Spring-ing

On days like this I feel so damn good I try to squelch my pessimistic side from telling me I might be bipolar (and if I am? So what?). So there: got that out of the way. Now I can go on writing about how great I feel today, this moment, and celebrate it.

I've had one of those beautiful Bozeman mornings where I talk to or see friends from around town, and they fill me with gratitude for life's many blessings.

Sure, I woke up too late this morning to take advantage of my generous, environmentally conscious sister-in-law Sarah's offer to pick up Felix on their way to preschool.

But Felix woke up smiling.

Sure, I got him to school at the latest time ever (he's supposed to be there by 9am). But standing there chatting outside school were two other mothers I like, and one of them had her adopted baby girl in the stroller with her. Her older daughter is Felix's classmate at preschool. She was excited to hear me tell her I'd been in touch with the woman who manages adoptions through Lutheran Social Services here in town. We agreed to talk soon. I'm really interested in hearing about her experience and getting to know her family.

I took Genki on a walk down the Linear Trail after parking the car at the public library. I ran into an old neighbor I hadn't seen in years. The sun was out, a reward for yesterday's rainy 40-degrees. I crossed a bridge over the creek to head downtown. I stopped to look at the creek gurgling, and listen to the robins tootling, a downy woodpecker pecking, chickadees chirping high up in the tall, leafless aspens.

As I walked by the condo of our friends Annie and Maxwell, I called Maxwell on my cell phone. We've been out of touch for too long. We will meet up this weekend, after not seeing them since December at the house they bought and are renovating.

I called up my friend Frances, whose daughter Emerson died last August two days after her birth. We've met a few times at each others' houses for hours of uplifting conversation. Now she has a contract job organizing a science and nature festival in the Bitterroot mountains, where scientists will come to do fieldwork and the public will be invited to see the animals and plants at a nature reserve in the Lee Metcalf wilderness. A beautiful place, she said. I can't wait to bring Felix and Dan to the festival in June--I've been to Missoula and driven through the Bitterroot on the interstate, but never been inside its wonders.

Then my neighbor Sanna called. She and her husband Pete have a sweet 16-month-old daughter, Stina, and Felix and I might get to have her over today! Stina's big sister Oskaria died two hours after her birth in July 2006 of a genetic disorder.

Downtown, I stopped at the Montana Fish Company and bought yellowtail collar to fry, ahi tuna and tobiko "flying fish" roe for sushi rolls, and a bottle of red rice ale made in Ibaraki, Japan. I've never had red rice ale--a new adventure for me!

I went to the store Shoefly owned by Michelle, my friend and neighbor. I bought some potpourri and a lovely candle dish decorated with dragonflies for Shirley. I hadn't seen Michelle for months either. We talked about gardening and how much fun she had harvesting potatoes one autumn in Manhattan, and how I was nervous about whether or not I should start some tomatoes from seed and try to grow a whole bunch in Dave and Jen's backyard, formerly Shirley's. I'm a spring-fever gardener: I'm all gung-ho at the beginning of the season, then burn out at the end. Also, the last time I tried a serious vegetable garden was the summer of 2006, when it was a billion degrees out, I was pregnant with Elise, and visited Shirley often in the hospital while she went through her TWO colostomy surgeries--one that landed her in the ICU.

Shirley lives next door now--hooray!--and told me yesterday she wants to grow tomatoes too. Of course, I still need to ask Jen and Dave if it's okay to grow a garden on their land. But if not, I'll still try containers and Shirley's raised bed in the yard of the house she rents from us.

Arriving back at the library after Genki's and my 2-hour meet and greet around town, an elderly man stopped me to chat outside after I said good morning to him. He was all smiles: "They had a storytime for the kids in there and sang 'Bah Bah Black Sheep.' Then the storyteller took the kids out to see a 2-year-old ewe and her lambs. Ohhh, the kids were so excited. A little girl petted a lamb and the lamb said 'BAH!' and she said 'BAH!' back, and it was the greatest thing!" "We sure have a beautiful library," I said to him as we parted.

And we do. It was finished the October before Elise died. It has gorgeous glue-lam timbers and skylights on its vaulted ceilings. Outside the windows are the magnificent evergreens in Lindley Park.

And like the rest of our fantastic town, I always see someone I know, or someone who returns my smile.

Clouds, then Sun

You will indeed listen, but never
understand,
and you will indeed look, but
never perceive.
For this people's heart has
grown dull,
and their ears are hard of
hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look
with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart
and turn--
and I would heal them...

Matthew 13: 14-15









I haven't felt like writing these past two months because...well, there are many reasons I suppose. After the IVF didn't work and I wrote about it very honestly here and in messages to friends and family, I thought I'd preempted the grief by talking about my disappointment openly.

But then I went inside myself--too deeply it seems. I didn't go there in a self-pitying way, but I didn't do it in a healthy, self-reflective way either. I would describe it as a kind of shut-down, ignoring-everything introversion. I got addicted to internet Scramble. I read and read and read, without absorbing much. And then I got tired of reading (tired of READING? ME?). No topic or story interested me when I read it, but I read it anyway, as if I were shoveling in food, gourmet and mediocre, without tasting a bite. I stopped exercising. I stopped writing. I stopped the music, listening and playing both.

I could still act like the same person on the outside, but I felt disconnected much of the time. It depended on the person I was interacting with, and I gave up defending myself against hurtful, thoughtless chatter from loved ones when I was feeling fragile.

One of the things we don't want to see or hear is that death exists beside us. Knowing that death coexists with us doesn't mean we mope around as if we're in a cemetery. What I mean by an awareness of death is that we acknowledge the mystery each of us is, and also try to grasp that mystery by listening, not by trying to "solve" it with panaceas that make only us feel better on a superficial level.

Instead of living in the mystery, I became obsessed with bad news: the husband of a friend who died of brain cancer. A senior scholar in the Japanese literature field who once wrote me a kind e-mail complimenting an article I'd published, also dead, deteriorating within months, like my friend's husband. People losing their homes, their jobs, their businesses. A catastrophic gas explosion in my hometown that killed a young woman and instantly destroyed several cherished historic buildings and the businesses and jobs in them. A plane crash that wiped out 3 entire families with small children.

Ironically, I think all this focus on the morbid is because I've been silently dreading my 42nd birthday. I've been avoiding the anniversary of my birth as if I'm some youth-obsessed, declining starlet. I've always liked my birthday, the permission to give thanks for me. This year it became an occasion to fear that my body can never have another baby.

So I'd been rejecting myself and my body again. I wasn't listening to my pain. And then I got depressed, and got more impatient with people who talk without listening. That's because I haven't been listening to me. I've been ignoring my needs like a negligent parent ignores her child. I've been putting up with the thoughtlessness of people in my life because I haven't been doing much that is thoughtful for myself.

The thing is, it takes work to care for myself. But it feels good when I do. It's like the way people talk about relationships, or parenting: it's hard work at times, but the rewards far outweigh the demands.

So yesterday I ran with Genki, and the day before, I had a long yoga session. I ran again today with my friend Deborah. I wrote e-mails I'd been procrastinating on: to the administrative coordinator at the IVF clinic, and to a woman who manages adoptions at a service here in town. I tested out some guitars at the music store. Tonight I'm letting some girlfriends buy me a drink or three.

And...I wrote in here again! I'm back.

Felix called me outside to build a snowman. Here are some pictures of our handiwork. As Felix says, "I'll be sad when our snowman melts." And I say, "Yes, but then the flowers will start blooming," and he says, "I can't wait until it's winter again and I can build ANOTHER snowman!" Hope springs eternal. Even after it's been hibernating a while.

Fear and Trust

We may not have a new baby on the way, but we did get a new family member. Yesterday afternoon, I went with Felix and our friend Shirley to the animal shelter. Shirley adopted two kittens that were buddies at the shelter, and Felix picked out a quiet-tempered, affectionate, sleek black kitty named Puma (we're not sure if we'll keep that name or not). It only took him about 5 hours last night to venture out from under the sofa to sniff every piece of furniture and pace back and forth alongside me to rub the length of his body against mine.

He is slowly beginning to trust this strange place with its strange smells and beings. He's staying in a small room off the kitchen, but early this morning he ventured into the kitchen itself and up the stairs where we were sleeping. I know this because Genki woke me by leaping up to charge down the stairs growling.

The kitty doesn't trust Genki yet, needless to say. I thought Genki's dogzilla behavior would send our new family member back behind the sofa for the rest of the day. But he came out as soon as I went downstairs to call to him, and is batting at his new toy. I have no doubt that soon he'll be roaming the vast new territory of our house, hundreds of times more vast than the nice, but small cage he lived in for 4 months at the shelter.

I've wanted another kitty for a while, ever since our lovely, feisty dilute calico Freud died in October 2007. But I didn't realize that he would teach me so many things in his very first hours with us.

Things like:
* Proceed with caution, but let yourself trust.
* Let things take their natural course, but participate in their process too.
* Let your heart be prepared for the unexpected, even if your mind is freaked out by it.
* Stretch and relax as much as you can in your new surroundings.
* No matter how scared you might feel about where your life is going, you will purr again.
* Someone will be there to inspire your purring, but having been through some of life's trials and weathered them somehow, you will find also that you've gained the ability to feel scared and to purr at the same time.

If I do say so myself (even though I grew up with the guilt of Catholicism and the outward modesty of a Japanese), I've become a much wiser person for the trials of the past couple of years. I trust my instincts more. I criticize myself less. I'm more understanding with my fears, and try to let them teach me about myself.

I haven't achieved these on my own: Elise is my greatest teacher, and the family and friends who show their love for me are my greatest living teachers. But I can give myself credit for calling these beings into my life. How else is the sincerity of loved ones tested, if not in times of trouble? I did not turn away from Elise's death, but let her take me to the darkest depths of pain. Now as I struggle with my inability to have another child, I see that sadness and joy, darkness and light infuse every moment, and I cherish both.

Opening the Door

A home pregnancy test turned up negative today. It's heartbreaking, but at the very least I can stop obsessing about it and just bury that dream once and for all. We're still considering adoption, but it's too exhausting to think about the process right now.

I'll close this posting with a poem from Rumi that speaks to me:

This Being Human is a guest
house. Every morning
a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend them all:
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture, still,
treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Welcome difficulty.
Learn the alchemy True Human
Beings know:
the moment you accept what troubles
you've been given, the door opens.

Welcome difficulty as a familiar
comrade. Joke with Torment
brought by the Friend.

Sorrows are the rags of old clothes
and jackets that serve to cover,
and then are taken off.
That undressing,
and the beautiful
naked body
underneath,
is the sweetness
that comes
after grief.

Beside Us

This past Tuesday, Mary Jo, Judy, and Hannie held a Share holiday memorial service for us parents. I was surprised by two thoughtful gifts that moved me immensely: Rachel gave me a very sweet pewter angel ornament with "Elise 11-07-06" engraved on the back, and Mary Jo gave me a CD music mix and some delicious spice cookies. We lit candles and decorated ornaments with glitter for our babies. Felix sat very quietly during the ceremony, and told the other parents that he had a baby sister named Elise who couldn't be with us, but he hopes that soon he will have "another baby sister who will come to our house and stay with us."

I'll close today's writing with a lovely poem by John O'Donohue from To Bless the Space Between Us. Chris Furtak, the 60-something super-energized, muscular yoga lady who lives each day for spirit and community (see "Hope is Prayer" from Dec. 7th), read this poem after class, just 2 weeks after her husband died.


On the Death of the Beloved

Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives,
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of color....

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.

We look toward each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul's gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.

Hope is Prayer

Last year at this time, I wanted to be in the furthest place on the globe away from Christmas. I ended up not only surviving the day, but actually enjoying myself a bit too. Even though I felt terribly sad because Elise's due date was around Christmas, I kept myself open to the possibility I could have a good time. I even got us a small tree and decorated it with as many star ornaments, Elise's symbol, as I could find.

This time, I am astonished at how peaceful and blessed I feel. I anticipated an undercurrent of sadness when November 7th arrived and the nearness of the holidays, but there is none. I almost looked for it, around corners, under the sofa cushions, asking myself, Do I really feel this good? But why?

I think it's because I worked so hard to remember Elise, to forget Elise, to miss her, to welcome her. My heart has been open to her, even though this meant having it break repeatedly over the months and years.

And my heart has been open to another child, and breaking repeatedly, again, when that child has not arrived. Truly I have never known the meaning of "It just is" until now. Why did Elise die? Why when we suffered her death are we now dealt more suffering with infertility? When I read stories of people losing their babies, I always held my breath thinking, oh I hope they had another baby, and they always did.

But not us. And I raged at the world, at the families with multiple children. Now I know that it has nothing to do with them and their good fortune. It has nothing to do with whether I'm a bad person, a good person, whether it's "meant to be," whatever that means.

It just is. And truly, it is all good. It could be worse, and life would still be good--eventually. I will not stop hoping. I used to think hope would only make the downward spiral of disappointment more precipitous. Now I know it leads to other possibilities. "You always have choices," my friend Mary Jo says. I will not stop hoping. Hope is prayer. Prayers bring blessings.

Last night we had dinner at Ben and Sarah's house. Felix had a great time with his girl cousins--Anna who is 5 months older and 6 inches taller than he, and Reeve, born in March 2006, the same year as Elise. They chased each other around the house, I chased them around the house, they watched "Mulan" on the TV, they gathered in the bathroom with the lights off to look at Felix's glow-in-the-dark shirt.

As we walked to our car, Reeve and Anna waved goodbye from their front door. "I want a little sister," Felix said to us. My heart swelled with tenderness.

"We'd like another baby too, Felix. You know, you do have a baby sister--her name is Elise, remember? She was born when you were 2 years old. But she just can't be here with us."

"Yeah, I want a baby sister who will stay with us and live in our house," Felix said eagerly.

Dan told him, "Well, after Christmas, Mama and Papa are going on a trip. You'll stay with Bamba and Granda, and we'll go on a trip to see if we can get you a baby sister, okay?"

"What kind of store will we get her from?"

"We don't get a baby from the store, we make one. And Mama and Papa are going to see a doctor who will help us get a baby. We won't come back with the baby, but it will be in Mommy's tummy. Maybe it will be here for your 5th birthday," I explained.

Dan added, "We're going to try to make you a big brother for your 5th birthday, Felix. Would you like that?"

"YEAH!" Felix shouted from the back seat.

So I ask the universe, (the) God(s), spirit, Lady Luck, Saint Gerard, Diana, Isis, Demeter, Pan, Hera, Hariti, Kishimojin, Mother Earth, Kokopelli, Sarah mother of Isaac, Rebecca mother of Jacob and Esau, Rachel mother of Joseph and Benjamin, Hannah mother of the prophet Samuel, and whatever other-worldly allies there are to conjure. Most of all, I ask for your thoughts and prayers in whatever tradition or faith you choose. I'll take all the blessings and magic and whatever there is for us! Somewhere I have a prayer card of Saint Gerard that my fellow "Catlicker" friend Susie gave me--I'll dig that out too. We're going to Seattle Reproductive Medicine in early January to see whether they can help make our family's wish come true.

I've been going to yoga classes at the home of a most amazing woman named Chris, who creates community and embraces the world in every way. After a class of about a dozen people I'd never met was over, people were chatting, nibbling on the treats Chris always provides after class. Chris was listening to people's recent news, talking about her own, just as enthusiastic as ever even though her adorable husband had just died in October after a swift bout with pancreatic cancer. She turned to me and whispered, "Is it okay to talk about your trip to Seattle? Is it private?" For some reason, without even hesitating I said, "Sure, it's okay."

I thought she was going to introduce me and my news to the woman she'd been chatting with, but at the top of her lungs she announced to the whole room, "AND MARILYN IS TRAVELING TO SEATTLE FOR IN VITRO FERTILIZATION NEXT MONTH!" After I recovered from laughing, I threw up my hands and said, "So send all your good vibes my way in January." No one was scandalized, and I wouldn't have cared if they were. "That's exciting!" a number of them said. In that moment, I realized it felt good to have their support, that a little bit of the burden of my secretly lived anxiety had been lifted.

Hope is prayer. Prayers bring blessings, in many forms, in every moment.

New Meanings

"When a loved one dies, the process of grieving is a completion that allows us to honor that person's life and claim the wisdom we have gained through the relationship. As we receive the gift of understanding, it transcends time and space, simultaneously gifting the soul of the one who has passed over. Grieving is more than learning to live without a dear one. In many cases we are also required to forgive them and ourselves as we bring the story of the time we spent together to a meaningful completion."

--Joan Borysenko, Pocketful of Miracles



Felix and I went on a lovely, sunlit walk today. The air was November cold, but the sun felt warm and there was no wind. We were headed for the creek, but I decided to stop at the neighbors' houses we were passing to collect goods for the Food Bank. Jon Gerster down the street, in his thoughtful way, hatched the idea of doing a neighborhood food drive when he read in the paper that our local Food Bank was short on donations and inundated with need.

After only four houses, my load was already too heavy with generosity for the stroller's carry basket: I expected I would receive a can or two, perhaps a box of mac and cheese, but everyone gave so much that I needed to drop it off at Jon and Chris's house right away.

I knew what I was going to write in here today after I stopped at Matt and Michelle's house: blessings. It just so happened that Michelle had sat down to read this blog when I stopped in. Strange cosmic mind meld! While Matt entertained Felix by giving him a simulated overland jeep ride in his stroller, Michelle gave me a warm hug and we both teared up. She told me about a woman we both know who decided she wanted a change after years in Bozeman and moved to Pittsburgh. In the weeks leading up to her departure, dozens of friends came by, threw her a party, and gave her farewell gifts. The day before she left, Michelle commented to Rachel that she sure had lots of people who loved her. Two days after arriving in Pittsburgh, Rachel came back to Bozeman, certain that such love is truly a rare thing.

When I think about Elise's death, I almost always picture the fifty-plus friends and neighbors gazing up at us from our front yard at her memorial service. This image sustains me through many a dark moment. One of the things I think binds people together is a shared history. By history I don't mean simply experiencing events, but sustaining each other through the drama of joy or trauma, and more important, through the mundane routine of living with their aftereffects. I'm thinking here of my friend LizAnn's return home from rehabilitation after her spinal injury, where she can count on the continued dedication of friends to, for example, shovel snow from the ramp to her front door, help her dress, retrofit her home. I'm thinking of how my friend Ann became one of my dearest friends years ago, when she called me at 1am in tears because a policeman had just delivered her cat's body to her when it was hit by a car. I'm thinking of when my friend Cara organized a group of girlfriends to gather at Chico Hot Springs a month after Elise's death. We talked until late at night in the lounge outside our rooms, and Cara shared the experience of seeing her elder sister dead at the hospital earlier that year.

When Cara's sister died in June 2006, I didn't go to her memorial service. I thought to myself, Cara probably wants her privacy, I didn't know her sister, Cara has closer friends than I am to be with her...in other words, I was thinking only of myself. A couple of months before Elise died, she invited me to get together, and the first thing I said was that I was sorry I didn't call or send her a letter when her sister died, I was being silly and thinking only of how I felt about whether or not she needed me, instead of just being there for her.

Now we've become closer through the shared experience of losing a beloved. For Elise's birthday, she gave me a lovely card and a pendant that I wear all the time: it has a sweet ink drawing of a little Asian-looking girl on each side. We agreed that it reminds us of what Elise might have looked like had she grown to become a little girl.

And so Elise remains in my life, and blesses us all.