Not yet heard what I have been listening to
Clear brain, full womb, can't lose
In the final days of pregnancy, I experience an narrowing of my mental and emotional apertures. I have almost no bandwidth for anything extraneous, which usually means I come across as a real pregnant jerk. You want me to go somewhere more than seven miles from my home? Sorry, can’t. You want to talk to me about the Super Bowl and Taylor Swift? Nope. No space for that. You wish for my opinion about the weather? I have nothing to say about it and frankly am put out that you expect me to.
I fall asleep with great eagerness (but do not always stay asleep). I try to read something deep but cannot. I have no profound thoughts. What is there to say, in this space of waiting? I feel strangely emptied out and at peace.
I walk and feel the baby rolling around. I do my doula-mandated exercises and move as much as possible. I walk. I clean the kitchen floor on my hands and knees. I eat well, more or less. I light candles in the morning. I complete jigsaw puzzles with my eldest and coax my youngest to keep his pee in the potty instead of all around its perimeter. I sit with Guion in our quiet family room and read one poem. I learn, from Guion, how to talk about my feelings. I wash and fold tiny clothes. I pray, or what passes for it in my limited state.
Aside from all of the tidying rampages, the big domestic win lately has been undertaking the potty-training of young Felix. I’m very grateful my midwife encouraged us to do this now, rather than after the baby, which is what I was initially planning on doing. (“You will not have energy for that,” she said, quite simply and accurately.)
We’re very proud of him, as he is certainly figuring things out, even though the accidents still happen occasionally. He is really taking to his new identity as a “big boy” and repeats often our marketing language, that the baby will need to use lots of diapers, so it’s time for him to make his big break. It is a bittersweet season, as with all seasons in which we realize how quickly time is passing and how our babies don’t keep.
“I used to think I wrote because there was something I wanted to say. Then I thought, ‘I will continue to write because I have not yet said what I wanted to say;’ but I know now I continue to write because I have not yet heard what I have been listening to.”
— Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey
Currently Reading
American Zion, Benjamin Park
Lies and Sorcery, Elsa Morante
Feminism Against Progress, Mary Harrington