I named my child Thirst. And Miriam — Sea of Sorrow, Bitterness. And Cendrine — that’s Ashes. I named my child Bitterness, but I am feeling better now, thank you. I named my child God Is With Thee, though I do not feel Him.
I named her Isolde — Ruler of Ice. Giselle, which is pledge and hostage.
Harita, a lovely name, derived from the Sanskrit, denotes a color of yellow, green, or brown, a monkey, the sun, the wind, and several other things.
I named her Sylvie so that she would feel at home in the sunless forest and then handed her over to the Madame so she might live. Placed in the basket or pea pod or a hat box for now. Hidden in the goose egg, the walnut shell, the plum for now. I named her Bethany — House of Figs. I named her Lucia to protect her from the dark. Dolpin, Lion. Phillipa — lover of horses. I named her Daughter of the Oath. I gave her away. So she might live.
I named her Clothed in Red, because for nine months I never stopped bleeding. Xing, which is star. I named her Good-bye for Now. I named my son Yitzchak — that’s He Will Laugh. And Isiah, Salvation.
How are you feeling, Ava Klein?
I named him Salvation. And Rescue
And Bela derived from a word that means wave, or a word that means time, or a word that means limit. It is also indicative of a type of flower, or a violin.
As for me? I might have been named Song of Joy. I might have been named The Lover of Flowers. As it is, I was named Bird. And what could be lovelier than that?
I named my daughter Arabella — Beautiful Altar, and Andromeda — The Rescued One.
I named my daughter Esme, the past participle of the verb to love. I named her She Has Peace, and Shining Beautiful Valley, and Farewell to Spring…
The ticket man at the train station in Providence asks where I am going — a perfectly reasonable question, in fact his job, but I could not for the life of me remember. I forget my purse. I lose my bank card, my keys. Maybe it’s time to start working from home now. The absent-minded professor indeed.
It was Stamford, Connecticut, I was going to. After a few moments it came back. To meet Helen and then go up to the house. One time in fall Laura too was at that station to greet me. How much I miss her. Sequestered out there in Colorado, the Hate State. I am hoping Laura will come here before too long. I want her to be with me pregnant. I’m not sure though. I sense her ambivalence. I pray she does not defect — she is one of the people I can least afford to lose.
A few nights of the same nightmare: I go to sleep seven months pregnant, I wake up and my stomach is flat, the baby gone. No explanation. As if it is completely normal. As if I had only imagined it, as if I was crazy all along.
A weird delirium. Ghost images from my past. As if my life were over. A man who came one night up the rickety sea-soaked steps. The foghorns, the fog, this rolling, oceanic body. A most memorable time… He left his footprints in ice the next morning. By noon they were gone. I never saw him again.
I am filled with presence and spirit. It is impossible to ignore now. This boisterous other soul, making herself known. Taking my thoughts, my thinking away.
This motion within my motion. This pulsing within my pulse.
In the train station in Hudson on my way to the city. Just called Louis and Louise to go check on the house because I am quite certain I have left the candles on. Visions of the whole beloved house in ashes. Oh, the intensity and blur of these days. So much hope and desire it frightens me.
In pregnancy it seems the candles are always burning.
Turning forty, two years ago. Assessing my life. My only regret — that I had not had a child.
In me, the refusal to refuse joy. To refuse one single thing. Tempered a little since I have gotten older. Not to cause others undue sorrow, pain anymore. Still, it is how I choose to live.
Not sure I would advise anyone to wait until after forty if there was a choice. The statistics daunting. The quality of the worry. The personal implications — what kind of mother are you anyway?
High risk.
The first glucose test is a little off and so I must go for the three-hour glucose tolerance test, a more refined picture of what’s up. I’ve always had small problems with sugar and so assume this test will show the need to change my diet or something. Also my sister, pregnant with Emily, failed this one. Off then to the lab.
East Village, 10 A.M.
I down the awful ten-ounce sweet drink and feel the little one doing somersaults, cartwheels — incredible dizziness, headache.
The baby going wild. I can hardly write this sentence. Sickness.
At half-hour intervals the technician comes for blood…
I’m feeling better the further I get away from the sweet now and can better watch the comings and goings in the lounge.
I walk a blind man to the blood lab. There’s a young Latino man here to get a drug test. He comes once a month with his drug counselor. He is an assistant teacher now and the kids like him. He has fed the children and they are now having their naps. He likes to take them to Central Park. To the Bronx Zoo. To New Jersey, where they have ants and termites. That’s what he says to his counselor, who just sits there exhausted-looking.
A father and little boy walk in. Blood is taken from the father’s arm. When he returns the son asks him, “Are you still strong?”
Parole officers fight with their parolees. “I’m just doing my job, man.”
“You’re trying to take my children away.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
The distance from the sweet.
People who need blood levels taken coming in and out all day — bipolars and so forth.
I’m feeling a little disoriented from all the stimulus. Every one of these people was born. Was someone’s baby. I could weep at the thought of it.
My mother entering the room with a bowl of pastina. Home from school. The tyrants silenced.
Say you are still strong.
Before I even have a sufficient chance to worry about anything Helen calls, once more with her good news: “Your blood sugar is normal.”
The sound of my heart and my blood, and all day nothing but Bach. His birthday (313 years).
It’s the claustrophobia that’s a little difficult. The pancakes on the plate are too crowded. The books on the bookshelves make me crazy. There’s no bed big enough.
When I think of how trouble-free this pregnancy has been. Especially remembering everyone else’s stories. No nausea, no bleeding, no backaches, no headaches, no swollen legs — in fact my back has never felt better — it must be the new distribution of weight.
Also I am not in the least squeamish or hypochondriacal or neurotic about the workings of my body, and this goes a long way when pregnant.
Fear that the good feeling cannot last, will not.
And it has been a bliss, intellectually as well — loving as I do the place of all potential. Before anything that is going to happen has happened yet.
I put the little tape player next to my belly and play the Clarinet Quintet in A Major for her. I can listen to Mozart again. The gift that is Mozart.
I’m more and more tired now again.