I haven’t been looking for someone with whom to be intimate. I have been earnest about my studies and understanding how to be a good stepmother. I often feel lonesome with Bill and wish he would open up and talk to me more. It seems I don’t do the step mothering thing right, and that Bill’s remorse over leaving his ex and their children has catapulted him into a heavy moodiness over which I have no influence. Only two years after I married Bill on that magical day near the Pedernales, my life and my body are sliding open on this warm September afternoon.
Sliding is an operative word. I feel as though my entire body is liquid. Our limbs, our torsos, our hands, our feet comfortably climb over body terrain we both know so well.
Touching a woman’s nipple is an entirely different experience. How perfectly it rests atop a full breast. It is as though I’m touching my own. When Cara delicately explores my vagina, it is as though I am seeing myself through her touch. As I reach down and slide into hers, simultaneously feeling her slide into mine, I become receptive in an entirely new way: giver and receiver, pitcher and receptacle, river and ocean. A new universe opens.
Vagina, vulva, clitoris, labia, breast, nipple: these previously abrupt sounding words become delicious notes in a melody as we touch one another. I have had so much sex in my life at this point, but seldom felt like a sexual person, instead more like a sexual object. Although I crave the satisfaction of an orgasm, achieving that has rarely felt like a stimulating sexual experience. The men I have been with have not touched me like this, nor I them. Right now, saying what gives me pleasure is encouraged, and heard. I have never felt this much ease, this much safety, this much confidence, so little shame.
Our women’s bodies take center stage and command a standing ovation.
BIRD SONG
1985 (age 33)—Austin, Texas
Organic Chemistry did me in. I went blank during exams, my brain so empty it could barely make sense of the words in the questions. My prof encouraged me to not drop out, but this whole idea that I could make it through pre-med here in my early thirties had begun to feel like a pipe dream. I’m more bull-headed than smart, and figured I should just quit trying to prove myself.
However, it wasn’t an entire waste of time and money. Biology and General Chemistry were each like a surprise gift to open and explore. But Organic Chemistry, with its three dimensional knowing and tetrahedron miracles, topped them all. I marveled that although something looks one way, it could also be this and this and this. I experienced an inward expansiveness that resulted from a simultaneous knowing and not knowing. Somehow all this mirrored a powerful desire, long nourished, to better understand my own life.
A particularly stimulating take-away for me, however, was an experience that happened while doing a research paper for Biology. Since I’ve watched and listened to birds for as long as I can remember, I chose them as my topic. Born to Sing by Charles Hartshorne practically fell off the library shelf into my hands, and the book jacket informed me that the author lived right here in Austin.9 I found a current phone book with his number and address. I decided to finish the book and get started on a paper before giving him a call.
I kept my scientific inquiry simple—bird song—and let Hartshorne enlighten my research with his intellect and depth of reflection. Turns out he isn’t a biologist studying animal behavior, but a distinguished philosopher and theologian with an interest in ornithology who studies what he calls biomusicology. Through his book’s perspective and guidance, I became aware of the richness, complexity, and ranges of bird songs, the spaces in between their notes, and even how often they sing the same note. He compares bird songs to human music and goes as far as to claim that all creatures, even down to the smallest particle, have divine value.
I was hooked and finally arranged to meet this guy. Professor Hartshorne, in his late eighties, was as friendly in person as he had sounded on the phone. His elderly wife served us tea and biscuits in front of a window that looked out on a bevy of bird-feeders. Windows were wide open on this warm Texas morning.
“Hope you don’t mind no AC,” the professor said. “Got to hear the birds!”
“I don’t mind at all. We do the same,” I informed him. “Bird was my first word!” I blurted out to Hartshorne. “We had a parakeet that flew about our house. I’ve been watching birds ever since.”
Hartshorne laughed and slapped a knobby knee that protruded in his baggy trousers. His thin face held round glasses that framed kind, attentive eyes. I felt delight and comfort, two things that happen rarely for me with men. With just that much information about me, the professor proceeded to talk to me about his book, his ideas, and his life, pausing to ask me about mine, and acting as if my curiosity alone—minus any intelligent pedigree on my part—merited this valuable time with him.
We strayed from talk about birds to theology, something close to both our hearts. Hartshorne seemed as benevolent and loving as the God he believed in, not a predictable, unchanging God constructed from prescribed and static beliefs. “What exists forever,” the prof insisted, “is the good a person does in his or her life.” What a comforting thought: goodness that lasts forever, and a life that focuses on goodness. That’s what I want.
This became the first of several visits with Professor Hartshorne, until I told him I was discontinuing my studies after flubbing up in Organic Chemistry. “Well,” he responded with such a sad and serious look on his face, “keep listening to the birds. They need us. Come see me anytime,” he said looking me straight in the eyes.
Sadly, I didn’t go see the professor again, for no reason beyond life piling up and depression pulling me down. Someone like me didn’t deserve to sit across from someone like him. A nagging numbness and a sense of failure had once again begun to cloud any ideas I had of my own value.
NATURE’S WISDOM
1986 (age 34)—Cripple Creek &
Florissant, Colorado
I’d been away on a trip when Bill learned about Cara’s and my relationship, his suspicions leading him to read my journals as well as letters from her. He was devastated. I wrote about experiencing passion in a way I had never felt with men. Both Cara and I had been caught off guard by our attraction, but gave in after about three months, our love and passion carrying us full force for the next two years, mostly through letters and phone calls as we saw each other infrequently.
Bill threatened to leave but stayed with my promise that I would discontinue all contact with Cara. She was on the verge of a medical career in another state, just stepping into life as an active lesbian and enjoying her freedom. I, on the other hand, felt the need to nest and smooth out at least some of the wrinkles in my very crumpled life. At the time, I didn’t know what else to do. I was already chronically depressed, but I had come to love my youngest stepson, and Bill and I had been talking about having a baby together, thinking that might be what our relationship and spirits needed. Despite the love I had experienced with Cara, I still felt committed to trying to build a stronger marriage with Bill, and he with me.
While discussing all this with my Austin therapist, along with my desire to take a long, extended silent retreat to ponder this weighty baby decision, he offered his family cabin in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Chugging up the mountains in my ’73 Volvo that drove like a tank, I arrived in a May blizzard to find my prearranged delivery of firewood stolen. In my last minute of packing, I had loaded an electric radiator into my car’s trunk. Thank goodness. By the time I plugged it in beside an old couch and yanked my sleeping bag out of its tiny stuff sack, the sickness I had been pushing back during my entire drive to Colorado took over my body. I tossed the bag on the couch and crawled in with the worst flu symptoms I had ever experienced, and barely emerged for over a week—fevered, sweating, chilled, and utterly miserable.
The couch faced a huge window that framed a snowy view of Pike’s Peak. The couch also hosted a family of mice in its underbelly. I watched the tiny critters scamper from the couch to the kitchen several times a day.
My world became very still and small, consisting of the snow, the heater, the couch, the mice, juice and crackers, and trips to the bathroom. For ten days I stared out that window, alternating between watching birds hop in and out of a protective bush and fixating on those amazing mountains—constant and steady through blizzards, moonlight, sunshine, and powerful wind. I could count on the mountains to be there when I closed my eyes, and when I opened them the next day, standing guard and offering strength.
In that cocoon of down, I felt like an embryo turning into a fetus. From a place of forced stillness, while wrapped securely in my sleeping bag, I peered from the inside out at the woman I was—as a stepmother and a possible mother—and grappled with a tumble of feelings. Away from an ex-wife’s frequent calls and Bill’s constant irritation with her—and with me for my touchiness about it all—and away from the persistent worries about his children, I became aware of my growing love for Shawn, now nine. (His brother and I never developed a relationship as he quit visiting the year after Bill and I married.) I thought of how Shawn loves being tucked in at night and having his head stroked, or his aching legs rubbed, and how he enjoys distracting me with his persistent questions when I’m reading or studying. I pictured him standing beside my desk, which overlooks my garden, listening carefully as I explain how I love watching my garden grow, the martin birds busily circling, singing, and chatting all day. He’s curious about what I study, and I’ve promised to give him a tour of the university where I have been taking classes. It has taken four years, but this gangly boy, often congested with allergies and smelling like his mother’s ashtrays, has slipped into my heart and made it bigger. Suddenly, alone at the base of these mountains while deep in the down of my bag, I realized how much I love this little guy, and it hit me: in a way I have already become a mother.
Do I have what it takes to be a good mother? This thought continued to snap at me and leave me dangling out of reach from a connection I yearn for within. To what? What is it that feels hidden from me, so heavy, like an anchor that prevents me from moving forward, from feeling the goodness of life and any goodness I might offer? What is it I don’t let myself see? Why do I have such doubts about having a child? If I’m going to try to get pregnant, I thought, I want to be damn clear about it. High in the mountains, I was in the perfect place for seeking solace and gaining perspective.
Nearing the end of my stay, still with no clear decision made, I decided to explore the Florissant Fossil Beds.10 Florissant is a small town twenty-four miles north of Cripple Creek, and is a French word meaning blooming or flowering. I arrived at the park’s entrance at four in the afternoon to hear the ranger tell me they closed at 4:30. She suggested I park outside the gate and walk back for a hike. “Late afternoon is one of the most beautiful times to hike,” she said convincingly. I was on my way.
I took off on Sawtooth Trail, delighted to have the park totally to myself. A soft cloud cover had moved in that allowed the sun to hazily shine through. The wind rustled the tops of the pines, spruces, and firs. Reaching the ridge top, I caught the late afternoon views of Pike’s Peak. I walked slowly and quietly, feeling the ancient and present spirit of the terrain I was crossing. I followed occasional birds and, per my old prof’s guidance, stopped and carefully listened to their songs. My pathway became soft dirt and plush grass, so I decided to take off my shoes. The cushiony ground and furry plant life felt heavenly to my bare feet. All my senses were piqued, and I left the path to sit by a gurgling crystal mountain stream. I stood in it a few moments just to feel the icy waters, and then sat down beside the flowing water.
A rush of feeling engulfed me. Weeping, I felt like a lost child returned to her mother’s feet and in the presence of God. I was overwhelmed by the magnificent beauty that surrounded me. The silent, sacred space of my last three and a half weeks in retreat culminated in this purest of places. Looking back on the men I’d been intimate with, my hopes that being with other people would stop after my marriage to Bill, and now with this deep love I felt for Cara—I knew all these life experiences mattered, even if I didn’t fully comprehend them. I had caught the thread of an inner story, but I was not eager—and even a little scared—to begin the unraveling.
Heaven presented itself in all its glory as I stood and began walking. Suddenly, birds were everywhere. I walked at a caterpillar’s pace, overwhelmed by the activity surrounding me as if I were not even there. Birds did not fly away, so busy were they in their activities. A black, yellow, and red flicker pecked up a tree. A calico colored sparrow bathed and groomed itself on a twig hanging over the stream. A mountain chickadee twirled on a tree branch. Juncos jittered, robins danced searching for worms, and a ruby-crowned kinglet lit up a young shrub while a yellow grosbeak echoed through the pines.
I was aghast, both at the variety of birds and the sheer beauty of it all. It was as though the birds wanted to be seen and heard and, in response to my listening and looking, they put on a five-star show! I wanted to see and hear everything—the birds, any random guidance that might surface in my life, and my own intuitions and urges.
Yes, I announced to the world, I want to pay attention.
Baby Blues
1986 (age 34)—Spicewood, Texas
The doc said Bill’s microsurgery could take four, possibly five hours to reestablish connection between the two ends of the vas deferens that his 1975 vasectomy separated. After several years of discussions and following my most recent month-long silent retreat to ponder if I wanted to get pregnant, we are restoring that highway to direct and propel sperm from Bill’s testes into his urethra with this vasovasostomy, hopefully to connect with one of my eggs and ultimately nest in my womb.
I am thirty-four years old, and since I was fifteen I have been haunted about getting pregnant or being pregnant, until I married Bill and, indirectly, his two children: Shawn, now ten, and Billy, sixteen. Before Bill, I dated a couple of men who had children, but those men rarely talked about their kids, and I never met one of them. Neither have I seriously dated anyone who was divorced, so I have been unprepared for the experiences of an ex-wife and the sudden responsibility of two stepchildren. Shawn and Billy’s mother calls frequently to complain about the boys and how the child support payments are not enough. On the advice of the county court, we quit sending the payments directly to her. Sometimes she would get the check, spend it, forget she ever got it, and then accuse us of not sending child support. But we have never once missed a payment, nor sent child support late. Now the court keeps track of this and lets her know.
Bill was sixteen and Joanne fifteen when they became pregnant. Bill quit high school, started working, and has never stopped, assuming responsibility from the get-go. When I met Bill in 1980, he had been divorced a little over a year.
Besides never dating a man responsibly caring for children from a previous relationship, neither have I ever dated a man with a vasectomy, and the relief of that has pushed thoughts of wanting children clear out of my consciousness. Helping to take care of Billy and Shawn has taken a substantial amount of our combined income and a great deal of energy, so we haven’t focused on having children together. We are now.
I have never actually planned a pregnancy, and now that I am knee deep amidst this experience of co-parenting with Bill, I realize what a huge life commitment this is. Bill has consistently volunteered for a reversal of his vasectomy whenever the conversation comes up. I, on the other hand, have felt both incredibly interested in having a child and, at the same time, strangely ambivalent. I’ve been pregnant by accident so many times in my life that now I want to be as deliberate as possible if I am going to intentionally create a child. For the most part, my life has felt like a discombobulated mess—one losing streak after another—and having a child seems to offer the grandiose idea that this could be what would finally pull our lives together.
Four to five hours, the doc says, will be needed for Bill’s surgery. It takes five, and I later understand what the phrase “black-balled” means. Bi
ll smiles when I greet him in his room, and we clasp hands like a team ready for play.
Indeed, in the coming year the play ensues, Bill’s sperm count healthy by all the tests, but nothing happens regardless of our ready stance. I’m tested, and suspicions arise around scar tissue from abortions; extended, profuse bleeding after several of those; and my history of years of missed periods while clocking miles as a marathoner. The eggs are there, but not one is connecting with Bill’s sperm. Four pregnancies for me, five hours of microsurgery for Bill, and now a black out?
I question if my womb is somehow not letting me get pregnant since my sanity is once again feeling exceptionally fragile. I start feeling a mix of an intense desire to get pregnant and that old familiar terror of, “Oh, God! What if I’m pregnant!” But mothering I continue to yearn for, despite choices I made earlier in life. Those pregnancies, those men, those dire choices churn in my belly. Part of me thinks I might feel better with a baby, and another part of me is terrified of being a mother, of having the responsibility of protecting a child. I’m not sure why, but I don’t think I can do it. That on-again-off-again depression from past years settles in, and I begin to spiral to a deep low.
Our doctor suggests alternative procedures, but none of these are covered by insurance, and all of it is ridiculously expensive, especially with substantial doubts about how healthy my tubes are due to my reckless record. Up to this point, I have spent a substantial part of my life ignoring my reproductive system, and I’m weary. I reflect on our two kiddos by Bill’s previous marriage, one who appears open to our love, care, and guidance. Both are proving to be plenty expensive. Soon Shawn will need braces and dental work. Why spend the time and tens of thousands of dollars that we don’t have gambling on a pregnancy through experimental procedures?
Being Mean Page 14