I’m thinking about becoming a florist, or a clothing designer, or a carpenter. What’s the word for people who make shoes? A shoemaker, Google? Surely not. I want a word like milliner. Ah, cobbler. I’m thinking about becoming a cobbler.
About becoming almost anything that involves creating physical things that can begin and end and be held and used. Anything that isn’t behind a screen and doesn’t involve grammar and sentence structure. I’m thinking about painting and lotion-making and preserving. About dill pickles and jam and crumb structure.
You should see my sourdough these days. You should try my jam.
I’m thinking about how much I love my job when I’m under pressure, and how that doesn’t go at all with any of these other wild, earth-mother desires I’m filled with. I’m thinking about how I’m applying for mentors at the same time as I’m wondering if I should be mentoring. Talking to schools. Helping. I’m clutching at everyone else’s philanthropy, knowing their cause isn’t quite mine but feeling so badly like I’m letting the side down, not contributing, not giving back.
Not even creating, really, in my own time. (Other than the sourdough and all that jam.) Instead, I take a lot of naps. I water the garden. I read recipe books and mindfulness books and Harry Potter in Portuguese (page 25!). I count the baby’s kicks. I fight nausea and fatigue by giving in to them, immediately and gracelessly. I make endless lists of things we need to change before the baby comes. I exhaust Brazil with trips to Mitre 10 and discussions about natural childbirth and my urgent desire for black and white curtains in the baby’s room.
I meditate, but restlessly. I’m working on it.
I’m too hot all the time.
I’m not interested in anything except the baby but I’m mad at anyone who dares to imply it. I drop things constantly. I eat too much sugar and I’m obsessed with fruit and I’m still not 100% sure if I’m allowed all this coffee. I feel beautiful and sexy and powerful, like my body was made to do this, and heavy and slow and broken, like every inch of me is falling apart. I’ve found myself and I’m losing myself. I’m a force of nature and a wild design error. Everything is exactly as it should be, but surely it shouldn’t be like this?
I am. We are. He’ll be.
We’ll see.