Motion Sickness

Photo ©Violet Ashes 2014

It starts. As soon as the morning is here – the sickness. That twirling in my stomach & itching in my throat. I’m up, the baby is crying out & I go to him & try to soothe him. I fail & he whimpers. I crawl back into bed but it’s too late; it has begun & won’t leave me until sleep comes tonight.

I think of all the things I wanted to accomplish today that, now, are made harder by this thunder cloud in my belly. How much slower & harder it will be. How, with my husband gone, managing life is a struggle & grows more tiresome everyday.

Quitting is not an option.

I have never quit. I have only ever left things undone, always expecting to get back to them one day. Even people. I start to think about how many people have quit me, instead, & suddenly the thunder roars ever louder.

I try to put that out of my mind & I listen to the traffic go by.

I like hearing the cars on the Thiele Highway in the small hours. You know the time when it’s not quite night & not quite morning. I think of them all as going on a fantastic journey somewhere. Their cars laden with suitcases, jackets, snacks & newly made playlists for the journey. All of these travellers wide awake with the excitement of the getaway in the fresh air. If I think of them that way & the noise of the rubber beating the bitumen & the endless engine rumble it doesn’t aggravate me. It soothes me.

I can’t sleep. 

Velveteen Inspiration

A little while ago I became a Patron of one of my heroes, Amanda Palmer. Being a Patron means I help to pay for her art. It means she can make the art & music she likes without needing a record company. Right now, she is 8 months pregnant & yesterday she stood naked in full body paint in front of the New York Public Library to raise awareness for literacy & gather books from supporters for needy children. She stood as a living replica of the Verity statue by Damien Hirst & as people dropped off books she moved to a new position. Anyone who has been 8 months pregnant will know standing still for any amount of time is difficult & painful so I was in awe of her efforts. Literacy is something Amanda obviously feels passionate about, as I do, so when she stated in a recent interview that her favourite children’s book is ‘The Velveteen Rabbit‘ I could not ignore what is for me, a meaningful coincidence.

Lightning Bolts

Last night I dreamt of Zeus & of Hera & their children. Eileithyia – with her watchful eye has followed me through the last two years & two dead babies. She whispers to me & although I understand her in the dream I do not remember her words when I wake & yet her words haunt me.

I awoke with pain lingering in my abdomen & tears on my cheeks. My husband asked me what was wrong, why was I crying & I maintained, “I’m alright, I’m fine” but I am never sure if I am.

The two dead babies in my dream – they float. They stare at me but they do not talk. I know who they are, even now, but they are not mine anymore. Eileithyia runs her hands over my back & through my hair. Whatever she says, upsets me.

I am not the same person I was before I met Eileithyia in my dreams. I am not as fickle or forlorn but I am the same amount of furious. There is a burning in my belly, a ferocious fire that wants to burn the world down – holding in my words, my thoughts & my feelings for fear of hurting people is like having lightning bolts streak through me minute by minute. If only I did not care. Perhaps I could let it out & the burning would stop. Perhaps I would be reduced to Ashes. If only.

We do not talk about these things anymore, my husband & I. I am too angry & he is too sad. All the waiting & the disappointment. The passion & the pain. It beats down our door every month & we fall deeper in all the time. We both know it cannot destroy us, we know no matter the outcome we are stronger together & stronger than anything the Gods could throw at us. But in the meantime, our daily lives are filled with hope & uncertainty; of conversations not endured & decisions not made.

“People ask me how we are,

We are, I say, mostly lost.”

Lightning Bolts – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Two lightning bolts were delivered to my room,
They were gifts from Zeus.
I rock the bolts in a bassinet of pine.

People ask me how I am,
I say “I’m all right, I’m fine.

“

I push the lightning bolts in a pram,
Till the sun goes down & it gets dark,
& the girls from Jubilee Street hang out their windows,
& they wave & ask me how I am tonight.
I say “I’m good, I’m all right.”

In Athens all the youths are crying from the gas.
I’m by the hotel pool working on a tan.
People come up & ask me who I am.
I say if you don’t know, don’t ask.

Zeus laughs – but it’s the gas.
& he asks me how I am.
I say “Zeus, don’t ask.”

My lightning bolts are jolts of joy,
They are joy boys from Zeus.
I feed them porridge in their booster seats of knowledge.
& in the cradle of democracy, the pigeons are wearing gas masks.

My lightning bolts play in the elevators,
They slide down the hotel banister,
& Zeus throws a gas canister,
& it spins around the pool,
As pigeons wearing respirators steal the lightning bolts.
Zeus wants them back.

O my bolts of joy,
O my darling little boys.
They are lost to us.
& people.. .
They are never coming back.

At night I watch them sleep,
& cry years of tears,
& it’s not the gas.

People ask me how we are
“We are,” I say, “mostly lost.”

Things Have Changed This Is Not The Movies

Travel Alone by Neslihans

Things have been hectic for the last few weeks & weeks are turning into months since we lost our second baby. Corsmor & I have tried many times to sit down & talk, to discuss the future, but every time we do life interrupts us with phones, doorbells & distraction.

My writing is on hold again with so many other obligations, I worry every day that I may lose my ideas or that my characters will run back to their forests. Gone forever. In my mind they have lives I struggle to ignore. I keep thinking about all those movies where life is perfect. Movies with whole neighbourhoods of families that support each other – the evil always coming from the outside in, not the other way around.

In the movies people go off the grid all the time. They say “no” without consequence. In the movies family & friends are sensitive to your feelings & understand when you need them to leave you alone. In the movies, people support you when you need them & they don’t try to push you to be something you’re not. In the movies family & friendship are not a one way street. In the movies miscarriage trumps someone else’s dentist appointment, writers are heroes & everyone can have babies.

In the movies.

In real life there is no such fairy tale. The real world crashes in on your every private moment. The hours between dusk & dawn are no longer sacred. Those minutes in bed between the kisses good night & the kisses good morning are under threat of interruption.

Since these last few hectic weeks have ‘tornadoed’ through our home I have found myself growing angry & restless. I am fed up with the world outside. I want some time, time in the dark. Radio silence.

Music is one thing I use to disappear out of real life. I have found myself with a whole new playlist on my hands this year. Expressing so many different emotions.

This song by Bob Dylan is, at the moment, at the top of the list; because after the last few hectic weeks having to bury so much inside I feel different. My perspective on what is important to me has shifted. What I need to focus on is me & my writing. If there is to be a baby or a writing career then the focus needs to come higher on the priority list & that may mean some relationships have to suffer, well then so be it “I used to care, but things have changed.”

Things Have Changed – Bob Dylan
A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me & nothing behind
There’s a woman on my lap & she’s drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin’s eyes
I’m looking up into the sapphire tinted skies
I’m well dressed, waiting on the last train
Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose
People are crazy & times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I USED TO CARE BUT THINGS HAVE CHANGED
This place ain’t doing me any good
I’m in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood
Just for a second there I thought I saw something move
Gonna take dancing lessons do the jitterbug rag
Ain’t no shot cuffs, gonna dress in drag
Only a fool in here would think he’s got anything to prove
Lot of water under the bridge, Lot of other stuff too
Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through
People are crazy & times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I USED TO CARE BUT THINGS HAVE CHANGED
I’ve been walking forty miles of bad road
If the bible is right, the world will explode
I’ve been trying to get as far away from myself as I can
Some things are too hot to touch
The human mind can only stand so much
You can’t win with a losing hand
Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet
Putting her in a wheel barrow & wheeling her down the street
People are crazy & times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I USED TO CARE BUT THINGS HAVE CHANGED
I hurt easy, I just don’t show it
You can hurt someone & not even know it
The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity
Gonna get low down, gonna fly high
All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie
I’m in love with a woman who don’t even appeal to me
Mr. Jinx & Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake
I’m not that eager to make a mistake
People are crazy & times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I USED TO CARE BUT THINGS HAVE CHANGED

6 Weeks & None

A prenatal scan at 6 weeks revealed we had lost our second baby. After a week of bleeding & bed-rest this was not a surprise but, again, we had hoped that all would be well. Again, I feel like I am in pieces strewn all over the ground – like there is a chalk outline following me every where I go.

We had to wait another week for a second scan which thankfully revealed I did not need a Dilation & Curette to remove the baby as I did last time. I say ‘thankfully’ because it was so traumatic last time – for both of us. The physical pain, though, was more severe this time. I was not ready for it.

The hardest thing, I think, is the waiting. Pregnancy is nothing but waiting. It is a total lack of control. This time I really had felt quite well, I felt positive & excited. Corsmor was certainly more cautious than I. His caution weighs on me, a blanket of guilt.

There is a lot going on around us at the moment & I feel eyes on us. I feel them expecting us to move on from this much faster than we did last time. The surprising thing is that it does get easier. Which in itself fills me with guilt. What I really fear is that we won’t get time to process it together. To plan our next move; forward motion, onward. These losses are the things that tear couples apart. I have seen it.

Corsmor & I are told we should not make having a baby our priority or our goal. That we need to devote time to careers, real estate, travel & time together. However, having a baby means the world to us, it seems impossible not to make it our goal. It is one of the reasons we married – to start a family. We never imagined it would be difficult. I left my job knowing we would start a family & I would have all of me to devote without the stress of my job which had been highly stressful & all-consuming…

A year & 2 miscarriages later we are still without a family or any promise of one. It feels so far away. Sometimes I feel like a character in my own book. Everyone around me playing their parts. If only I could see the ending – if only I could skip to the last page & know it all turns out okay, how much easier all this might be.

Just 4

This morning I had a positive pregnancy test. I would only be very early – 4 weeks at the most. I am positive about this despite what happened to our first pregnancy. I feel healthier & ready – for whatever happens.

There are a multitude of feelings I have about this. This morning when I saw the positive test I wondered whether I should wait to tell Corsmor – but I know that I can’t live that way. First of all, he is my husband, I can’t lie to him. Secondly, this baby is half his, I can’t deny him experiencing whatever there is to experience. I won’t say that I am not hesitant.

We are heading to the beach today & I will tell Corsmor on the shore – where there is nobody but him & I, the ocean & the waves. Whatever his reaction I am sure he will be happy. I am sure he will feel similar to me, hesitant, but happy.

Footprints by Vanerich