Tree

Here is the tree we will plant for our baby. It is a live oak, and the tree expert at the nursery has assured me that it will probably outlast B and I very easily, which makes me happy. We had hoped to plant it this weekend, but we have to wait for all the utility companies to come out and mark their territory on our lawn first. That's what I get for trying to be a good citizen - delays and spray paint on my grass. Hopefully, we will have it planted by next weekend at the latest. For now, it makes me feel better just to see it in its pot, all strong and alive.

For Jill

who is fascinated by refrigerator contents



Unfortunately, the only thing interesting is the two pieces of birthday cake that were so rich we couldn't finish them.

Poetry Thursday

I am vaguely amazed that time keeps passing. Last Poetry Thursday, I hastily posted a poem after my doctor called to let me know that a blood test had come back with some funny results. I was worried and scared, but I never dreamed it could mean what it did. Now, somehow, I have survived an entire week. Sometimes I feel detached, and wonder why I don't feel anything. Other times, a crushing weight catches me by surprise, and the grief is so overwhelming that I think I won't live. And occasionally, I find myself laughing, or making a joke, or being happy about something. I am fighting myself to not feel guilty about these moments, because I know that is the way to be healed. The dangerous thing is that part of me doesn't want to leave my misery. Part of me wants to never get past it, never move on. If it weren't for B, I don't think I could move on.

Celestial Music

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God.
She thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth she's unusually competent.
Brave too, able to face unpleasantness.

We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality
But timid also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
According to nature. For my sake she intervened
Brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down
Across the road.

My friend says I shut my eyes to God, that nothing else explains
My aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who
Buries her head in the pillow
So as not to see, the child who tells herself
That light causes sadness-
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
To wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person-

In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking
On the same road, except it's winter now;
She's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
Look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
Like brides leaping to a great height-
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
Caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth-

In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
From time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're trying to explain, the fact
That we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
Capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, The composition
Fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
Going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering-
It's this stillness we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.

-Louise Gluck

Note

Happy Birthday, B.

I love you.

Not for the squeamish

1. The bad part

In the continuing cruel irony of this miserable event, my milk came in. Apparently, my body thinks I gave birth and have a new baby to feed. I woke up ravenous on Monday. I couldn't get enough food or enough water. I felt hot and flushed. Honestly, I thought I was having some kind of breakdown with weird, psychosomatic symptoms. And then I started to, um, leak. So now, I have just one more painful, physical reminder of what we have lost. I also have smelly cabbage leaves in my bra.

2. The good part

I have accidently made up a new recipe for some really comforting comfort food. I adapted it from a recipe in a cookbook that sucks too much for me to give it a link here.

Kind-of Homeade Chicken and Other Stuff Soup:

Rotisserie chicken (you know, the ones at the grocery store)
1 Qt chicken broth
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 handful of baby carrots, chopped
1-14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1-9 0z package of refrigerated cheese tortellini
1 zucchini, chopped
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
salt & pepper

1. Pull all the meat from the chicken and set aside. Separately, set aside the bones and skin.
2. Bring the chicken broth and 2 cups of water to a simmer.
3. Add the bones and skin from the rotisserie chicken and simmer for about 30 minutes
4. Strain the broth into a bowl and set aside
5. Heat the oil over med-high heat and then saute the onion and carrots for about 10 minutes
6. Add the broth, chicken meat, tomatoes, tortellini, and zucchini and bring to a boil
7. Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 10 minutes
8. Add cilantro and salt & pepper to taste
9. Serve topped with parmesan cheese (real parmesan, please. Not that Kraft, grated crap), and with a side of crusty bread.

Good for the soul.

Poem

Ashes of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will, — and would that night were here!
But ah! — to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! — with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through, —
There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, — and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, —
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There's this little street and this little house.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Just a note to let everyone know that we made it through the surgery okay. I sincerely hope that we have now survived the worst day of our entire lives. For everyone who has called - we appreciate the love and support, but we aren't sure when we will turn the ringers back on our phones.

Untitled

Last week, our baby died. We didn't know, of course. We went on planning and hoping and buying maternity clothes, and feeling lucky. And then, yesterday, the ultrasound technician said "Oh. Oh no. I should have checked that first." I didn't know what she was talking about. I was looking at the tiny little fingers up near the baby's mouth and wondering if he would be a thumb-sucker. "I can't see a heartbeat," she said, "I'm so sorry."

In what seems to me a cruel irony, I will spend today at an abortion clinic, surrounded by women with healthy babies that aren't wanted, having my son surgically removed. In pieces. We won't even have anything to bury. A small sample of the placenta will be sent off for testing to maybe find out what happened. Or maybe not. "It's extremely rare," my doctor said. Someone else used to talk about winning the 'evil lottery.' I guess that's what happened.

Our baby never had a name. All he will have is a tree that we will plant in our yard, to be removed at will by the next owners.

Poetry Thursday

This Window

I sit on the inside of this window
doing piece-work: woodcut, quilt square,
the shape of things to come.

Next door, you putter,
running water. Soon you will bring me
coffee, years before I need it.

Outside in the twilight,
a child playing some street game
calls: come closer

as the bark on the tree
darkens with evening and the last
light empties from a curve of sky.

I have been smelling coffee
all my life. Cold and so much
older when you bring me some,

I sit on the inside
of this window, close
as I can come.

-Candice Ward

I have recently noticed that a lot of the poems I like are about loneliness and isolation. It makes me feel like I need to state for the record that I don't generally feel very lonely or isolated. I think I'm usually a very optimistic and upbeat person. I don't know why my taste in poetry is so contrary.

Two pictures that make me happy

First, my favorite, local plumbing company. Their vans never fail to make me giggle.

Next, the hole I cut in my kitchen floor with B's circular saw. I have never used a circular saw before, and it made me feel like a total badass. Look at all the sawdust I made! Unfortunately, when I was getting ready to go at it with a crowbar, we realized that the refrigerator needed to be moved out first. And that will be a big job, since we have to take the doors off, empty the stupid thing, and maneuver it to the opposite side of an island and around the corner into the living room. But tonight, I will use the crowbar.

Creative destruction

One of my favorite things to do is tear things up and look at the insides. I especially enjoy when B saves ruined computer components for me to smash up. Once, I skinned a furby and then took it to pieces. BTW, a furby skin makes a very good costume for a small dog. Not that I would ever do such a thing (sorry, Luci).

So that crappy contractor we had last year? Stained the oak kitchen floor approximately the Kool-aid color that I dyed my hair in 8th grade. For those of you who weren't around to see that travesty, it is a rather alarming shade of burgundy. With much lighter spots where the stain didn't take (I'm talking about my hair also. No, you can't see a picture). All in all, I would say it looks pretty crappy. And I don't trust contractors anymore. So I have decided to replace the floor myself with slate tile. The first part of the project, which I am very excited about, involves taking a crowbar and circular saw to the existing floor. I am hoping to post pictures within a few days of large-scale deconstruction. I've been waiting a long time to do something like this since apartment complexes tend to frown on this type of activity. Yay for home ownership!