So little is a stone

Amber Schley Iragui © 2015

B U R N I N G   T H E   O L D   Y E A R
Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

*    *    *    *    *

It has been raining and raining and I'm having a hard time adjusting. I know that's what it does here: rain. I was born here; I lived here till I was twenty-five. But after fifteen years in New York—with the sun, and snow, and occasional thunderstorms—it's hard not to feel it is just too wet, too deeply damp, outside right now. I lay in bed and think about hibernation, of crawling into a warm little cave and sleeping until spring. A cave with a fireplace, and clearly a mantle, and a deep soft chair, and some books—and then we're basically dreaming about hibernating in my own house. My house but a little farther away from everything; away from the passing cars and the bouncing children.

But I like the sound of the rain, I admit. I like the sound on the roof of my office, now, as I write this.

I didn't watch the State of the Union address this evening. I only know that this event took place because, while the kids were falling asleep, I checked Facebook and there were all sorts of postings about it. And it occurs to me that I doubt I've ever heard a State of the Union address. Not one I can remember, at least. And similarly, when David Bowie died a few days ago—alerted again by multitudinous Facebook postings—I could not bring his voice to mind, or any song of his I knew. Disturbingly, his face is mostly familiar to me because a friend of mine owns a David Bowie doll that she dresses up posts photos of on Instagram. And so it seems to me that as far as popular culture and politics go, I'm pretty much hibernating all the time.

Which is not to say that I don't pay attention to things. I do, but just to a select few things. And to those things I pay close attention. For example: dreams, typography, the birds I see in the neighborhood. I pay attention to my children, not always what they say as much as how they seem to be doing. I pay attention to the plants in my kitchen window, and to book covers, and New Yorker cartoons; I take note of new authors and wait for their names to appear and reappear before I buy their books. I have been paying attention to what's been happening in Syria and Iraq, and watching the refugees streaming into Turkey and Eastern Europe and worrying for them. But I can't, you know, take it all in. There is far too much to pay attention to and I live in this small stucco house with lots of windows, under skies heavy with rain, and have small growing things to tend.

{ Julia's poetry wednesday post }

a childhood

 
The fact is that anybody who survived
his childhood has enough information about life
to last him the rest of his days.

                                                                                    
                                                                     — Flannery O'Connor

It's a great thing to be given, a childhood; and a weighty thing to pass on. I see my children grow before me, breathing in our little family as the center of the universe. To them Charles and I are the only type of parents, and New York City the most obvious of all homes. They do not see the positives and negatives of living in an apartment in Manhattan as I do, nor grasp that their mother and father are just two of many different kinds of women and men. We comprise the universe. We and our parents and grandparents, ancestors reaching further and further back, adding a whole host beliefs, failings, propensities, and habits to the fabric of my children's world.

Sometimes this scares me. I want to solve all the problems in myself quickly, overnight, so as to protect them. I place myself as a hefty filter between them and the world outside our home. But, really, filtering out the "dangerous outside world" is the easy part—at least at their young age. It's the inside world, the things Charles and I carry with us, that are much harder to protect them from.

And yet I take courage. Courage because I know that I am giving this my all, and I'm not afraid to say I'm sorry when I fail. And because my parents both tried to give me better than had been given them. And even when they failed, which did happen at times, I did not merely survive. I survived with character and strength; with a sense that the world is more good than evil, more beautiful than ugly, with more joy than pain. And I learned to take courage, to seek truth, and to keep my feet planted firmly in soil—and these too are the things I pass on.


N O R T H   O F   C H I L D H O O D
by Jonathan Galassi

Somewhere ahead I see you
watching something out your window,
what I don’t know. You’re tall,
not on your tiptoes, green,
no longer yellow,
no longer little, little one,
but the changeless changing
seasons are still with us.
Summer’s back,
so beautiful it always reeks of ending,
and now its breeze is stirring
in your room commanding the lawn,
trying to wake you to say the day is wasting,
but you’re north of childhood now and out of here,
and I’ve gone south.

From North Street and Other Poems, Copyright © 2001 by Jonathan Galassi

{  Poetry Wednesday  }

a little work here and there

I'm supposed to work in my office, but the truth is often I'm just here to find some refuge. To sit in front of the quiet screen and think. Check email, check Facebook, or mindlessly search ebay for cheap Oilily baby dresses or Orla Kiely bags. I do work, yes, but I first need brain-emptying transition time. The three-month-old and a two-year-old take up huge chunks of my brain--feeding, clothing, soothing, teaching, worrying--and it takes some time for the mama impulses to quiet down so I can address my work squarely. And often, when I have finally slipped into work mode, a crisis screaming outside the door of my office pulls me back.

Today, this paragraph is the tail-end of a long transition of many interruptions. It's 3:00, and I was supposed be working since 11:30. Ah.

what I know with my head doesn't help

Sometimes, for a few brief seconds, I can see my life from the outside. I'll be minding my own business, trying to coax Ike into saying his final "goodbye" to the smiling monkey doormat in front of our neighbor's apartment, so we can finally enter the elevator--and then suddenly some part of me is up on the stairwell, looking down at us. The moment comes and goes quickly, gone the second I notice it's happening. But I'm left with the flavor of what it would be like to be outside the small world of my mind. No longer an inhabitant of Wife, Mother, Designer, Tyrant of a Minute Domestic Realm, no longer fighting time and my own anxieties and fears.

Oddly, though, in those moments I don't look at myself and say, "Oh, what a pathetic mess! My God, woman, lose 20 lbs, get something moving with your career, be more assertive, more creative! Really." What I'm left with after these moments is usually a sense of space, of strength, even gratitude. I see the opportunities in front of me and feel, if only for a few minutes, that stepping into them would be simple. I find that I am free from the accordion-like expansion of my list of chores and faults.

It's like a mini-vacation, and I wish I could take one everyday.

And then it occurs to me, since it is Lent and I should be attempting some sort of spiritual life, that this is more or less what prayer offers. And I could do it everyday. Not the nearly-mechanical prayers offered before work, meals, or bed. But the kind of prayer that comes from making space inside myself for God, and surrendering the consequences of such space. Of the joy in what I have right now, instead of pining after a neighborhood we do not yet live in, for local friends I do not yet have, for creative recognition for projects yet incomplete.

I know and yet I do not know. It is the time-honored dilemma: I know with this my head and not my heart. And it's not more knowledge that will make the difference in my life-- dear brain forever whirling around itself--but more prayer. More space for God: God inside me, inside Ike, and even inside the smiling monkey doormat. God is here, now. That's the point. I keep losing sight of God, and correspondingly, of myself.

hospital corners solve nearly everything

In what may be a futile attempt to curb my so-called "baby fat," I recently joined the New York Sports Club, after having been sold on the $5/hour babysitting service on the premises.

I put off joining a gym for quite awhile because there were none within a reasonable walking distance. But this gym is only 2 stops away on the subway and I can get to there in less than 10 minutes, that is, if I don't take Ike. If I take Ike, well, it's a 30 minute one-way commute, what with stopping to investigate doggy-poo, ubiquitous chicken-bone litter, and all siren-blaring vehicles. (Not to mention the awkward maneuver through the subway turnstile; Ike often exclaims "oh wow!" when we get to the other side, as if surprised we succeeded.) Nonetheless, I was quite keen on returning to a exercise routine.

Our first trip to the gym was invigorating. I congratulated myself on being such an active mother, envisioning my pre-baby clothes fitting again. But my son had a different response. Isaiah decided that being stuck in a room with 5 other toddlers watching Dora the Explorer while his mother disappeared into a loud gym pulsating to P. Diddy was absolutely unacceptable. So on our next visit he did what he does when things are unacceptable--he threw a tantrum.

I was summoned back to the nursery only to find Ike plastered to the glass door, screaming at the top of his lungs. He calmed down when he saw me, and we sat together for 20 minutes or so. I managed to continue my work-out in 10-minute spurts, punctuated by leisurely rest-and-reassurance sessions in the nursery. Of course, this ensured our stay at the gym lasted three times as long as necessary. I tried the nursery again a few days later, in the hope that the last visit was an anomaly. But Ike's second screaming spell was more intense than the first, and I was obliged to call my babysitter to come up and get him so I could work-out.

Not one to give up hope, I tried again this morning. But Ike started shrieking before we even got into the nursery, and with no babysitter back-up, I turned around and made the laborious trek back home. Promptly upon arriving home I finished off a chocolate bar in frustration--just the thing to console myself over an unsuccessful trip to the gym.

But I came out of my funk, made the bed--replete with taut hospital corners--, fed my son lunch and put him down for a nap. Then I did some leg-lifts and crunches on the living room floor.

enter the blog

It's 9:00 AM and I'm already stuck. My brain a hamster on a wheel, trying to solve a problem that is--at least for the moment--unsolvable. And God knows it's not going to be solved by running through the facts again and coming up with endless variations on the same speech. For the last five days my brain was unusually free of the hamster wheel, and those were some lovely productive days. So when the train of my thought got snagged on the treadmill this morning, I balked.

Enter the blog: the blog as therapy, the blog as confessional, the blog as a path (may I even suggest?) to redemption.

When I push that "publish post" button, a wave of relief and resolve sends me gliding along into my day: lose ends neatly tied, or at least explicitly untied, placing my minute struggles on a larger narrative trajectory. How satisfying. And I've said nothing here but to blog about blogging, which is probably the same as communicating about communication--something my husband refuses to do. I feel better, but my reader is likely irritated.

It's 9:30 and my son has found a tube of diaper rash cream and is carefully smearing it on his bedsheets. A half an hour and I've found my way out, at least for the next few minutes.

nighttime + separation anxiety + tantrums = the vaporization of motherly love

As I write this Ike is screaming god-awful bloody-murder. His wail is relentless and unnerving, like a wild animal in heat. It doesn't help much that he is in his own room: in our Manhattan-sized apartment his crib is less than 12 feet from where I sit. Last night he did this for four hours, despite all our attempts to comfort him. When Charles and I went to bed at 11:30, I wheeled his crib into our room next to our bed. I dozed off at midnight, with Ike still standing upright, holding the rail of his crib, gazing intently at my face. As long as I lay facing him he remained mostly quiet.

It has been a few weeks of this behavior. I know I'm not the first mother who has faced a wailing child who will not sleep. But this is the first challenge I've faced as a parent--Ike was always a good night sleeper, even as an infant. I'm rather unnerved by how viscerally I hate him after he's screamed a mere hour. One hour and I'm ready to donate him to the Goodwill. A few mornings ago I could not even look at him. I was pissed that he'd screeched like a barbarian for more than three hours that night; lacking sleep, and any warm motherly feeling, I drank my coffee and looked out the window, ignoring him.

Today I bought a CD player & night-light that attaches to the crib. I burned him a CD of the choir of the Convent of St John of Kronstadt in St Petersberg. They have a very calming sound, almost like the pouring of water. I found a small icon of St Herman of Alaska which I placed in his crib. And now, after putting him to bed at 7:30, I have my prayer book ready and plan to read through it until (God willing) he falls asleep. As I write this, I go back into his room every five minutes or so and read a little more to him. He calms down while I pray, watching me. I'm nearly finished with Vespers at this point.

I have done a lot of web research. I don't think we're dealing with night terrors, he isn't necessarily asleep when the howling begins. I think it's some combination of separation anxiety, fear of the dark, lingering sickness, and a stubborn tantrum-prone nature. And the fact that, while he was sick, I let him sleep in our bed in order to better monitor him.

But the news for this evening is good. By the end of Compline he'd succumbed to sleep. I had to hold him down a bit to get him on his back, then violently rocked the crib so that he couldn't get back up on his feet, all the while reading Compline over the soft singing of St Petersburg nuns.

Ah. How wonderful he is when he's asleep. I might even love him again.

the tale of the (un)hidden housekeeper

Yesterday was one of those unproductive days where I have aspirations to get something done, if only Ike would stop fussing long enough so I could think of what it was that I needed to do. On days like this I've learned to put Ike in the stroller and go for a walk, because while I push I can sometimes remember what I wanted to be doing all along. But more than likely, by the time I've remembered, I've walked myself 15 blocks in the wrong direction.

Yesterday I was out pushing, considering what was to be done about babysitting on Thursday, (which was tomorrow then, and today today). Because today was the day the housekeeper was coming.

The housekeeper. I love her, I adore her, I live for the days she arrives and brings tidiness to my life. Nevertheless, I am deeply embarrassed to have a housekeeper. My dilemma on this particular occasion was this: I needed babysitting as much as I needed housekeeping, as I had freelance work that must be completed. And while my housekeeper is housekeeping she cannot also be babykeeping, so I must find someone else to tend to Ike. The catch is: I'd be dreadfully embarrassed if my babysitter knew I had a housekeeper. The babysitter must never know that I, in fact, do not scrub my bathroom floor myself. Shouldn't I be able to keep my tiny 600 square foot apartment clean all by myself?

My babysitter is a spunky Dominican woman from my parish who is liberal with mothering advice and political prattle. If she met my kindly Dominican housekeeper, think of all the things they could they say to each other in Spanish! Oh me oh my. So yesterday, after pushing Ike for at least 10 blocks, I called the babysitter and arranged for her to come from 9:00 to 11:00, as the housekeeper wasn't to arrive until 11:30--I would just have to get all my work done in those two hours.

This morning I was out the door and working at the office by 9:00, tapping through my emails productively. At 10:30 the babysitter called, and in her strong Dominican accent said, "Amber, there is someone here to clean your house." (Of course, because I get very little cell phone reception in the basement, it took three phone calls to get this information across.) Flummoxed and foiled I stammered, "Well, of course, let her in." Sheesh! Now they're sitting on my couch, parenting Ike together without me, I thought.

Walking home I called Charles, "Can I still be a nice person and have a housekeeper?" I asked. "Yes, and you'll get over your shame. Because you shouldn't have any," he said. And maybe I will, as long as my other babysitter doesn't find out.

ah, to be single again...

I'm not cut out to be a wife or mother. I lose my touch with projects more demanding than watching snow fall or drinking coffee, although I think I could manage drinking coffee while watching snow fall.

This afternoon I fell asleep after buckling Ike into his bouncy chair in front of a Baby Einstein DVD. I had originally thought he might fall asleep on the bed with me, but he seemed more interested in whimpering while attempting to eat my hair. So I decided, despite the dire predictions of Neil Postman, to raise my child in front of the television. At least in front of Baby Einstein, C-SPAN, and the sleazy 1970s crime movies that Charles keeps bringing home.

Ike cooed while purple zebra puppets painted Monet scenes, and I fell asleep thinking worried thoughts about the laundry I'd left in the laundry room. When Ike started crying, I was behind the glass wall of sleep. My limbs were too heavy to move, and besides, I was involved in a dream where my neighbors were rummaging through the sheets in my laundry basket. A xylophone version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons was playing over and over. I don't know how long Ike cried, but I must have finally got up and brought him back to bed with me, because when I woke up an hour later he was there, still crying and tugging on my hair.

The sun had set, my laundry was hogging all the dryers in the laundry room, xylophone Vivaldi trilled from the menu page of the Baby Einstein DVD, and Charles has sent a text message saying he was staying late at the office. Something had to be made for dinner.

I think I was a lot better at being single.

9 hours 12 minutes: begrudgingly receiving

Almost a year ago I wrote a post entitled "you make me feel like an incompetent woman" about the guilt I felt when Charles does things for me. Nearly a year later, navigating NYC with an infant in tow, I find that I must ask help from people all the time.

Recently, on the trip back from Honolulu to New York, I needed help, and knowing that made me all shades of irritated and resentful. When the crew called for those with children to board first, I guiltily passed the waiting crowds, worried they'd all be thinking "oh no, a baby!" I'd been assigned a seat at the bulk head, which I'd read was good for mothers with babies, but why was beyond me as there was no place to store my diaper bag at arms length. A middle-aged Asian lady sitting across the aisle from me offered to stow it in the overhead compartment, and I thanked her, feeling guilty for being a burden and annoyed that the diapers, wet-wipes, and my reading material was now out of reach. The seat next to me was empty and the man on the other side of it looked over at Ike and said, "well, you've got your hands full! I'll get the bag down for you later if you need it." I nodded nervously, smiling, assuming he was thinking "oh, crap, I wonder if I can get a different seat." I turned away and began to nurse Ike, hoping no one else would take notice of me and that oh God, pretty please the seat next to me would stay empty.

Much of the time I prefer that people take no notice of me. And asking for help is bringing attention directly to myself, like saying, "hey, come here and chat!" to perfect strangers. I worry: How can I repay them? Will they think I'm rude because I won't want to talk? What's the point of talking to someone I'll never see again? Or more poignantly, the self-criticism: Why don't I just relax and enjoy talking to strangers? I dread being drawn into conversation with some horribly well-meaning person who'll yap my ear off. I suspect I'll be sitting there and thinking all sorts of snippy retorts in my head while saying with contrived politeness, "hmm, yes, I see." Although, for the record, this rarely happens. My fears are generally unfounded, and are based on an unbecoming social squeamishness.

I felt God must have heard my plea when the plane filled up with passengers while the seat next to me remained empty. I had just begun to gloat when the stewardess announced they were selling the remaining seats to stand-by fliers. Within minutes a tall, thin, and well-tanned woman in her mid-30s sat down next to me. She smiled vacantly when she saw Ike and crooned, "ooooh, is that your baby?" I paused and tentatively said "yes..." thinking, but not saying, "no, I stole him from a couple in the airport." What the hell? Just the kind of communication I hate. This 9 hour 12 minute flight was going to be awful. She was probably returning from vacationing on Maui with her college sorority sisters. Ugh. Serves her right to sit next to a baby.

Me and my evil thoughts. I don't feel nice thinking them, which adds to my general bad mood. When the stewardess came by to offer drinks, I was slinking lower into my seat, Ike asleep on my lap, my eyes glued to the monitor announcing 8 hours 24 minutes left on the flight. But maybe God heard my prayer after all. "Do you want a bassinet?" she asked. "Sure," I said, "if it's no problem." When she returned, my well-tanned neighbor helped attach it to the wall directly in front of her seat and offered to switch seats with me if I liked.

I didn't get but a few hours sleep on the plane, but the baby slept well in his little carriage. When I drifted off to sleep the man two seats over watched Ike, even putting his pacifier back in when he became fussy. He commended me for breast-feeding, and told me about his own children. The Asian woman offered to hold Ike so I could go to the bathroom, and helped me change Ike's diaper as well. Ike was as good as could be expected, and no one seemed terribly put-out by his presence. Ms Well-Tanned slept most of the trip, and my heart softened toward her when I noticed how unhappy she looked asleep. The same friendly man who watched over Ike struck up a conversation with her, and I overheard her say she had gone to Maui to get some space after a painful breakup with her boyfriend. Sigh. I'm so quick to judge the well-tanned, successful-looking people of the world.

All said, it was a fairly good 9 hour flight, primarily because of the help of strangers and Ike's good temperament. What kind of example do I set for my son if I slink down to determinedly do everything myself instead of accepting what God so freely gives me through those around me? I know this is one of the challenges of my personality: to learn how to graciously respond to strangers without allowing my suspicious nature and fragile ego to get in the way. I can ask for help when I need it, and enjoy receiving it, and not to take myself and everyone else so seriously. The words of St Philaret ring true, "in unforeseen events let me not forget that all are sent by you."

the blog resumes: with or without a working vocabulary

Well. Maybe I will do this again. In stops and starts. 5 minutes here. For the last year my journal entries, months apart, usually consist of two and a half sentences virtually identical to each other in exhausted pathos. It takes more than three sentences to write yourself into hope.

As I sit at my computer, my 4-month old son Ike, sleeps. Because he doesn't nap for long I won't be able to finish this post. Not now. While he sleeps I may have time to tidy our small apartment, take a short shower, or chop carrots for beef stew. Or, less usefully, play Word Twist and update my facebook status. Blogging requires a working vocabulary, linear thought, and a sense of humor. Which is a little much to ask of me lately.

I dread putting words to this transition: the new wife and mother roles haven't congealed and much of the time I feel like I'm play-acting at being myself. I imagined I'd step into a new life like putting on a velvety bathrobe, but so far it's been more like getting dressed in junior high. In the last year I've gotten pregnant, gotten married four times over, moved twice, bought my first condo, gave birth, and left the publishing job where I've been employed for the last nine years. As if transitioning to caring for an infant, with all the sleep depravation entailed, wasn't work enough. I just don't have time to think, which sort of rules out processing all these changes.

I've spent the last two weeks in Holualoa, Hawaii with Fr John and Jenny Schroedel. And although I can't honestly say that I had much time to think while here (the Schroedel's youngest daughter Natalie is a little two-year-old tornado), I've at least had time to think about not thinking. Which led to this blog post on my last night in Hawaii.

Their cavernous house is quiet now, the kids are all asleep, and the sound of crickets fills the cool night air. Ike and I fly back to New York tomorrow, to Charles and our tiny green-walled apartment in wintry South Harlem. Maybe I can begin processing this mother-wife thing online, in stops and starts, with or without glamorous graphics and linear thought. As Amber Schley Iragui. No more Lucy.