Reproductive/Non-productive

I never feel like writing. I never feel like drawing or painting. I barely even feel like reading.

This is a strange time in my life.

I am the person who writes/draws/reads constantly. Any blank moment is filled with one of those activities. The urge is almost unbelievable.

Except for now. Except for this pregnancy. I don't even want to write in the journals I've been keeping for, oh, twenty one years. All I want to do is lay around, watch tv, web surf, and fllip through magazines.

I suppose I have to chalk it up to being pregnant. All that creative energy is going somewhere else-- making a baby.

I have to say, that in this rational age of science and technology, that just doesn't make any sense. Why should the physical act of gestation-- with all it's attendant growth patterns and umbilical cords and oxygen transfers-- why should it pull on whatever it is that makes me an artist? And it isn't just a basic level of energy thing. There are times within my pregnancy where I have energy, but I end up decorating or cleaning--- nesting. And there are times before I got pregnant where I've had no energy, and I would curl up with my journal and paint a picture or write about how I felt. None of that now.

There's got to be something else involved in being and artist-- and making a baby, something that is shared. What is it? What could it be?

I don't know, but the idea comforts me, somewhat. A lot of my frustration right now is born out of the fear that maybe I won't be able to write and paint anymore, or even want to. Maybe my artist days are over. But if my non-productivity can be understood due to my re-productivity, maybe I can let go of that fear and frustration.

I even did one of those on line tarot readings. I actually read tarot cards for other people, but have problems reading for myself. Too hard to keep my desires and fears out of the interpretation, but the on line thing had interpretations already set up, which I could then understand in my situation. And frankly what it told me was that it was time to reconcile those parts of myself-- the mother and the artist. It also pointed out that what was truly mine could never be lost. Oh and all sorts of things that gave me faith in my ability to retain "the artist."

Society is wierd. It says all sorts of things about what a mother is and isn't. It's really easy to buy into that.

I am going to create again. Art, writing, not just babies. I am. I'm going to work really hard on it, because it's important.
But all I know is that, yes I am going to be a mother, but I am also Rowena, and that is who has something really important to give to her son. Not someone who has drowned herself in motherhood and her child. Just like in any relationship, a romantic relationship as well as a maternal one, a person has to keep her identity, right? Sure, change and transform along with life, but retain her individuality, right?

Is This About Chickens or Is it About May?

I can't believe it's May. I think I thought Spring would never come. I think I thought it was the Winter that would never end.

Silly girl. No faith.

Spring always comes.

There are all sorts of cyclical turns in life. Day to night. Winter to Spring to Summer to Fall. Life and Death. The water cycle.

It's the circle of life.

You can't tell that I'm singing The Lion King.

But within the circle, there are also unpredictabilities. (Is that a word?) Who knows what's coming next. Who knew what happened would happen. Like my internet going down for a couple weeks. I had no clue that would happen. One day, I just woke up, and no internet.

But even the surprises in life don't come from out of the blue. Okay, sometimes they do, but even when they do, you aren't left hanging. Sooner or later, some sort of cycle, habit, pattern, understanding begins to come clear.

Good thing. Otherwise, we'd be running around all the time like chickens with their heads cut off, never knowing what to do next. And even the chickens kinda run around in circles.

So Tired

I just got home after nine hours of my crappy, tedious porn job. It's cold outside. After only two days, spring slipped back towards Winter. The wind was blowing and the walk to my apartment was so sharp. My back is still killing me from hours in a bad office chair. And everybody on the subway is just too stupid to lilve.

I'm so tired I could cry. That's all. That's all I feel, this exhausted simmering frustration. I can't imagine how I could have survived this pregnancy stuff while I was still waiting tables and bartending. I can't imagine what would have happened while I was teaching. I'm barely surviving this job, and I don't have to put out any energy except the energy to put up with stupid porn blurbs like this:" watch these Meatholes (AKA whores) be verbally and physically dominated intil their worthless souls are revealed in a cornucopia of sex, bottled up emotions, and semen guzzling." Yes, this is a quote that illustrated all that is wrong with the porn industry.

But I don't even want to talk about that. I'm just too tired and hormonal. I'm afraid it just gets worse before it gets better. And I'm even more afraid that it doesn't get better for years and years. But there's so much I have to do-- I mean in my life-- and I'm just so tired.



Definitely this is a quote that points out to me all that is wrong with the porn industry.

Mercy

I haven't quite figured out the cycles of this pregnancy thing.

A few days ago I was in a frenzy of cleaning (well, frenzy for me) and then I was busy with meeting a friend and wandering around Greenwich Village in the beautiful Spring-like weather. Okay, it was actually Spring, but it's been so cold, I don't quite believe it. I went ot a movie with Sean and stayed out late-- almost 10 0'clock!

A few days before I was in a funk. Just kind of pissed off, the kind where you growl under your breath at innocent people trying to walk down the street because you think they're taking up the whole sidewalk, or something stupid like that.

And yesterday, I was a lump. Couldn't get up from the couch. Gave up and stayed there, reading, napping, snacking. At first I was angry at myself, thought I should be able to get something done, but then I realized that sometimes our bodies tell us what we should be doing. Those are signals-- hunger, pain, exhaustion-- signs we need to eat, to rest, to sleep.

I am often angry with myself. I don't live up to my own expectation. I expect I should be perfect, and I'm not. Then I get angry and start beating myself up. I'm lazy, boring, irresponsible, stupid-- whatever it is that day that makes me less than perfect.

I'm still working on allowing myself to be human. Being human in general means that sometimes you are on top of things, and sometimes you are not, sometimes you fail, sometimes you do less. Does that mean YOU SUCK!? No, no. It means you're human.

And being pregnant it's almost like everything is heightened. I am even more at the mercy of my internal workings. Workings, I might add, that I seem to have no control over.

Maybe what I need to do, in life, as in pregnancy, is to learn how to just go with the flow. Whatever is, simply is. It doesn't mean I suck. Neither does it mean I am a good person-- because then I fall into the trap of sucking again, simply because I don't meet the next expectation. I really need to stop judging myself, and give myself the same leeway that I give others.

Maybe I should also stop trying to be in total control of me. I am a self control freak, and here I am, pregnant and at the mercy of hormones and food intake and sleep urges. I feel almost as if I have to yield myself to this new life.

A wierd idea. I've been so independent for so long. Is this preparation for the kid to come?

this is me 

A Calling

I feel wrapped up and tied tightly in all my multitude of thoughts like sticky strands of spider web.

I am in the middle of my "weekend." Which is to say, the couple of days off I have in the middle of the week. I always want to get stuff done on these days, but this week isn't looking very promising. Yesterday I was a lump, surfing the web and watching tv and reading books I've read a million times already. I also attempted to take a nap. I know that I have been napping every day since about October, but this week, that's actually stopped. No more naps. Does that mean the exhaustion has stepped back a little? In which case, as in my prenapping days, I only nap when I'm sick/getting sick. So the fifteen or so minutes last night, I figured, is actually because I'm fighting off a cold.

Why is this important? Well, if I really am getting sick, then it explains the last few days of doinng absolutely nothing of importance.

I'm getting nervous. I'm terrified that I won't be ready for when the baby comes. There's so much to do. There's so much to buy-- good lord-- baby making these days is an exercise in being a good materialist. I know my parents didn't obsess over getting all the things you "have" to get. The layette. The gear. The matching 500$ bedding set. More and more and more. I read all about it and start believing I really need all that stuff. It's freaking me out. We don't have the money for all that stuff. I wonder who exactly DOES have the money for that. Have we reached the point yet where only the rich can have babies in America. Of course we haven't. Maybe I'm just getting suckered into the consumerist society.

I have a couple of friends who are giving me a few baby things. They both say they are done having kids. One friend has already given me a cosleeper and has a pack and play and slings and play mats, etc. The other friend has baby boy summer clothes. The offers made me feel good for two reasons-- one, it makes me think maybe we CAN afford it, and two, it's nice to know I have friends. Sean, however, seems to be saying the only thing we need is a queen size bed and a bigger couch. He wants me to put them on the registry.

Look at me obsessing over all the STUFF. (and the money it costs.)

Maybe if I were to get up and start doing stuff I wouldn't feel this way. Maybe if I cleaned out the baby-to-be's room I would feel productive. Maybe if I started writing again I wouldn't feel like my reason for existence was simply waiting for the baby to be born.

But my thoughts do swirl around having a baby. Every once in a while, I just get the urge to hold the baby in my arms. And yet, there's no baby to hold.

Is that hormones? Baby obsession, is that part of the process? Is it normal to be turned into an incubator? Is it normal to not be caught up in any of the things I used to do? Writing, painting, going out with friends, reading for intellectual stimulation, not just comfort and to pass the time? I feel as if I am wasting my time here. I mean I have all this time available. I have plenty to really get back into my dreams and goals and what I used to call my calling.

But my calling is not calling. Or maybe it is calling, but so quietly that the screaming, squawling baby making hormones are drowning it out.

What would happen if I sat for a while, maybe meditating, very quietly, and listened, listened really closely to the silence? What would I hear?

Shhh....

Feed the Dream

Here I am at my porn job, waiting for my colleague to finish pulling dirty movies so we can stuff them into envelopes and sticker them closed.

It seems as if my life has taken a doozy of a swerve.

But then, all is not as it seems.

Strangely, I think I have somehow gotten back on track with the life I really wanted for myself, the one I had been planning, or perhaps not planning, maybe it was more a "dreaming of" thing.

I've always wanted to be a writer. I've always wanted to have kids. I've always wanted to have a home. I've always wanted to teach-- although the what and where, and to whom has changed.

When I pictured my life it was me, in a home full of plants and light, with the kids, and a partner, doing my writing, surrounded by art and music and pets and people who care. I dreamed of being published, not just my novels, but also essays, articles. I dreamed of people asking me (okay, paying me) to come and talk to them. I think I dreamed about being an authority, of knowing what the hell I was doing, and having people trust in me.

Right now, my life is wierd. I work in porn, for godsake-- but I'm realistic. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and I needed to take this job. But this job does not take me off my path. Even though the pay is shit, and the business is wierd, and it's not gonna go anywhere, it actually is getting me closer to doing what I really want to do than teaching high school ever did.

Okay, let me qualify that. Teaching, and the masters degree that went with it, and the people I met, and the experience I got, and the research I did-- those all got me closer to being who I wanted to be, to knowing what I was doing, to being a grown up. But being an actual teacher was like getting sucked the wrong channel of a river. I'm still on the same river, but it is not going where I want to be going. I kept trying to get back to the other part of the river, but kept getting dragged back into the rapids and rocks of teaching. I spent a lot of energy fighting that flow.

Now there is no fighting the flow my life is taking me on.

The only fight is within myself. Which is actually a good place to be fighting if you're an artist. That's where all the richness is. That's actually why this blog is named Warrior Girl. The struggle to live into myself. To be the best me. To be creative and productive.

And I wasn't about to change the struggle just because I have a wiggly peanut growing inside of me.

Isn't it all part of the same thing? The same dream. Isn't being the best you the greatest thing you can do for your children, your family. I certainly know that when I am not creative, I'm not very much fun to be around. I'd rather feed myself so I have something to give to my baby when he gets here. And to my boyfriend, because he deserves to not have a dependent, boring leech sucking off his vitality.

I also can't let having a baby change my goals of being a writer-- an actual working writer, who publishes and gets paid, and someday does speaking engagements and teaches classes-- because, frankly, I gotta make some money. I may not get rich, but that's the way I've chosen to make my living. So I can not only feed myself and my family metaphorically, I can feed them literally, too.

Bump

It's late, but I just ate penne puttanesca, and I don't think it's wise to lay down and go to sleep. So instead, why not jot down some of the thoughts that have been going through my head?

I'm at twenty four weeks, and it's pretty clear that I'm pregnant, although I suppose with all the layers you need in the continuing cold weather, it would be easy to miss the bump. But even though strangers on the street might not know I'm pregnant, something's changing in me-- I mean, aside from the ever growing belly.

For the first time, I think I'm starting to enjoy being pregnant. Wierd. It must be those motherly hormones kicking in. I like my belly. I like the little tumblings and turnings. I may be over dramatizing my inability to get up from the bed so Sean has to help me. It will get worse, I know. It will all get worse, but perhaps I'm finally getting over the overwhelming exhaustion, and that alone makes me feel better. I hope it doesn't get worse in a way that flattens me like in the first trimester.

Jazz-Hippie-Punk-Poet

I figured out what was going on right now with me was this struggle to keep my identity in the face of being pregnant. Everything I've read lately has either been in the goo-goo-ga-ga pink and blue mommy school, or the materialistic, class-conscious, nanny and million dollar uptown co-op mommy school.

I am neither. I want to be neither. I'm a jazz-hippie-punk-poet. I was raised this way. I was raised chanting buddhist prayers and listening to jazz and painting and writing, poor as dirt, but never poverty stricken, well educated, well read, creative open minded. My whole life I've been-- not a "hipster," that's a new thing and a lot more about being cool, but an actual bohemian. And I don't mean neo-luxe-boho, like in Vogue magazine. How can you be a bohemian and spend a thousand bucks on your jeans?

And here I am indulging in labels...

I don't want to be put in a box. Maybe I've been feeling the pressure to fit into some corner of society, now that I'm becoming a mother. You know, you have to be responsible. You have to drive a volvo. It's scary, because I don't even know how to drive. There's no place in my life for Talbots. (I got a catalogue in the mail. It asked "what kind of classic are you?" I found it all too polished, too conservative, bland, boring. I guess I'm no kind of classic. [I'm back on the labels...])

Why shouldn't it be possible to stay who you are and become a mother? Why do we always want things so easily definable? We can't all be June Cleaver. I think we've come to the conclusion that June Cleaver wasn't June Cleaver. Now we've moved on to "SuperMom."

I still wan't to be an artist. I still want to be a writer. I still have a pierced eyebrow and a tattoo. I'd like more tatoos. I feel like I'm being judged for the life I want to live. I feel like some of my friends want me to go back to being a teacher because it's secure. Does it matter if it was crushing my soul? Does it matter if I was pouring my heart out into helping my kids, and leaving nothing for me, for what I wanted to do in my life, for my art?

I don't know what's going to happen. I know things will change utterly. I'm okay with that, but that doesn't mean I have to transform into a yuppie or a guppie. ("Guppie?" I don't know, it rhymed. Kinda gives the impression of something soft and mushy. Goo-goo-ga-ga? I'm going with it.) Maybe I can be a bohemian mama. Why not? My mom was. Maybe I can be a jazz-hippie-punk-poet mama. I like the idea.

Hmm... maybe I can toss out all the labels all together... I don't know.. just be? Kind of spooky.

Like life, huh?

Little Monkey

A few days ago, we went to get our sonogram. Sean actually came with me, although he grumbled and complained about having to go. It's funny, but, at the beginning, he was like, "no way. That's woman stuff. I don't want to have anything to do with it, it's your job." But either that's just his hair trigger response to anything feminine, and he thought better of it, or he's getting advice from all the guys at work, all of them family men. Chances are it's a combination of both.

So we saw the little monkey on screen. They always talk about how you may not be able to see anything, it's just a blur-- but for us it was crystal clear, right away. Wierd. There's a baby inside of me, not just indigestion. Right away there was this great profile shot, as if the kid was saying, "hi there, take a picture of me." You could see fingers and toes-- ten of each. Everything looked in order.

More than the still shots, was when the technician ran the wand over the baby, and you could see everything taking form, like when you have single shots in a cartoon and they flip together to make a moving form. With this, as the wand went over all the 2D images, they blurred together leaving the impression of a 3D form. Cool. Strange. It's amazing what technology can do.

Then the technician asked if we wanted to know the sex, and I looked at Sean. He'd been dragging about that, changing his mind a couple of times, even though I wanted to know. But again, he said okay, and she told us it was a boy.

First thing Sean said was, "the next great Yankees center fielder."

So what I was convinced was going to be a girl, is actually going to be a boy. I'm glad we found that out, because I was really uncomfortable with the possibility that my certainty would be wrong and I would be bonding to a supposed girl until a little wiggly popped out. Then it would just be wierd.

Okay, so I didn't mean to do all the gushy-girl pregnant lady stuff, obsessed with babies, but there was a point to this. See, somehow, once I'd had the sonogram, I guess something clicked. It might have been that we found out everything seems okay. I can't actually believe that this whole process is going the way it's supposed to. I couldn't believe that I actually WORK.

I started going on line for baby supplies, starting a registry. I don't know it may just be playing, pretend shopping, kind of, but just looking at baby boy clothes and cribs and toys and all that makes it more real. I also finally sent out a mass email to all the people I'd lost contact with, told them about moving in with Sean, being pregnant, having a son. Fifteen minutes after I sent it, I got a phone call from one student, and then another, and then later that night a whole bunch of emails from friends.

See-- I do have friends.

So, maybe one of the reasons I have been so out of touch with everyone was because I was actually in a holding pattern. I know that early on, I didn't know if I would end up carrying to term. Who ever does, and that was one of the reasons I was holding back. Later on, there was always the "what if". What if there was something wrong? What if I had to... well, not have it? And maybe I was also trying to comprehend for myself that there was someone completely separate from me growing inside of me.

I'm telling you, I find it hard to comprehend that women have always done this. It's bizarre process. Something from nothing. Some alien being sucking energy from your body. Who invented this? Wouldn't leaving a clutch of eggs under a leaf make more sense. We could come back when the kid was ready and pick it up. That would work just as well, wouldn't it?