When Jonah was a baby, I wrote him some poetry. My best friend Gina shot and killed herself when boo was just 7 months old, and in my grief I went on a writing frenzy. They say the writing saves the writer and I know they’re right.
I need to write my Capital District Parent Pages article for September; it is due soon. What to say? I will submit it before he is gone, and it will be published and distributed after he is there. I may go back in time, like I did for my July article, where I spoke mostly about his natural swimming ability.
I have been re-visiting his past – my pregnancy, his babyhood, everything that led to now.
There is a poem I called Womb Magic – and parts of it again ring true; eerily similar to now. After wanting a waterbirth, I had to have a c-section; it was the opposite of what I’d wanted, just like this.
I need more magic, more faith. More freeing of my mind from worry. God help me but as the days draw to their inevitable beginnings and ends I feel rising panic in my throat, my gut, my heart. Please, God, help me. Help Andy, help Boo. Please help me. Please and thank you.
I am so grateful for everyone who reads, who reaches out, who understands, or tries to, who reassures and cyber-hugs me. I am grateful I have this place where I can come and bitch or ponder, express the pain or the wonder or the anxiety. Shaking, I continue because there is no choice but to continue.
In the mornings I listen to beautiful music that carries me away – Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff. I let it enter me and soothe like balm. On the way to and from work I play Guster, LOUD, singing songs I know so well they are a part of me now.
Anyway, I thought I’d share the poem, for ‘cooking a baby’ isn’t easy – and may well be compared to magic – just like letting go of one (who seems like my baby, even though he’s 9) isn’t at all easy.
Womb Magic
Two rehearsals went awry.
First I stumbled, dropped the wand
I heard the heckling audience’s hiss
and then onstage I felt
I froze
I felt
unsympathetic ruby spotlights
stealing all the magic words
I ever knew.
Of course there is a trick to it.
I was under the illusion
I was under
it
would be effortless, the show’d go on
without me after all it was
a commonplace performance for the man
behind the curtain, for all the men
behind every curtain
and I said
if I was not the world’s best
well I could always adopt another occupation
I could take on an apprentice I could
quietly retire
but then
in time
at last
suspending
disbelief
I conjured you from soul and cell and bone
with nothing up my sleeve
in one swift sleight of
hand
and pulled,
to rave reviews,
a living breathing rabbit
from an enchanted empty hat.
Since you like Rachmaninoff, had to share this link with you of my youngest son singing Rachmaninoff in Assisi last year for some distraction. Enjoy: http://youtu.be/xi5hffw4pcU.
Blessings, Barbara
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Amy, you have so many people rooting for you. Also: Barbara’s video is spine-tingling! So beautiful.
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Your poem took my breath away!
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That’s a fine fine poem.
And I’m so glad you allow music to work on your troubled spirit. Actually, there is plenty of scientific documentation of the physiological benefits of music to help counter great stress and pain. Use it lavishly.
It’s not that you are weak or fragile. You have been dealt a lousy hand – – random, but still lousy. And everything you are feeling is perfectly reasonable under your brutal, complex and uncertain circumstances.
Despite that, you have made informed, wise, and compassionate decisions. Part of you will continue to second guess and mull things over and over, but that’s really the road to coming to terms with what you already know is the right decision.
Your readers are grateful for the insights you give us into our ways of being in the world. And you can be sure we hold you and all those you love in our most hopeful thoughts.
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Amy, your poem is exquisite…
Sometimes I write you comments and ramble on about this and that,
but today…
really…
it’s all been said so eloquently by others
so…
just know I am reading your posts and thinking of you
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beautiful post Amy
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