musings

These photos were taken 10 years ago last week. Do I feel heartbreak when I look at them?  Absolutely.

I’ve been listening to Krista Tippett’s marvelous On Being podcasts when I run.  Most recently, I heard her interview David Whyte.  It was this assertion that struck me, more than any other:

An elegy … is always a conversation between grief and celebration.

I heard this and stopped in my tracks.  Yes.  This is my life at its core.

Whyte goes on to say this:

This is another delusion we have that we can get — take a sincere path in life without having our heart broken. And you think about the path of parenting, there’s never been a mother or father since the beginning of time who hasn’t had their heart broken by their children. And nothing traumatic has to happen. All they have to do is grow up.

I shared a photo on Instagram a week or so ago in which I quoted from Hope Jahren’s beautiful Lab Girl.  “I have learned that raising a child is essentially one long agony of letting go.” Some of the responses made me feel gloomy and maudlin.  Is life as a parent an agony to me on a daily basis?  Absolutely not at all.  Is the letting go that is at the core of parenting an agony to me?  Truthfully? Yes. Every single day.

Parenting, and life itself, is a conversation between grief and celebration.  For me.  I’ve described parenting as “an endless alleluia and a constant goodbye,” but naturally Whyte finds more powerful, beautiful language to share the same emotion.  Grief and celebration, intertwined, inextricable, throwing both light and shadow into the corners of every day.  Indeed, indeed.

I know for sure that my journey through this life is limed with heartbreak, and it’s reassuring in a deep, being-seen way to hear David Whyte say that that’s true for all of us on the “sincere path.”  Elegy has long been one of my favorite words (I described my work in an old proposal as an elegy for what was and a celebration of what is).  In David Whyte’s hands it takes on even more nuanced meaning.

Do I wish I could live in way that involved less darkness, less grief, less heartbreak?  Yes, I do.  But the fact is I just don’t think I can.  At 41 I’m learning all the things that cannot change, and my fundamental orientation towards the world – open, aware, porous, sensitive – is one of them.  I’m heartened and reassured by Whyte’s words, and they make me feel less alone.  Which is, of course, the highest praise that writing can garner, in my opinion.

The conversation between grief and celebration goes on.

an old photo, with Lisa and another dear friend-of-the-heart Denise Ullem, May 2011

I absolutely loved Laura Zigman’s Salon piece about what she learned about friendship from Lisa Bonchek Adams, The Worst Thing That Can Happen is that Friends Disappear. I was fortunate enough to know Lisa also, and everything Zigman writes resonates.  Lisa was an attentive and engaged friend, unafraid to stare right into whatever was complicated and to ask questions of others that might have been uncomfortable for some.  She was willing to go with you to the edge of whatever was going on in your own life.  She was there, in the most essential way.

Friendship is a topic I find fascinating and important.  I’ve written before that sometimes friendship feels to me, at its essence, to be about aiding.  About staying near.  But it’s also, Zigman reminds us, about checking in.  Which is, after all, simply a manifestation of that being near.

The people I love the most are the ones who don’t disappear.  They stay, steadfast, nearby.  We all have full lives.  We are all busy.  Someone reminded me recently of how fiercely I believe that, and of the fallacy of the “I’m too busy” excuse.  Regardless of that reality, the truest friends are the ones who make a point of saying ‘how are you?  I’m here.’  Of not slipping off even when things are difficult.

We don’t always want to be checked in with, of course.  Sometimes we ignore those friends and family who touch base, who pull us from our corners, who refuse to allow us to retreat. “Checking out seemed infinitely easier instead of consistently checking in,” writes Zigman.  That impulse is familiar to me, both on the offering and on the receiving ends.

I have on occasion been told – usually not in so many words – to buzz off by a friend. But these people have all, every single one of them, come back to me later and said, you know what, thanks for not listening to me when I wanted you to back off.  It’s a fine line, and sometimes we need to give others their space.  No question.  It is possible, I believe, to do this while also making it clear we’re still there.

I am not endorsing overstepping and intruding and hassling (and I know that Lisa didn’t and Zigman isn’t, either). I am saying that a true friend is one who is there and who demonstrates that nearness in ways big and small but most of all consistent. Text your college roommate. Put a birthday card in the mail. Make a double batch of cookies and drop them off at a nearby friend’s house. And be grateful to those friends who check in, since they are showing you with every message that they’re there. And when it comes to knowing how to comfort someone who failed a test, being there for them with a listening ear and kind words can be a powerful way to show you care and support them during a challenging time.

I love what Christy Turlington is doing with Every Mother Counts.  I was thrilled to cheer her on in the Boston Marathon a week ago, and I wear my own EMC shirt with pride (see above, June 2014).  It’s a totally random coincidence, but I’ve also been particularly aware of Christy ever since she and I both had first-born daughters named Grace within a year of each other.

I’ve written about Grace’s birth some, though mostly I’ve written about the deep postpartum depression that swamped me after she arrived. The process of Grace’s birth, in particular its immediate aftermath, makes me care deeply about Every Mother Counts.  Because had I been a mother in a third world country, I would probably have died after delivering Grace.  After a long and intense labor (posterior baby, anyone?  my midwife, who had been delivering babies for decades, told me after that it was one of the most difficult labors she’d experienced) I hemorrhaged.  They gave me pitocin.  I was fine (albeit unhapppy to have the drugs I’d tried so desperately to avoid coursing through my system).

It wouldn’t have been that easy had I been delivering somewhere else.  I am grateful that western medical care was there to intervene when I needed it.  I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that moment (I mostly think about the 43 hours that led up to it!) but whenever I hear anything about Every Mother Counts, that simple act of putting an IV into my arm comes immediately to mind.  It’s not rocket science, and it was simple that morning. But it saved my life, and I’m aware that that intervention is unavailable to hundreds of women, whose birth outcomes would have been entirely different from mine.

The statistics are appalling.  303,000 women die every year from complications in pregnancy or birth.  These deaths are tragic, and they have a ripple effect too: they leave an average of 4 orphans.  In the United States the picture is better, but not as good as it could be: we rank 60th worldwide in terms of maternal health, and 2 women die per day in childbirth or pregnancy.  Every Mother Counts has a tremendously compelling call to action: 99% of these deaths are preventable.

I adore what Every Mother Counts stands for, and I also love the way that running has become a focus of what they do.  The movie Every Mile, Every Mother (which I was fortunate enough to see in New York a couple of years ago) really highlights this connection, as did cheering Christy on in the Boston Marathon.  The metaphors abound: motherhood is a marathon, of course, and by putting one foot in front of the other we can achieve our goals both large and small.  It’s a mental game as much as a physical one, and it’s about commitment.

It’s impossible me to think about Every Mother Counts without reflecting on my own birth experiences.  I imagine most women who’ve given birth recall those life-altering hours regularly.  I know I do. I was stubborn in my pursuit of an unmedicated delivery; I recognize that, and know that I could easily have wound up with a different kind of experience. People ask me regularly (still!) why I chose to go that route, and I don’t have a good answer other than to say I had a deep, instinctive desire to do it that way.  And I’m glad I did: Grace and Whit’s births are without question the two most empowering experiences of my life. They shaped who I am and I’ll never forget anything about those passages, when I touched another world, felt something holy both holy and primal.  And I’m hugely aware that it was the medical support I received after Grace’s birth that allowed the story to have a happy ending.  The care was so simple, and I think it saved my life. Every mother should have access this.

I’m not affiliated with Every Mother Counts and nobody asked me to write this post.  I was inspired to do because of my particular interest in and passion for the cause.