Talented Brilliant Women

This is a follow-up post, in which I complete my selections of five great women bloggers to whom I pass the torch of the Rockin' Girl Blogger award.


The problem is, the more I look, the more I find that the web is full of you talented brilliant women! I feel like I'm stumbling into one small party and picking five to declare the most amazing of all, while ignoring the fact that there are millions of others at millions of other parties equally stunningly worthy.

One redeeming fact: my five picks now get to tag five picks of their own. So it's not all up to me.

Without further ado, and, again, in no particular order:

3. It's not just one person writing this blog, so maybe it's not fair to make this pick. But since the theme is female empowerment, I think I can get away with it. Though I'm sure they'd prefer not to be referred to as "girls" rather than "women", it's undeniable that they are rockin'. And they do the rest of us rockin' females an important service, providing regular, all-important reminders that sexism is alive and well in our world, lest we lose sight of how we are affected and subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) limited by it every day. Feministing, edited by Jessica Valenti, Vanessa Valenti, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, and Ann Friedman, takes to this challenge with great spirit and humor.

4. I hesitate to even dip my foot into the world of cooking blogs, because there are so many treasures in this department, but I can't skip over Heidi Swanson, author of two great and inspiring cookbooks: Cook 1.0: A Fresh Approach to the Vegetarian Kitchen and Super Natural Cooking: Five Ways To Incorporate Whole and Natural Ingredients into Your Cooking. Heidi's blog, 101 Cookbooks, is jam-packed with great recipes, cooking tips, and mouth-watering images. Heidi does much of her own photography and graphic design, not to mention writing, cooking, tasting, musing. She's a powerhouse, and she lights a fuse under my butt to do all the projects piled in my filing cabinet and all over my desk. Heidi, you can cook for me (or better yet, with me) any time.

5. Kt (Kate Andrews) of The Department takes stunning photographs and peppers her blog with them, along with her concise and colorful writing. Her haikus, brief journal entries, platitudes with a twist, and sparky little self-helpish quips and quotations are often worthy of meditation.

I'm forcing myself to stop, though in my mind there is great clamoring: But what about all the infertile and mom-blogs? What about the artist blogs? That one I love by the mom-lawyer, the other by the mom-doctor? That one by the book editor? I'll have to compile them all properly, get them into my sidebar links, give them their much-deserved props.

In the meantime, I'll mention one other site, a resource for all of you female bloggers out there (or wannabe bloggers). Check out BlogHer. It's for you.

It's a Start

MC at MissedConceptions recently bestowed upon me a "Rockin' Girl Blogger" award, and I am delighted to receive it.

Actually, it was a few weeks ago.

More accurately, I should admit, more than a few weeks.

Okay, so it was August.

But here it is, and I post it proudly:


I'm only just getting around to acknowledging the honor, in part, because of the expectation that I now select five Rockin Girl Bloggers to honor in kind. Not an easy task, if you take it seriously – which I do – when there are so so many supremely worthy Rockin' Girls out there. But I'm going to attempt a selection, finally, belatedly. A little at a time.

Here I go with my first two picks. In no particular order:

1. I'll begin with Aliza Sherman Risdahl, who is the author of six books, including The Everything Blogging Book: Publish Your Ideas, Get Feedback, And Create Your Own Worldwide Network. I first came across her through her Babyfruit: The Miscarriage Blog and Motherhood Diaries, which played a part in inspiring me to begin my own blog, and got me hooked on her story. (At that time, motherhood was still in the future for Aliza.) I've since been wowed by all her many creative efforts, including several other blogs, writing projects, and independent filmmaking. She inspires me to put myself out there in like kind.

2. Penelope Trunk authors the blog Brazen Careerist: Advice at the intersection of life and work and penned the similarly titled book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. I just discovered her and I'm excited by her thoughtfulness, great writing, and wide-open unselfconsciousness. I give her credit for getting me moving on this long-avoided chore. Speaking of which, check out her lovely post on procrastination.

More soon.

Medicine Man

Last night I dreamt of a man in a white lab coat. He wasn't a scientist, nor was he a doctor, per se. He was a medicine man.

Housed inside the mind of this medicine man was a room full of long, clean tables, fluorescent lights, microscopes, glass vials and slides and petri dishes. His thoughts were based on intuited fact, the result of careful scientific inquiry in the laboratory of his mind. He was a celebrated, highly regarded clairvoyant. A private audience with him was a great and rare privilege. And here he was, sitting down to talk to me about my fertility.

I was disconcerted by his appearance. It wasn't just the lab coat giving him an air of Harvard/MIT intensity, but also his black and silver-flecked hair trimmed tight to his head, his no-nonsense wire-framed glasses, and a matter-of-fact expression. He looked like he needed a shave, like facial hair was an issue for him, like he had shaved that morning and maybe again at midday, like if he didn't stay on top of it, he'd have a full beard before dinner. I felt lucky to be talking to him, but nervous around all that sharply focused intellect and hair-sprouting vitality, holding my breath for whatever he was about to say. He was already talking.

The medicine man told me that I would never again conceive a pregnancy. J~'s sperm were no longer viable. And then, with nonchalant ease, he brought me inside his mind-lab to explain about DNA and genetic recombination and what was getting in the way for my husband. All of it made perfect sense, though I don't recall the details now.

What I recall is a strange cocktail of emotion: sadness, but more than that, profound gratitude for the information, for the freedom to finally move on.

It hit me today that I am no longer swamped by the afternoon blues. Recently, for more than a month, I slogged through a daily bout of grieving. It felt like a new space were being carved into my interior. It hurt. I didn't understand it, but I accepted it.

And then I started applying to graduate schools.

In relating a dream from his youth that he credits with giving him the cure for a deeply infected burn wound, Ketut Liyer, the Balinese medicine man in Eat, Pray, Love, said that "sometimes dreams are just joking". But clearly, he also believes, sometimes they're not.

My own dream ended the way dreams often do – the way thoughts end, usually – in a fuzzy slide into something else. I simply drifted from the medicine man's magical laboratory into a vision of my childless future, as if wandering, mid-film, from one screening room to another inside one of those big movie multiplexes. Again, I don't recall the details of that second dream, only bits about the setting – there was a sidewalk and a brick wall – and the emotion: my own Harvard/MIT-ish intensity, a deep engagement in my work and the people I was trying to reach with it.

When I woke, it was like emerging from my own chest.

I may not have a shiny laboratory in there. But there is something.

The Ex- Factor

There it was, in my inbox Tuesday afternoon: An email. From my ex-husband.

Imagine that.

Now imagine the "gung-GUNG!" sound from Law and Order, or any other deep, dramatic, percussive musical effect meant to evoke the heart skipping a beat or leaping into sudden overdrive. Because when I saw his name on my screen, I think my heart did both.

It's been more than a year of no contact between myself and this man with whom I once felt certain I would spend the rest of my days, the person whose sudden amputation from my life caused the deepest emotional trauma I've ever experienced. I've said it before and I'll say it again: a miscarriage is bad, but I'm telling you, it doesn't even come CLOSE to what that divorce felt like.

Understandably, A~ suspected I wouldn't want to hear from him. But to the contrary: as uncomfortable as it was to feel my heart buck and stall, it was easier than stomaching the loss of a deeply trusted best friend. And it's nothing compared to imagining him out in the world, thriving, happy, relieved to be done with me, telling his friends and family, "Phew! Am I glad THAT's over!" I am deeply reassured to learn that I have not morphed, in his mind, into the first daughter of Satan.

Or maybe not until now.

Because — also understandably — he'd prefer that I didn't write about him on the blog. And here I am, spilling the beans all over the place.

Then again, I haven't revealed his identity (or my own, for that matter). I haven't pasted the contents of his email into this post (and I won't). I haven't revealed any juicy personal gossip, like is he still with the girl he left me for? Are they happy? Truth is, I don't know the answer to these questions. But as curious as I am, I know it has no bearing on ME, my character, worthiness or happiness. Whatever feelings I might have about the details of his post-divorce existence can be processed in a less public arena. Yes, in other words, I am capable of respecting his privacy.

At first I thought it might be difficult not to gloat if I were to learn that he is unhappy, but actually, I find myself hoping that he IS happy. In fact, I've cried every night since that email came, feeling sad at the possibility that he is sad, remembering how closely I used to carry him in my heart, feeling strangely disembodied by my reticence to reach out. (Is this the emotional equivalent to the amputee's phantom limb syndrome, phantom love syndrome?)

(To be fair, I've been pretty darn busy this week, and the memories that A~'s resurfacing bring up aren't all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. Not that we didn't have some very memorable good times. But moving toward each other these days means picking through some pretty treacherous, tedious karmic rubble.)

In her EXCELLENT memoir (oh how I love this book!) Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and IndonesiaElizabeth Gilbert suggests that, "When the Karma of a relationship is done, only love remains."

Wouldn't that be nice?

Excuses, Excuses

Since I began this blog two years ago, I think this is the longest I've gone without posting.

Why is that, I wonder? The answer is multifaceted.

1. To be or not to be pregnant (and to stay or not to stay pregnant) are no longer the questions taking center stage in my life. (These days, it's more like: to go or not to go to graduate school). This is not to suggest that these questions have left the stage entirely. Don't get me wrong. As much as I wish it were otherwise, I don't think I'll ever be entirely free of them. They have become a part of me. And so has this blog.

2. Speaking of graduate school, my first big application deadline is looming, just two weeks away. And there is So Much To Do. Hence, Reason Number Two: frantic, out of control distraction.

3. Plus, clients are coming out of the woodwork, suddenly wanting to Christmas-up their websites. In other words, Reason Number Two all over again.

4. I don't keep this blog the deep dark secret that it should be. My family knows about it. My friends know about it. Hell, even my ex-husband knows about it! (Not that I've heard a peep from him since the divorce, but I'll save that rant for another post.) Probably the grad schools I apply to will come across it, and how seriously will they take me if they read that I'm disappointed to be getting my period today?

My life has always been an open book. I can't keep a secret (about myself, that is) and wouldn't want to begin. But sometimes I think I should. And occasionally, that thought does slow me down a bit.

5. Speaking of can't keep a secret, I wasn't going to tell you yet, dear readers, because it's really not ready, but I've been two-timing you. I've started another blog. Just barely! I'd invite you in but the furniture is still in boxes all over the floor, and I haven't even unfurled the wallpaper.

Never fear: I won't stop writing here. The Babies or Not story is not over yet. But there are other aspects to who I am besides infertile, other things I think about besides babies and reproductive decision-making---like art, writing, and living a creative life---and I want to give myself some space to explore those too.

I'll post the link, I promise, I promise. Very soon. Just let me unpack a little first, tack up a few links. Some of you Blogger-savvy types have probably found it already. Some of you might sneak over there on your own. If you have, or if you do now, excuse the mess. And tune in here to be invited to the grand opening, coming soon(ish).

Timing

To those of you who comment on this blog, I wanted to put in yet another note of thanks for your words of wisdom and encouragement. It is great to hear from you all.

Someone asked what I meant by "Guess what time it is" in the previous post, assuming I was talking about time of the month. I meant time of day. It was midafternoon when I last wrote, and the afternoon blues were upon me as I complained that the prospect of work and school left me flat.

I am grateful to report that this is shifting: Lately, I am happily, albeit frantically, engaged in my work, my writing, my art-making, and in applying to graduate school. Morning, evening, and (knock wood) in the afternoon. All day long, actually. I forgot to eat lunch yesterday, in fact, I was so engrossed.

Speaking of time of the month, however, yesterday, I hit what, for me these days is the most poignant and fleeting time of the month. I'm talking EWCM here, people. For those of you not versed and deeply immersed in the TTC (trying to conceive) lexicon, I mean egg white cervical mucus, that clear, gooey stuff that lubes the passage of sperm through the mighty maw of the cervix just in time for conception. It's the telltale clue, the biological egg-timer, as it were, dinging up another ripe egg.

When I was a teenager, I had copious amounts of the stuff for a day or two every month. (No wonder, I read recently that we're most fertile between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four.) Nowadays, I'm lucky to see any at all. In fact, last time I noticed EWCM, J~ took the morning off and we conceived my latest ill-fated pregnancy.

But yesterday, mid-morning, I discovered my body had produced a great gob of the stuff. I checked my chart: it was the eleventh day of my cycle. Right on target. But J~ was already long gone and I was so deep into my work I didn't think about it long. By the time he came home and I had torn myself from the computer screen, the day was over. I was starving and stiff and in dire need of a workout. (Didn't I mention I forgot to eat lunch? I forgot to take any breaks at all yesterday.)

We talked about it. We noted the passing moment, the shift in my focus away from parenthood and toward a broader definition of my life's work and purpose. I asked him if he felt sad. He admitted that he did, but just a little. "Not a deep pit-of-the-stomach sadness," he said.

I nodded, agreeing, understanding. It is sad to think I may never be a mother. But also, when I can embrace it (usually after my requisite afternoon grieving period, which can be very intense) the thought is also tremendously freeing: I may never be a mother.

My fantasy these days is that I'll get pregnant by some miracle of health and timing. It'll happen at just the right moment, if there ever is such a thing, when J~ is more available to help, when I am more established and satisfied in my work. Perhaps that moment is a month away. Perhaps it doesn't exist. But in the meantime, life goes on.

Afternoon Blues

I've been feeling sad lately. I haven't wanted to say anything about it. I thought it would pass. Maybe it will pass.

For a month or so now, I've been overtaken most days, mid afternoon, by a sinking, swamping sadness. My heart literally aches. I feel pressure behind my eyes, a rising tide of tears without an obvious source. When this becomes unbearable, I slip my sneakers on, take myself out for a walk, a run.

It works, this infusion of oxygen to my blood. The tide recedes.

But come the next afternoon, I'm back where I started.

Sometimes, it isn't sadness, but panic that hits me. I feel as if I've been riding a lawnmower all day, drinking coffee by the gallon. Even my skin seems to be vibrating. I've had headaches most nights this week. I never have headaches! And for the record, I haven't mowed the lawn in six weeks and I don't drink coffee at all.

I toured the MFA program at the local college the other day, walked away (in the pouring rain) feeling discouraged and overwhelmed. Academia, I am reminding, is not to be entered into lightly. "I'm not sure it's the answer," I told my new, and very wise friend, C~.

"What's the question?" she replied.

I told you she was wise.

It took me two days to realize, the question is this: If not motherhood, then what?

There are a million perfectly good answers, some of which excite me, at the right time of day. But at this moment, they all sound like "get a job" or "go to school." And frankly (can you guess what time it is?) my heart isn't in it.