When we were in Philadelphia, Steve made my friend a slide show of our summer, and in it you could see how I’ve changed better than I’ve been able to tell on my own. It was a painful winter and spring, and the first trimester was a period of rest. You can see that I’m weaker, less content. I assume that carrying a baby takes a lot out of everyone who does it, but I’m amazed how tired I was. When I heard people say that pregnancy makes you tired, I thought they meant I would sleep. But it was a physical fatigue, maybe like mono, where it felt like my blood was replaced with lead. I remember having to push my body up against doors to try to open them with weight instead of strength. It’s difficult to be happy when you feel that heavy: breathing was difficult, getting up to make dinner was difficult, so definitely finding energy to laugh was difficult.

This leaden phase ended in St. Croix. One day I felt daunted about a three-hour hike, and the next day I was done with the hike and ready to go swimming. Looking back, I see in this unattractive photograph what I felt like. Unenthused, pale, swollen, dark circles under my eyes, breathing through my mouth to get more air.

July 27th, 2009 | Category: the baby thing | Comments (1)

I never get to use these colors, unreal blues. My eyes miss them now. I want to make a painting that holds these colors, or paint a room that surrounds me with them.

July 27th, 2009 | Category: inward | Leave a comment

One of my pet peeves is when I tell someone I’m pregnant and they say back, Well you better sleep now. Of course it’s true: I’ll be sleepless or at least energy-spent. But is that the only thing someone can think to say?

A small and perhaps ineffective comparison: when I went to graduate school I would wake up at 5am, drive to school, work all day, and pull back into the driveway at 11pm, have a glass of wine, try to reconnect with Steve and Rosie, clean, blog, go to bed exhausted, and wake up and do it again and again. But when I said I was in graduate school, no one ever made that sort of comment. Babies are exhausting, but is that all they are? Is that all people remember?

When I’ve explained to people why we’re traveling so much, I’ll say that we’re getting in our traveling now because once the baby comes we won’t get to travel for, I don’t know, at least a month. And it’s to let people know that I know that babies are not terribly mobile, and people laugh. But I said this to a neighbor down the street who is 50 and single and never had a child, that we won’t get to travel for a month, and she retorted, yeah, try 18 years.

Yesterday we were walking home from our morning walk and an 80-year-old lady down the street was out in her garden. She’s often out, and if we haven’t walked by for a few days, she’ll ask us where we’ve been. She’s deadpan, and at first we were intimidated by her gruffness, but she likes us because of our garden. One of you has coffee today and one of you doesn’t, she said as a hello when we walked by. / I’ll tell you why, Steve said, and pointed at my belly. /  I traded in caffeine for donuts, I said, to aid in explanation. She seemed unenthused and then asked about some new neighbors. When we said goodbye, she said, well I guess I’ll be seeing you coming a little easier now. That’s the best response to pregnancy news that I’ve heard yet.

July 27th, 2009 | Category: the baby thing | Leave a comment

July 23rd, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

July 20th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

July 18th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

In Saint Croix on a babymoon. Read two books in two days. We have a screen porch on the ocean, with two built-in soft benches. Behind the bed you can see the ocean. Right now I am in the sand in the dark listening to the ocean. We stopped at a fruit stand on the side of the road and bought the most delicious bananas. And mangos and starfruit and tomatoes. I have already had two virgin pina coladas. And today I walked the beach and then walked right into the ocean and tasted the saltiest water, so salty it feels like it could preserve you. Then I walked to my towel and fell asleep in the shade of a palm tree. Then I walked into a pool on my way to getting my virgin pina colada because I felt hot. Then I went back to my towel and read in the shade while Steve snorkeled and saw an octopus in the ocean. They are kind: if you reach out your hand they will gently touch a hand to yours. This one pretended to be a rock with one eye watching. Then we drove along the ocean. And ate dinner beside the ocean. We will fall asleep with the windows open, rocked to sleep by the ocean.

July 15th, 2009 | Category: happening | Comments (1)

I saw the art documentary Our City Dreams last night — interviews with five female artists who live and work in New York City. All alone in the house, a little scared in the dark, the dogs growling at blowing leaves, pregnant: it was ironic to watch a movie where women live alone and work and laugh at the idea of trading any work time for the time it would take to tend to children.

I can’t kick Kiki Smith. She’s one of those artists I should have probably outgrown, but I love

- her unabashed obsessing over death

- her drawing style

- installations with drawings and objects

- thin paper attached to the wall without frames

- her ability to make whole drawings about missing her dead cat

- pieces of paper that seem unprecious (old, faded, fold marks, wrinkles), attached together to make a bigger whole.

So much of what I draw has died. Once in a therapy session and I told the woman that I drew mostly dead things and she said well maybe someday you’ll draw things that are alive. As if my drawings reveal that I need therapy more than the next person, or as if death is not something we should see, or as if art is not about questions.

I tire of Kiki Smith’s black crows and other typical imagery of death, and I think it could be more specific. But each time I see her work I feel it personally.

July 13th, 2009 | Category: overheard | Comments (1)

July 13th, 2009 | Category: happening, house | Leave a comment