sleepless string of pearls

As I was putting Grace to bed tonight, she asked me to rub her back. She loves having her back rubbed and scratched. She was on her side and I could feel her spine through her skin, a curving row of symmetrical bumps. I remembered, suddenly, her 20 week ultrasound. I remember seeing the bright string of pearls that the technician pointed out as her spine. It seems extraordinary to connect that abstract, beautiful image to this living girl. While so much of my pregnancy and early motherhood with Grace was ambivalent and conflicted, I remember that ultrasound as a morning of breathless wonder. What I remember was intense fascination in the anatomical details that were visible: here are the four chambers of the heart, here is the spine, here are the fingers. I don’t recall, and with hindsight this doesn’t surprise me, feeling any sense of the black and white images being a baby. But I do recall a wave of overwhelming awe that beneath my still not-pregnant-looking stomach lived this fully-formed human being.
After my unexpected flashback I tucked Grace in and left the room. Unfortunately that was not the end of it. She emerged a few times to complain about her nightmares and I felt both aggravated and empathetic. I zealously protect my the three hours to myself in the evenings, but I also know the profound anxiety of being unable to sleep. I remember, probably at about Grace’s age, coming out of my own room and wandering to find my parents. Somehow those evenings reminded me of seeing a school teacher at the grocery store; a teacher out of context was confusing, the notion that they had a life outside of the classroom was confounding. The same emotion accompanies my memory of those nights with insomnia. Somehow it was hard to imagine that my parents had a life after I was asleep. I remember approaching my parents sheepishly, blinking heavily against the light.
My father was brilliant in these moments. I remember exactly what he did, and somehow he never seemed impatient. He used to give me two suggestions: go to your room and try to stay up all night, and go to your room and see if you can count to 1000. Both work, by the way, and I’m now employing them with Gracie.
On the topic of insomnia, my own is still alive and well. I sometimes have to take 3 tylenol PM to knock myself out, and even that doesn’t always work. Redheads apparently need 25% more anesthesia to go under for surgery. This feels correlated, somehow, to the fact that enough soporific meds to knock out an elephant sometimes can’t subdue me.
Random thoughts about sleep and lack thereof, about heredity and anatomy, on this first night of April. Happy birthday James Wood!

Found this image (by Stephanie DosReis) in my internet perambulations this morning, and it seems apt today. Another rainy day, another gray spring-is-not-yet-here week beginning. I feel bottled up indeed, and I wish I could set sail on the colorful ship that I see in my head. To a sunny island with books and those I love best.

cornflower

It’s gray and rainy on this Monday-of-all-Mondays. Am remembering yesterday afternoon’s run and the incredibly vivid cornflower blue sky. This may be my favorite color.

Starting something important

Yesterday Gracie, my mother and I volunteered two hours at Cradles to Crayons. The organization collects new and gently used clothing, books, toys, and gear for families who cannot afford these things for their own children. The three of us spent our time sorting clothes and assembling packages of a week’s worth of clothing in various sizes.
It was enjoyable, though somewhat abstract for Grace. It’s one level removed from what I’d like. I am really looking for a soup kitchen where I can bring a 5 year old. I’ve called all the ones I know in Boston – Homeless Vets, Rosie’s Place, Women’s Lunch Place, etc, and they all insist on children being much older. I understand this, for liability reasons, but I am continuing to look.
It’s really important to me that both children are exposed, early and often, to volunteerism. I firmly believe that we who have so much need to give our money and our time to help those who have less. It is the time piece of this that is often neglected, and I believe it adamantly. No matter how big a check you write, I think we all benefit from hands-on experience helping those who need it.
I have vivid memories of spending Christmas morning delivering Meals on Wheels with my family in London. I looked for a project to do as a family this past Thanksgiving day, and struck out. Will keep looking there as well.
I participated in various service projects at Exeter but it wasn’t until Princeton that I really got deeply involved in this work. I started volunteering at Rainbow House, a home for HIV positive teenage mothers in Trenton, as soon as I got to Princeton. By my senior year I was on the board of the Student Volunteers Council, the group that organizes all the service efforts on campus. This was a marvelous group of people, quite removed from the core of my Princeton experience, and I’m glad to have known them. It’s how I met Melissa, for one thing, and she’s become such an important friend to me.
I talked to the Peace Corps about joining after graduation. I was told that I was most likely to be assigned to work with AIDS children in the inner city, and I confess that was not exactly what I had imagined. Shame on me, I now think, but I opted out and stepped onto the treadmill at BCG.
During those BCG years, however, I fell in love with the homeless vets. My second year at BCG, which I recall as a dark time (my grandmother and Susie Vogt were both dying protracted and painful deaths, I took a leave of absence from work, I had just broken up with a lovely man because I knew he was not the one, etc) I spent about one evening a week at the shelter. I really grew attached to the place. The men were warm and friendly, they quickly knew me, and I felt like I was cheering them up. It bothers me in a fundamental way that someone who fought for our country (and many of these men were living with injuries they sustained in war) could wind up on the street. How can our country ask so much of people and then not provide them with any kind of reciprocity when they fall down on return? I am sure the Republicans out there are crying out with all kinds of answers, and I am sure those have merit. I’m just saying how I feel about it. It might surprise some of my BCG classmates (whom I’ve recently discovered mostly thought I was dumb and self-absorbed) that I spent so much time at the shelter.
Since having Grace and Whit I haven’t been as good as I would like about continuing to find ways to participate in service. That changes now, as I feel the strong motivation of desire to introduce my children to a life of awareness, sensitivity, and generosity.