thoughts on november 6, 2024

his win makes me feel small and powerless and outraged

like all the misogynists are laughing at us, kicking us in the stomach, and at the same time, not even noticing we exist

so

today

i'm 

taking the kids out for ice cream

slathering them in love like a thick layer of frosting

reading a hundred books, hugging them so hard their shoulders ache

running into the sea holding hands

making a list of my life's victories

with a paper and pen

flipping through rolls of film colored with my life's joys

radically, recklessly, brazenly trusting in jesus christ
repeating his mantra 
"inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me"
(in which case, mr. trump, my deepest condolences for your soul)

baking bread, delivering it to the neighbors

painting flowers and dogs and sunsets

standing sentinel between the internet and my neurons

running stadiums until i can't see straight

and in between, when i fall short of this silly list, 

i will keep hating mr. trump 

because hating him means i hate violence and misogyny and cruelty and racism and dishonesty and manipulation and opulence and anger and rape and greed and idiocy and narcissism and hate itself. 

and hating hate

hating him

is my victory today

children shot at school yesterday (((again)))

dropping the kids off at school this morning felt wrong. like i was bubbling in B on a scantron but i knew the answer was C. my body was screaming at me, "take them home. it's not safe here. don't leave them here. why are you doing this? stop. keep them with you. stop!!"

but if i kept them home, i would have had to tell them why, and i can't place that burden on them.

i said goodbye 2 hours and 26 minutes ago. as far as i know, my children are still alive.

as i drove away from the girls' school, i watched them. watching their shadows, slowly spinning around and noticing the long shapes in the morning light. i studied their floppy pink and purple backpacks they each picked out the summer before kindergarten. i wondered if this was the last moment i'll ever see them alive. not in a hypothetical way. in a real way. in my body, at this moment, i am housing the possibility of the flurry of texts with other moms, sirens blaring up my street, young blood splattered across the rainbow rug and the Important Person reports stapled to the walls of their small classrooms. this isn't an alex-specific nightmare. it's not a freak accident. it happened to hundreds of families YESTERDAY.

i should have taken a picture of them this morning.

here's a thought – and hear me out – 

fuck this.

all the other kids

monday morning

halloween parade at the elementary school

charlie and i made our way up the street to the side gate where the kids, teachers, administrators, and parents were assembled for the costume parade. 

it was open. 

halloween: a day that is 100% about fun, childhood, and making memories. and all i could think about as i entered the campus was that anyone could walk through the gate and shoot at us. 

i didn't rush or panic, but the thought entered my head and stayed there throughout the procession. i spotted eleanor first and calmly thought, "there are too many people between us for me to protect her if a shooter came in through the west gate. but at least i know where she is." i was able to catch her eye and wave so she'd know i was there. she was thrilled i'd made it as i promised. i couldn't see lucy; as it turned out, her class was just a few feet away from me to my right and invisible from where i stood among the many parent spectators. i watched her excitedly (and bashfully) circle the track with her class, scanning every adult in the crowd, looking for her mom. when she finally found my face, hers lit up. my mom is here. she came to see me in my dragon costume in the parade.  

for a few seconds, i forgot about the shooter. it was just me and Lu there, elated we found each other. every sparkle of hope within both of us – that the other would be there, that we'd find each other – washed over me. 

then she returned to her class spot and i made a mental note that she was nearby. in my head i let the scene unfold: the sound of a gun, pandemonium, my immediate instinct to get as close to the girls as possible, throwing my body over theirs, and ordering them to play dead. charlie was already in my arms so i wouldn't have to worry about him getting lost in the chaos. beyond stationing myself as close to them as i could, i had no real plan. it occurs to me that the school didn't either. and why should we? is it our job to metabolize our trauma and develop a system of defense from an enemy that we are desperately trying not to go to war with?

strangely, as charlie and i left the school, i felt completely calm, which makes little sense. but then what about the american culture of school shootings does? i guess there's no more appropriate time for me to have had this silent nightmare than the holiday we've collectively dedicated to celebrating the frightening, the fearsome, the gory. 

31 weeks// tumble dry low

some days i feel completely calm, confident, cucumberlike

like today. 

mostly chill, not feeling especially freakouty at all really

and 

t h e n

it's 11:01 pm

nate's asleep beside me

i 

find myself

watching birth videos

a nagging tumbling feeling 

like i'm in the dryer

spiraling 

imagining

envisioning 

all that could go wrong

my imagination's worst case scenario elbowing itself to the top of my mind

every kick and wiggle

half reassurance, half terrifying

is he upside down?

did he just tangle himself in his cord?

how are we going to make it another ten weeks? or twelve?

how am i ever going to deliver this baby?

what if something happens?

what if we have a cord accident?

i'm not okay

i can't do this

i can't go on

i'm too scared

i'm too scared

i'm too scared

please God

what do i do i'm just so scared

i can't survive that

my heart feels like it's going to push itself out of my throat

God please, please 

i'm going to drown in this fear

i am so terrified

it feels like a nightmare but i'm awake, it's 11:19 and i'm typing a blog draft

and it feels like i'm 

actually

living the worst possible moment 

how do i stop how do i stop i'm so scared God how do i stop

and in my mind's eye

mom and dad's dining room

the wall

the small drawing 

black ink old paper

the angel beside Christ in the garden

i feel my heart returning, burning, to its proper location in my chest

i need like 12 tums

someone opened the dryer door

i'm exhausted from the spiral

still scared but somehow no longer blinded by the fear

God, please, please, please let me raise this baby

bring me through these last few weeks

and then let me start the fresh batch of first year worries

latch and cradle cap and the pause

allergies and formula and growth curves

all i want is to be so tired i can't even see straight, 

holding my baby

breathing together

together

breathing

together

30 weeks today //

i look like i swallowed a soccer ball

can't walk more than a few steps without support belt

most shirts don't reach the bottom of the bump now

the kicks sometimes look and feel more like earthquakes

we all think it's a boy

i like my midwives

rita told me she went to columbia 

i'm going to labor at home until i'm 100% sure one of them is there

it's still a fight

to not hate my size

to step away from the temptation to criticize

belittle

blame

villainize

my own body

my body neutrality practice has been helping

i sit on the edge of the bed and remind myself:

my body is no better or worse than anyone else's

my body is doing exactly what it should be doing

i prayed for this 

please use me to do whatever You need done today

my body won't always feel or look like this

my body is my home

my body is my baby's home

standing in front of the mirror

brushing my hair while i look at my pregnant body in the mirror

inspecting it from all angles

thinking of all the women i know 

and know of 

who never, in forty weeks, get this big

and! i'm only halfway!

it's going to get worse

i'm going to regret every extra calorie and every missed step

we spend a few minutes in this toxic patriarchal spiral

the hairbrush and i

and then my mind flips through the pages of More Than A Body

and i set down the patriarchal poison

look what this body is doing, at this very second as i stand here.

multiplying millions of cells

building 

a home for a new soul

before my very eyes

this is body is powerful

my power is not of the peter parker variety

mine coats the inside of each cell wall

obediently doubling itself, 

constructing a home

regardless of how i bully the body it helped my mother build.

it does not care what i think

it knows its purpose

it's not wasting time, listening to me critique its work

in fact, it doesn't even let me decide how to use it

it has never tasted the patriarchal toxins i've been eating for 32 years

it is not beholden to 

the christine quinn standard of beauty

because my super power, while it's mine, isn't  

it's just a single helping

poured over me by a Force who knows best of all 

that i'm not a superhero or supermodel

i'm 

a house.

have you ever seen a house

belittling its own 2x4s or copper pipes?

a house knows its power

it knows the neighbors

cannot with their gossip or their pinterest boards

change

the strength of the structure 

or the square footage

it knows the power with which it was built

and for only eighteen more weeks

i am

a house

what fighting an eating disorder sounds like

me: hi alex, how are you?

AS: i'm fine. but i'm also hungry so i can't really think straight and i keep snapping at my kids.

me: oh that's dumb. you should eat something. like that falafel salad you've been eating for lunch a lot lately?

AS: yes i like that salad a lot but i think i'll just sit here and drink my tea.

me: why?

AS: because i'm not going to eat for a while.

me: that's a bad idea.

AS: i know. i have this layer of my brain that wants to eat, and knows i need to eat, but i have this other layer who's very bossy and says, your stomach and thighs are fatter than we like. just don't eat for a while and then we'll look better and then you can eat again.

me: but you know that starving yourself won't actually help you lose weight, right?

AS: it might. you don't know.

me: okay but remember in therapy how you learned that self-destructive behavior like starving yourself is one of the worst things you can do to your body? you love your body!

AS: yes, usually. but i look so ugly in my clothes lately. i look pregnant. and we both know i'm not pregnant. i just look pregnant because i've been eating girl scout cookies and a lot of ice cream.

me: don't you remember that stuff that moved you so deeply that you read in The Body? about how our bodies are a a miraculous tangle of systems functioning at lightning speed with such specialty and improbability that your physical body is considered *magical* by most of the medical science community?

AS: what is your point

me: don't you remember how many times you've fallen in love with your body, stretch marks and all, because of all the amazing things it has done for you? all the places it's taken you? all the children it's built? 

AS: yes but

me: remember what you decided to do in therapy? N O U R I S H  yourself. that made a lot of sense to you.

AS: yeah but

me: do you want to model this type of self destruction for your daughters? do you want them to believe they don't deserve food when they start feeling chubby? 

AS: no. i 100% do not want that. i would never want them to starve themselves.

me: they're watching you.

me: you're hungry. you're a human being. your systems need nourishment.

me: eat some lunch.

AS: uggggggggggggghhhhggghhghhhgggghghghggggghhgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ok.