, the three of us. D is taking a nap in the room he picked because the quilt in it was green, his favorite color. His hands are curled in the way they always do when he’s unconscious, and I wonder if the baby will curl her hands the same way. I am sitting in a chair by the screen door enjoying the Kauai breeze, the prickly aftertaste of pineapple still at the edges of my tongue. The baby is kicking inside. She has been kicking a lot lately, hard kicks that punch out my skin and jump up against D’s hand.
I was reading this novel and missing drawing. I wish time could stand still so I could take a few refresher courses on pastels and oils, could teach myself to quilt, could learn the mechanics of photography. I would like to draw our cats, take photographs of the baby, paint a tree across the yellow walls of our nursery.
I think sometimes about the time and energy that was invested into all these things growing up that I don’t even do anymore now—painting, piano, drawing. I haven’t seriously played in a decade, and my sorry collection of paints has solidified somewhere in a back closet. I wonder if it was all a waste, but then at times like these when my narrowed life has fallen away and I can think beyond work and call, I feel glad to feel the urge, the conviction that I could pick those things up again.
I have had more time to think about the baby coming, and one of the things I’m looking forward to the most is having an excuse to be creative and let my imagination run amuck. I hope I get to make up lots of stories, finger painting and collect picture books. Maybe I’ve changed, but that seems more important than driving in because someone showed up in the emergency room with flashes and floaters. Ah well.
Week Twenty-Six
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Love Through Time
“I hear the screen door slam and I peer above the grass. A child is running, pell mell, and as it comes down the path through the waving grass my heart twists and Clare bursts into the clearing.” -page 35, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Niffenegger
When I remember this time in my marriage, one of the moments I hope will come to mind is walking with D in our favorite park an hour before dusk last Saturday. The park was green, green fields and trees, the air crisp, the sky overcast but everything lit like we were in another world. We jogged our usual route (stopping when I got the now-familiar irrational urge to pee), walked the rest, explored a skipping stone beach, threw a Frisbee. We underwent a mission to find my lost bandanna and actually discovered it at the spot where D joked about being too tired to run but then took off and I had to dash to catch up.
In preparation for our vacation next week I indulged in buying a book for the plane and beach, as usual one I’d read before and liked enough to add to the collection. I like the creative scope of the story. It made me imagine what it would be like to go back in time and meet D as a child or a teenager. I think about the hurts and adventures and proclivities I would discover. I’m sure he would have liked the outdoors just as much, probably thrown a Frisbee or ball the same way. He would probably still really like noodles and smart girls. It would be interesting to see the changes over time.
Much of the purpose of marriage seems to be about that: focusing on the other in a way unrelated to what they can do for you. Thinking instead about who they are, what made them who they are, what they are becoming, what they can become. Ephesians talks about how marriage is to sanctify and present the other blameless: for the eternity in which he will not be my husband, but just himself, his full self. And part of that self will be a result of what I’ve been able to see, understand, and create in him, because of the power and covenant of the relationship we had here on earth.
If I could time travel, I suppose that would be the neatest thing of all to see. I would love to see the five-year-old D lumber across a field, but how inspiring would it be to see his glory-self that exists for all eternity? I wonder how, being beyond all time, God loves us. There must be a depth to that love I cannot understand. As a child I couldn’t think past a few days; now I can hardly grasp a few decades, much less the scope of my life for eternity. Yet that is the way in which God knows of and loves me, in all the past and all the never-ending future. Food for thought.
Week Twenty-Four
When I remember this time in my marriage, one of the moments I hope will come to mind is walking with D in our favorite park an hour before dusk last Saturday. The park was green, green fields and trees, the air crisp, the sky overcast but everything lit like we were in another world. We jogged our usual route (stopping when I got the now-familiar irrational urge to pee), walked the rest, explored a skipping stone beach, threw a Frisbee. We underwent a mission to find my lost bandanna and actually discovered it at the spot where D joked about being too tired to run but then took off and I had to dash to catch up.
In preparation for our vacation next week I indulged in buying a book for the plane and beach, as usual one I’d read before and liked enough to add to the collection. I like the creative scope of the story. It made me imagine what it would be like to go back in time and meet D as a child or a teenager. I think about the hurts and adventures and proclivities I would discover. I’m sure he would have liked the outdoors just as much, probably thrown a Frisbee or ball the same way. He would probably still really like noodles and smart girls. It would be interesting to see the changes over time.
Much of the purpose of marriage seems to be about that: focusing on the other in a way unrelated to what they can do for you. Thinking instead about who they are, what made them who they are, what they are becoming, what they can become. Ephesians talks about how marriage is to sanctify and present the other blameless: for the eternity in which he will not be my husband, but just himself, his full self. And part of that self will be a result of what I’ve been able to see, understand, and create in him, because of the power and covenant of the relationship we had here on earth.
If I could time travel, I suppose that would be the neatest thing of all to see. I would love to see the five-year-old D lumber across a field, but how inspiring would it be to see his glory-self that exists for all eternity? I wonder how, being beyond all time, God loves us. There must be a depth to that love I cannot understand. As a child I couldn’t think past a few days; now I can hardly grasp a few decades, much less the scope of my life for eternity. Yet that is the way in which God knows of and loves me, in all the past and all the never-ending future. Food for thought.
Week Twenty-Four
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Names
“A good name is more desirable than great riches.” –Proverbs 22:1
In reading through Genesis, a major emerging theme has been the importance of names. I guess one could say from the beginning God named things into existence: light, night, firmament. The author bothers to tell us the names of each river out of Eden. God bothers to bring all the living creatures to Adam so they can each be named. Later we are told the particular names of people and places, names that reflect sorrow, joy, promise, worship. Noah for rest, Ishmael for God hears, Esau for hairy, Beer Lahai Roi for well of the One who lives and sees me. Some names made me laugh (Nimrod, Genesis 10:8).
Since finding out the gender, this naming business has become more real. During the first few weeks of pregnancy, I went through a host of names, becoming successively seized with and then tired of each. I had fun with odd names, trendy names, names of spices or countries. I toyed with foreign names, literary names, names of objects in nature. This was for the most part an entirely solo experience. Per D, “sounds too much like this-remotely-phonetically-similar word.” “Sounds weird.” “I knew a girl in third grade by that name who picked her nose.” End of discussion.
In the end, what’s become important is a name with meaning, a strong name. Reading Genesis makes me think of that. Something that speaks something over her life. I feel like maybe it’ll be like knowing about D: I might be up and down awhile at the start, but when it settles in and I know it, I’ll know it. At least I’m praying that will be the case.
Week Twenty-Four
In reading through Genesis, a major emerging theme has been the importance of names. I guess one could say from the beginning God named things into existence: light, night, firmament. The author bothers to tell us the names of each river out of Eden. God bothers to bring all the living creatures to Adam so they can each be named. Later we are told the particular names of people and places, names that reflect sorrow, joy, promise, worship. Noah for rest, Ishmael for God hears, Esau for hairy, Beer Lahai Roi for well of the One who lives and sees me. Some names made me laugh (Nimrod, Genesis 10:8).
Since finding out the gender, this naming business has become more real. During the first few weeks of pregnancy, I went through a host of names, becoming successively seized with and then tired of each. I had fun with odd names, trendy names, names of spices or countries. I toyed with foreign names, literary names, names of objects in nature. This was for the most part an entirely solo experience. Per D, “sounds too much like this-remotely-phonetically-similar word.” “Sounds weird.” “I knew a girl in third grade by that name who picked her nose.” End of discussion.
In the end, what’s become important is a name with meaning, a strong name. Reading Genesis makes me think of that. Something that speaks something over her life. I feel like maybe it’ll be like knowing about D: I might be up and down awhile at the start, but when it settles in and I know it, I’ll know it. At least I’m praying that will be the case.
Week Twenty-Four
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