Frankenbelly

There's a four-inch incision in the middle of my lower belly. At present, it's held shut by a row of shiny metal staples. Kid pulls up my shirt to see it, a look of doctorly concern on his face. "That's Mommy's boo-boo!" I tell him. He nods, knowingly. Pulls my shirt back down, pats me gingerly. Then he points to his most recent bruise or bump or scrape. "Mama?" he says, little eyebrows pointed up in a question. "Yep, buddy, that's YOUR boo-boo." Solidarity.

Does he remember, I wonder, coming out of my belly? The quick yank that brought him out of the warm, aquatic world of my abdomen, and into the dry brightness of his life outside of me?

I remember it. Strapped to the table with my arms spread wide, barely able to see over the surgical drape. Pressure, voices, clinking of instruments, and then that little squall of him, tentative at first and then louder, louder, louder still. Startled by the separation, maybe? Or simply cold, or made grumpy by intruding, tugging hands.

Four times now I've been on the operating table. He was the first, and the scariest. Everything was new, unknown. How quickly it's become routine: bloodwork, IVs, nurses and doctors and gurneys with wheels that rattle and squeak as I'm taken from one room to another. Drugs that make me babble and cry and (sometimes) flail as I wake up, my own rude awakening, pulled from anesthesia into consciousness again.

My little man looks at me with his tiny doctor's face, furrowed brow, and I look back at him. We understand the journey. Solidarity.

The Dreamlife of Angels

As of this week, I'll be doing all of my writing here at FvF. Three Days in October has slowly but surely become a photo blog, and I'm fine with that. It's easier to track my writing if it's all in one place, anyway.

So this morning, I'm going to share with you another of my bizarre dreams. As usual, it was extremely vivid, but this time instead of jotting notes and doodles in my sketchbook, I typed out a synopsis using the Notes app on my iPhone. My original typed notes, complete with spelling and typographical errors:

"Dreamed I was married to an older German man, an artist who did photographs/performance art. Wolfgang massage instructor/helmut newton type. He made me take pregnancy tests that were inconclusive. I peed everywhere and water was getting sprayed from a hole in the wall where he wa drilling into a pipe. He had art scene friends at our house and I hated it. I went to smith and his wife's and Pete was there, he had a lamborghini. He was vacuuming. I had to leave Kid and groceries and childhood dog nappy because my husband (now Hubs) wanted me home. Pete came with me. There was a fire truck at my house and I stole the horn from it. The firemen thought it was my car. I yelled that it drives like a Cadillac. I went inside my house and tried to take another pregnancy test but couldn't. In another part I was at an ob gyn office waiting to be seen,I talked to the receptionist about tortilla chips. The clock was moving in an odd way. I was nervous about time because smith and his wife had come home while I was at their house and I wanted to go back there. While I was at their house and they came home smith asked to hug me and said something about wanting a certain type of hug with hearts together. Trying to get back there or to the doctors office I got lost and ended up at a mall with a kids shoe store, as I went to leave the mall a bunch of black girls were on my jeep and I had to get them off. I was telling them they should be glad to work for their boss, an older black lady. In another part I was driving thru a neighborhood and almost hit a little car with two ladies in it. That was right before Iade the turn that got me lost, to the mall. The whole time I just had the feeling that I had to get back to smith and his wife's house no matter what. And I didn't have my phone. I kept thinking it was going to be too late."

That's a doozy, eh? I'm amazed that I typed that much, half asleep at 1:30AM.

The characters are pretty interesting -- Wolfgang, for example, was a German man who taught a Lomi-Lomi massage class I attended. Helmut Newton, if you don't already know, was an amazing photographer (one of my favorites). Pete is Smith's wife's brother, whom I've only met once. Smith loves to tease me and tell me that I'm secretly in love with Pete. I remember that the medical receptionist looked and talked like one of the girls from nail school, and I think the black girls on the Jeep and their "boss" are probably my other classmates and my instructor. The two ladies in the car? I have no idea. I do remember now that one of them looked a little like Reba McIntyre.

There's a few plot points that make sense, and the rest is kind of nonsense. The art scenesters, well, I've always loathed them. Pregnancy tests? Water everywhere? Not sure about that. I'm sure Freud would have something to say about it.

Lambo Pete vacuuming Smith's house is just too hilarious for words. I'm checking on Smith's dog while he and his wife are out of town, and I had actually considered running the vacuum for them while they're gone (for some reason, here in Virginia, dust just multiplies everywhere whether you're home or not). So the thought of Pete beating me to the punch gives me a chuckle.

Let's see, what else...

Getting lost and feeling panicky about time is a pretty common theme in my dreams. I hate getting lost and being late, so of course those anxieties would manifest in my dreams. Same goes for the overwhelming urge to get back to wherever Kid was, somewhere safe.

The part with the fire truck is hilarious to me, only because it sounds exactly like something I'd do while drunk.

Oh! And the hug thing! Another of my massage instructors, Johnny Storm, always made a big deal about hugging so that your hearts line up. Basically, when you go in to hug somebody, you should move your head to the right, and your heart will be closer to the huggee's heart. I've always liked the thought of it, whether it's anatomically accurate or not. I think I told Smith's dad (very much a hugger) about it when I met him (or maybe he already knew about it?) so I suppose it makes sense that it would manifest in a dream as having something to do with Smith.

The only other thing I remember really clearly was Wolfgang/Helmut's "art." He was kind of a performance artist but also a photographer. The impression I got was that he would stage these happenings and someone would photograph them, and then he'd display the photographs. He did weird things, like shave women and let the hair fall all over him, or throw paint on people. I remember thinking that the work was really pretentious and that I hated having all his cronies in the house, worshiping him.

So yeah, weird dreams yet again. I'll be puzzling over this one for a while. Maybe I'll get another installment tonight? Hmm...

Tidal

I remember learning to swim when I was little, not in the pool with my favorite aunt, but at the beach with my dad. He wouldn't allow me to be afraid of the ocean. He picked me up in his arms, turned his back to the waves, and let them crash over us, telling me when to close my eyes and hold my breath. Telling me when it was safe to open up and breathe again. As I got bigger, I could stand in the breakwater myself, bracing my little body against the impact. I remember anticipation, waiting for the dull smack of the water, secretly hoping for a huge wave that would knock me off my feet and drag me out to sea. I loved the disorientation that came when I was trapped under the wave-belly -- where is up? watch your bubbles -- the near-panic of running out of breath and then the euphoria of breaking the surface and gasping for air. Dragging myself back onto the shore, still panting, then running back to do it all over again.

Older and bigger, I stopped turning my back to the waves. I faced them and learned to dive into them, more in control of where I ended up. The thrill of truly swimming, able to outstroke the currents, clear the breakers, and glide out into the deep, deep water where feet and sandy bottom drew further and further apart. Floating on the surface of swells, human sargasso weed, watching the sky and losing my bearings, drifting, drifting, drifting.

Sometimes a storm, sometimes a flat, glassy sea. I swam, always.

I don't remember when it changed. But it did. Fear and caution make a timid swimmer, one who waits for the waves to die down before wading out, eye to the shore, remember where your towel is, don't go too far astray. Self-conscious (who swims in a T-shirt and underpants?), self-doubting (I can't), self-defeating (I never really liked this anyway).

I want returned to me what fear and caution took away. Brashness, and boldness, and not-giving-a-damn. Let the tsunami come; my feet are in the sand and my back is to the sea, I want it, I'm waiting, I'm holding my breath and closing my eyes and waiting.

Hiatus

It occurred to me last night that I'd completely flaked and forgotten to post on either one of my blogs yesterday. I'm not sure if my priorities have shifted a bit, or if I just don't have anything to write about at the moment. Either way, I'm going to take a brief hiatus from actively posting on either blog (here or 3 Days in October). This'll give me time to deal with some changes around the house, including my return to work and a lot of computery switcheroo-ness (Hubs got a new laptop and thus we're reorganizing everything).

See you next Monday!