Something I always wanted to have was an aura of mystery.
The thing is, I'm not the least bit mysterious. Maybe it's because I don't care about reputations or camouflaging myself to fit in. Maybe it's because I'm as honest as you want me to be and I think I'm only ashamed of about two or three moments in my life. Maybe it's because I'm not coy, flirtatious, charming or a deflector; what you see is basically what you get.
Now, I wouldn't change any of this, but I still want to be mysterious, now and then. I could never be the femme fatale or that silhouette of a woman the hero spends his whole sad, hard, honorable life pursuing or impressing or trying to forget. I can't even flirt. But every now and then, it would be awesome to be the stunning, mysterious woman with like only one eye showing through her curtain of tumbling hair, who glides, who has an aura of danger or tragedy or whatever.
Since I got pregnant, I can't even describe how much that wish has multiplied. Not because I wished I wasn't pregnant, or thought it would be great fun to be some pregnant loner wandering through strangers' lives and changing them, but because pregnancy, delivery and new mommyhood pretty much strip away every ounce of mystery a woman has. The whole world doesn't see you deprived of a little cloak of dignity, but your partner sure does, and it's disheartening if you let yourself really think about it.
My body was no longer just this physical thing to inhabit that sometimes seems sexy, it was suddenly like... a vessel. Boobs were no longer fun, sexy decoration. Because I was thrilled to be pregnant, and curious and observant, I noticed every damn infinitesimal change in my body like I never had before, and everything was epic. It was beautiful, but it infringed on my image of myself. There was the ripening, to put it poetically, my body glowing and expanding to match my heart and mind starting to stretch to prepare me for parenthood. But then there was stretch marks and awful gas, hemorrhoids and having to inject myself with medicine every day (not a standard pregnancy thing, don't worry). Later on there was persistent backaches, really sausage-like feet and ankles, and tiny baby pointy edges--feet, elbows, knees--digging into my bladder and ribs. There was peeing all of the time. Like, aaalll the time. For the first several months, I managed to only puke once, but the thought of food disgusted me, and I really, really love food... and then suddenly I was hungry all of the time, but eating didn't bring me any joy, since I felt like a bottomless pit.
People ask you lots of questions about your body directly, when at any other point in life this would be considered fucking rude. They want to know if you eat anything weird or have cravings, if you can feel your growing baby moving around inside you. The women who haven't had kids yet kind of gleefully whisper questions about your sex life, and ask how much weight you're gaining. For me, my husband, not being a lady, was sort of simultaneously freaked out, horrified by, and totally amused by the crazy stuff that was happening to my body. Even if it made me crazy at the time, his sense of humor and mocking me actually did help make me feel better, but I wouldn't recommend this course of action, generally speaking. I know everyone wanted to understand my experience, or compare mine to theirs, and sharing is wonderful and really, really helpful during that time, but it made me feel in a way that my body was somehow communal as well as a vessel.
Then there was the delivery of my beautiful baby girl. She was almost a month early and I had a blood pressure thing that meant I couldn't have any drugs. My parents had literally moved to town the day before. We had no crib, no diapers, and no bottles, though because of the love and preparedness of our family and friends, we had a car seat, clothes and swaddling blankets galore. I had met every OB in the practice except for the one who was on call that day. I was wearing my glasses when I went in, so I was in essence blind the whole time. But that's just the setting. The decidedly un-mysterious truth is that my husband was there while I was naked, contorted and screaming, gulping ginger ale and trying to remember to breathe, clutching him like a lobster pinching. People could look and poke me practically all the way up to my throat, I lost control of my body, and there was, of course, blood and tears. Oh, and a beautiful, sunny side up, cone-headed, six pounds three ounces of daughter that they put on my belly just above where she'd been swimming around inside me.
Afterwards, there was blood, stitches, a catheter, delivering the placenta (that was like being pummeled after being beaten up), weakness, tears and ecstasy, hardly being able to move, and holding Freya. There was also breastfeeding for the first time, which is not something that human moms and babies instinctively know how to do like most other animals out there. No, you have to have help. A lot of people see your boobs, and it's not as much fun as, say, Mardi Gras. And voila, my body became food. It's not like with your body recovering and your whole being just, whew, in the clouds and freaking out all at the same time you think about reclaiming your body, but still...
I think sex and sexiness was about as far from my brain as it must have been when I was like seven, but somewhere in there--and I can't remember when because I think the first six weeks of Freya's life are like one big muzzy bender--it occurred to me what my husband had witnessed. Duh. I mean, I'd been worried about it before and told him so. But after going through the reality... Even though it was this miraculous experience, I was mortified when I remembered what-all had gone during delivery. Oh my god. Oh my god. And at that phase I was just breastfeeding all over the place with the weird post-delivery stomach situation and like two days between showers of any sort, and my hair... Oh my god.
I was assured and reassured that seeing me give birth to our daughter and breastfeeding her did not in fact horrify my husband. But it's not something he'll ever forget, on a visceral level that has nothing to do with loving me. I know that on a biological level, males feel something like: "Fuck yeah, I chose that woman, and she was so strong she carried my baby and gave birth to it and is keeping it alive with that same body, she is so powerful and I am so awesome because I impregnated her and she chose me!" This should be an empowering thought, and it is on some level, but mostly it just takes forever before you feel like more than a vending machine.
I find it impossible to explain why I've never felt more womanly in my life, but that for long stretches in the last year I've never felt less feminine. My daughter is six months old and these feelings haven't entirely faded, even though I do in fact get sufficient amounts of sleep and shower daily and she's starting to eat mushy baby food. As she's claiming herself, her eyes to see and hands and feet and cheeks to smile with and a voice to scream and babble with, I'm reclaiming myself. As she's discovering herself, her sense of humor and being a ham and curiosity and happiness to meet strangers, I'm rediscovering my energy, a sense of play, and an ability to forget that time exists at all.
But I'm also discovering things. I'm not the same as I was before I became pregnant, and while I was just fine with that self, I'm thrilled at these changes. When I was younger, I eschewed ambition and being challenged if I might fail, and I was scared to admit out loud what I want for my life. Now I look at Freya and I think so many things: How can I ask her to try her best, work for something, shout her dreams out loud and pursue them, dream big, learn life's best and worst and mundane lessons, if I haven't tried? Will she continue to look up to me once she's old enough to employ critical thinking and can see my flaws, mistakes and regrets? Won't I feel like a hypocrite a lot of the time? I think the idea of "turning over a new leaf" is misleading because I think all worthwhile, life-altering decisions have to be followed by lots of hard work and a period of two steps forward, one step back. But that's okay. It's enough that I'm growing and that I know it, and that I know what my dreams are and I'm now brave enough to say them aloud. And it's an unimaginable pleasure and relief to have someone with me, on his own corresponding parallel journey.
... But now I'm definitely never going to have an aura of mystery, and I still really wish I could, even if it was just for one day...
PS I read an article the other day at Jezebel about a romance author, whom I've never read, criticize recently deceased romance author Maeve Binchy's books as being too much about romance and not enough about family, because she wasn't a mother. (That doesn't sound right to me, since Binchy wasn't racy as far as I know, and romantic romance writers tend to deal in family life. Maybe I'm wrong about her, just making an educated guess.) Ugh, bullshit! How judgmental! While it's not always a good idea or done well, authors appropriate other cultures constantly. I write from men's perspectives and old peoples' and orphans' and musicians, and I'm none of those things; my characters are painters, lawyers, teachers, soldiers, princesses and courtesans; my settings are one hundred percent made up or about places I've never lived. Maybe Maeve Binchy didn't want to write about babies or mother/daughter relationships and maybe she couldn't have babies and it was the most painful part about her life. Is this romance author going to read my blog post and judge me because she thinks what I'm writing is that I'd trade in motherhood for an aura of mystery?
No comments:
Post a Comment