The Everyday Sublime

            It has been just over six weeks since I gave birth to my daughter, and, whenever she is peacefully napping, I find myself thinking, how have I not written about childbirth and being a parent yet? Then, at the same time, I think, how could I possibly write about those things? I don’t mean how could I find the time, although, I will admit there is very little of it between all of the feeding, cuddling, crying, diaper changing, and general attempts to maintain a semblance of normalcy in my home and life. As tiny as my daughter is, she has changed everything in my life, but I have never been happier. What I mean is that having a baby is the most amazing experience I have ever had in my life. It has swallowed me whole, and I am immersed in the experience while staring at it overwhelmed and awe-inspired from inside my own head. I am in it and consumed by it, like the quotidian sublime of the ocean or never ending fields in the Midwest. It is something that happens everyday, and, yet, it is one of the greatest things a human being can experience. While I can write about the details, tell you everything that has happened and even fit it into a swell narrative arc, I can’t quite find the words to describe the experience as a whole, an experience that is greater than me. It is like trying to describe the ocean to someone who has never seen it before. It is blue, it smells salty, and any list of descriptive details could be used, but the details don’t quite cut it. You can’t quite understand until you see it for yourself because it isn’t just each sensory detail that adds up to make the thing, it is the experience.

You realize this when you become a parent. You think back to all of those times you rolled your eyes at your parents for worrying about you when you didn’t call or came home late. You finally feel what they felt, this all embracing feeling of love, a love that must worry and protect. You finally feel what it is like to want the very best for someone and to know in your heart that you will do anything to give your child that. Everything that your parents have done and continue to do for you becomes illuminated, and you begin to understand that you were probably right to adore them as a child and look at them as superheroes. They are superheroes. Every parent should be their child’s superhero. And, if you have friends who had children before you, you know you have heard them say all of this, there is nothing else like it, it is the most amazing experience in the world, I wouldn’t change it for anything. And you nodded, and you believed them, but you didn’t really understand, you can’t really understand, until it happens to you.

But, while it may seem impossible to write about this experience, it isn’t. It just takes finding the right moments and describing the perfect mix of details about those moments. There is no recipe, but it can be done. That is the challenge of a writer. You have to write about those tiny, poignant moments when you felt most deeply. Of course, you can’t live every moment like that or you would probably melt into a puddle on the floor, unable to function as an adult. Believe me, this has happened to me. So, instead of feeling everything all the time, we let those moments flutter into our lives and we never forget them. We return to them when the pain or mundanity of life has made us feel numb. Those are the poignant moments we write about. I can think of no better place to start then when the nurses placed my daughter on my chest for the first time, she began to nurse, and I stared at her tiny hands and full head of brown hair. A smile burst on my face and I couldn’t stop looking at her. Despite all the commotion around me and the doctor sewing me up, there was nothing else in the room for me at that moment except for my daughter and me, dissolved into happiness.

Remembering Nanny

My grandmother passed this morning, and I have so many happy memories with her. I wanted to share this essay, one of my very early pieces of writing (from high school!), about some of the most memorable parts of visiting my grandparents at their home in Florida.

The sun beamed in through the windows of the car creating a warm sensation on my shoulders and cheeks. I felt the car stop moving, and the monotonous hum of the vehicle came to a halt. I opened my eyes and looked between the two front seats occupied by my parents. I observed a black stone eagle mounted on a garage. If that image alone had not been enough to verify where we were, my sister’s next comment would have surely cleared things up. “We’re here! We’re finally here! Let’s go find Nanny and Pappy!” Without a second thought, before my mom or dad could tell us to carry our bags in, my sister and I had escaped into our grandparents’ arms.

            “I have something for you girls once we get inside,” Nanny said with her pleasant, grandmotherly charm. The smiles already glowing on our faces seemed to defy all laws of nature as they grew in size.

            “I think they have something for us too, Loretta,” my Pappy said to her. My sister and I looked at each other in confusion. “What’s that you’ve got there?” he said with a chuckle, as he reached behind my sister’s ear and pulled out a quarter. “Look what I found behind your ear! Don’t you ever clean those things?” he exclaimed. My sister and I fell to the ground in a fit of high-pitched giggles.

            “You’re silly, Pappy,” my sister and I said still trying to stifle our laughter. Soon enough, my parents made their way over. With the adult greetings initiated, we charged for the front door prepared to explore the fun and excitement that waited inside. Through the screen door, through the heavy brown door, we had finally made it into our childhood haven, the architectural sanctuary for our youthful memories and dreams.

            Visiting my grandparents’ Florida home was an annual event for my entire family. It was like a birthday, something I looked forward to every year. Each room was like a beautifully wrapped gift begging to be opened. Every door was my gateway into discovery, the taunting bow and paper that must be torn to reveal the contents of such an anticipated parcel. Entering every room was like diving in the box, something fun in every corner, something new for my grandma or grandpa to show me. Each year brought new surprises, but traditions remained as well. Everything I knew and loved lingered about the house year after year. My Nanny’s California Raisins and the grapefruit tree in the backyard were always just as I had left them.

            Before my journey through the house could begin, however, I was struck by an all too common ailment of those engaged in long travels. My feet moved quickly on the russet carpet; passing two bedrooms on my way, I reached my destination, the bathroom at the end of the hall. I turned the doorknob and entered a warm, bright room. My nose was suddenly filled with a sweet aroma. My eyes caught a glimpse of the source. A basket filled with a variety of shower accoutrements was placed daintily upon the commode; bath salts, bath beads, bubble bath, and even a set of a miniature shampoo and conditioner stood positioned in the vat of goodies. I reached in and pulled out a tiny round bath bead. It felt smooth in my fingers, and I suddenly had a desire to pop the ball and release its gooey contents. I squeezed it slightly but resisted my longing for destruction of the bead. Fearing the repercussions of such an action, I placed the bead safely back in its nest. Above the basket hung a tiny sign that my grandmother had cross-stitched, a hobby she later taught me one lackadaisical afternoon. I recited the words in my head as I looked at the elegant thread lettering, “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie.” I chuckled at the language that dangled on the wall before me, and it suddenly reminded me of my favorite entertainment in that land of luxury. I moved closer to the sink, and, sure enough, five tiny soaps in the shape of seashells were huddled on a beautiful dish. Before I had time to explore the fascinating sculptures further, however, I heard a knock at the door. It was my sister. “Hey, Dude is on Nickelodeon!” she said with excitement. The news grasped me out of fantasy land, and I hustled to finish my business at the end of the hall.

            My grandparents’ living room was a lavish suite for my sister and I. There was nothing particularly intriguing about the room. It was relatively small; a couch that folded out into a bed and two Lay-Z-Boy chairs took up the majority of the area’s space. Photographs coated every timbered wall almost as if there were no fortifications and only pictures from floor to ceiling. With seven children and an innumerable amount of grandchildren, there is almost no questioning as to why everywhere you looked in my grandparents’ living room, a smiling relative was looking back at you. There was one gripping feature of this room, however; it was of particular interest to my sister and me. Back at our own home in Frederick we did not yet have cable television. When we went to Florida, though, cable programming was at our fingertips for a whole week! It was the opportunity to view our favorite Nickelodeon shows like Hey Dude and David the Gnome whenever we wanted. It was perfectly dreamy sitting in front of the tube and turning the knob until the television rested on that sacred channel. The living room held grandeur like no other room in the house. The television, perfectly placed in the corner upon the earth-toned carpet, was of epic proportions. Cable programming could be viewed from any seat in the room, especially the up close and personal seats marked by four tiny dents from four tiny cheeks in the carpet.

            After an hour or so of being loyal strictly to that box that stood before us, the warm breeze of Florida in February began calling our name. The sun leaked into the living room, engulfing us with its warm glow. Surrounded by the flowing rays of light and the temperate zephyrs from outside, my sister and I saw no other solution but to relax in the screened-in-porch with our grandpa. The room was bright with vivacious green plants all around. A set of brilliant white patio furniture filled the room with the finest plastic in town. I could smell the citrus fruits of the grapefruit tree only a foot away. I heard a strange sound, a buzz, or maybe it was more of a hum. I looked at my grandpa slouched in a chair in the corner. His head was tilted back, and a strange noise came from his nose as his breath tickled his long nose hairs. He was asleep, and that strange noise was Pappy’s deep, billowing snore. My sister and I looked around and decided that that was the perfect setting for our salon. Armed with makeup and various pieces of hair décor, my sister and I beautified our deep sleeping Pappy. My mother came in and laughed so hard when she caught a glimpse of her father in blue eye shadow and pink lipstick. She called Nanny in, and the laughter that ensued was enough to wake the sleeping bear. Everyone was rolling with laughter, and after my Pappy was informed of the situation, he had a chuckle too. “You girls are sneaky,” he said as he gave us a great hug that lifted us from the ground.

            My sister and I were never finished exploring, and the end of our week in Florida always snuck up on us like a nasty cold. As our car pulled out of the driveway we smashed our hands and faces on the windows. Our eyes remained glued to the house, craving one last glimpse even as it grew smaller and smaller in the distance. Once the house was out of sight, and the black stone eagle could no longer be spotted, my sister and I eagerly began the countdown for next year’s thrilling trip.

Some Poetry.

Love.

Love weighs a lot.
No one tells you that.
As you grow up,
if you have good parents,
it might take you quite awhile to realize its weight.
Love, at that point,
is an invisible security blanket,
always around you,
always comforting you.

When that is the case,
It isn't until you feel your first heartbreak,
that you understand how much love really weighs,
that you understand how and when and if it is taken from you,
that you might suffocate from trying to breathe the air alone,
like you were stranded on a high mountaintop for the first time
without any oxygen.

You feel betrayed by what you had perceived to be the world,
like a goldfish who took the leap from his bowl,
but ended up flat and dried out,
air all around him,
but with no knowledge or abilities to take it all in.

But unlike the goldfish,
you survive.
Because you have to.
Abandonment and betrayal can destroy any blanket,
leaving you feeling naked and cold.
So, you must find your way back
to that original familial fabric,
the invisible one that was there from the very beginning.

The batting may have diminished over the years,
thinning in spots and clumping in others,
leaving the general texture of the thing a bit lumpy.
But when you hold it to your hot, tear-stained face,
you find that it still retains the power to comfort you,
to restore you to the perfect temperature.
When your face is red, warm, and swollen from the tears,
it wraps your face and cools you.
And it enables you to see
that while one blanket has been shed,
there are indestructible fabrics that still surround you.

As the familial fabric enraptures your face,
you feel a new blanket covering your shoulders.
The blanket is more of a quilt,
filled with shared squares of memories and love
of friends old and new, near and far.
It is there to swaddle you too,
as it had always been,
even when you thought you were all alone.

Those blankets hold you while you are weak.
They pad the fall, cool your fire, and warm your tiny, bleeding heart.
And, eventually, they give you the strength,
the strength you need to build a new blanket of you own,
to wrap around a new lover,
who, one can only hope,
has one to cover you that is as tightly knit as your own.