Thursday, December 30  

Pain

Women understand pain. They have conversed with it, canoodled with it, accepted it into their family. They are more familiar with it than men. This is, of course, a generalization. It doesn't take into account those men Vic has known who suffer through life with various diseases, congenital defects or dead mothers.

pain noun 1. An unpleasant sensation occurring in varying degrees of severity as a consequence of injury, disease, or emotional disorder. 2. Suffering or distress. 3. A source of annoyance; a nuisance.

Despite what she wrote in her highschool journal the day after she'd had sex for the first time (dear diary, I am a woman now) Vic knows that she did not truly join the ranks of women until she experienced absolute pain.

Birthing was like passage into a secret society. She bought her way in with stifled screams and sweat. Her body split itself open like an overripe peach and in that moment she knew finally what it really means to be a woman.

Does it matter that Vic is not brave in the face of pain? No matter how familiar, she is still scared of it and when it comes, whimpers like a child, clutching her ouch and searching concerned faces for the one who can kiss it better.

Vic wakes at 4am with what feels like a knife twisting in her lower abdomen. She turns over, sits, stands, tries to find a less painful place. When she can't, she panics and kneels on the floor. Jon comes over and strokes her hair, whispers Feel better, baby.

Later, after telling the story of her recent pain over and over to nurses, doctors and ultrasound technicians, she realizes that the pain has gone. They tell her there's nothing wrong. Suddenly, that feels true. Vic goes back home feeling sheepish but, like all women, still entitled to her pain.

Wednesday, December 22  

Older

In some ways, Vic is still waiting to be "older".

old(er) adv 1. Having lived or existed for a relatively long time; far advanced in years or life. 2. Having or exhibiting the physical characteristics of age. 3. Having or exhibiting the wisdom of age; mature 4. Exhibiting the effects of time or long use; worn: an old coat.

When Vic was very young, she admired a set of ruby earrings and matching ring that her mother had stowed away in her jewellery chest. She found them tucked into a small white ring box beside the little container that held her baby teeth (her mother assured her that the Tooth Fairy had a deal with parents to return all teeth collected so the parents could cherish them forever and keep them stashed in a little box). Vic took the ruby earrings out of the box one day and with the ring loosely balanced around her big thumb, she asked her mother why she never wore them. Her mother replied "Because your great granny left them for you. They'll be yours to wear when you're older."

The word "older" had a deep, intriguing note. Older. How delicious.

Of course, Vic, being just a little girl, didn't altogether respect the word and decided the very next week that she was older enough and wore the ring to school, planning to put it back before her mother could know. As was bound to happen, Vic lost the ring, stressed about it for weeks and finally opted to say nothing at the time and hope that when it all came out she would be older enough to handle the consequences.

As if giving her a second chance, the year Vic turned 15 (half a lifetime ago) her parents gave her a very expensive ring. It was heavy and valuable, much too good for a teenager. The message implied seem to be "keep this safe so you'll have it when you're older." The present was, in a way, the responsibility of safeguarding a precious thing.

Schooled by her earlier disaster, Vic took this responsibility quite seriously. She put the ring away into her own jewellery chest and never, ever wore it. Over the years, she has moved her jewellery chest across provinces, into different apartments, new bedrooms, new lives.

She thinks of it for the first time in a long time today. The thought emerges like a recovered memory. She thinks of going to the jewellery chest and taking out the ring. Maybe putting it on. She is, after all, older now.

Still, she holds off a little. Ruminating over all the possible meanings of the word "older". Just to be sure.

Sunday, December 19  

Alone

Being alone has become a treat, an exhileration. It has the sweetness of sudden freedom.

alone adj 1 Being apart from others; solitary. 2. Being without anyone or anything else; only. 3. Considered separately from all others of the same class. 4. Being without equal; unique.

On a day that Jon stays home from work, Vic is allowed to venture out alone to run some holiday errands. Not "allowed" like she's the family pet and has rules about out and in -- but "allowed" as in, circumstance allows her. So you understand.

She wakes early, much earlier than she needs, and dresses in the dim morning light of their bedroom. Jon smiles sleepily from the bed, half watching her dress through eyelids barely open. He doesn't need to see clearly. He knows her body well enough by now to visulize without seeing. Like groping through a familiar hallway in a blackout, he can see her bending and reaching for hooks behind her back without sight.

She kisses him goodbye and goes to wrap a warm scarf around her neck. She digs her gloves out from the bottom of the stroller she normally leaves the house pushing.

As she leaves the apartment, strollerless, she makes sure to close the door gently behind her. Grace sleeps softly and a sharp noise would awaken her, which would awaken Jon and force him to start the day earlier than he wants, which would make Vic feel badly and like she really shouldn't be going out alone, which she doesn't want to feel.

All she wants to feel today is the swift excitement of walking quickly through the December cold. Her ears numbing even beneath her hat. Her chapped lips on the rim of an expensive, too-much-froth latte. Her lungs full of breath that explodes from her in great white clouds as she goes.

The 10 minutes it takes to walk to the Eaton Centre are her first 10 minutes alone since she gave birth. Or since she became pregnant really, since her body was shared with Grace for that time, her constant companion even then.

Vic cherishes her time alone with a level of intensity and awareness of small detail that is singular and uncomplex.

Wednesday, December 15  

Ordinary

The day Vic gave birth to the little bundle of wriggling limbs that immediately asserted a stronger authority over her than any living being had been capable of previously, hurtling into existence not just a small person but a whole life situation so out of the ordinary that anyone would have laughed to think it a year before, was the day Vic transitioned into an ordinary person.

ordinary: adj 1.Commonly encountered; usual. 2.Of no exceptional ability, degree, or quality; average. 3.Of inferior quality; second-rate. 4.Having immediate rather than delegated jurisdiction, as a judge.

To become ordinary is to be found acceptable and right by the general populace. No matter what strangeness Vic may have harboured before becoming ordinary, she joined a greater clique (indeed became a favoured member as her belly grew) of the commonly shared experience. She enjoyed the benefits of her new station, became more confident and outgoing, assured of her place in the ordinary world.

Of course there were, and still are, pangs of doubt when she surveys the growing ordinariness around her. Her apartment becoming cluttered with miniature furniture in primary colours. Her skin beginning to show age, starting around her eyes to look older in that way specially reserved for mothers. Her sex life stalling, now quiet and remote as her fatigue battles Jon's desire for rights to her sleepy body.

It is painful to become ordinary. It is sad. But, at the same time, it is a great relief.

The authoritative bundle of limbs is named Grace with a nod to whatever stroke of fate, luck, destiny, what have you, that brought her into being. At five months old, Vic is able to see beyond the little body and toward the person she is becoming. Grace becomes Vic's daily project, most interesting play thing, most loved possession (while, yes, we know children aren't possessions at all). Grace shows Vic that ordinary is not just the world's median. It is also a place of extremes.

Tuesday, December 14  

Phase

Life progresses through a series of phases. Some, you talk about. Some, you don't. Some, you forget to mention not because they are insignificant or trifling but because they are huge, vast, inexplicable gawps of time and happenings that can't possibly be mentioned unless you really plan on doing a lot of talking and explaining and sum-upping. Which, typically, you don't have the time to do when you're in the midst of that kind of phase.

phase: noun 1. A distinct stage of development. 2. A temporary manner, attitude, or pattern of behavior: just a passing phase. 3. An aspect; a part: every phase of the operation.

In as concise a way as possible, let's just travel ahead a full year since Vic last had anything to say about her life. Let's not get hung up on the details. Let's all acknowledge that this phase we have just traveled through was significant and in some ways surprising and most definitely of the first definition rather than the second. Let's agree to forgo our desire for sense, logic and explanations. Let's accept that nature cannot be read aloud.

Vic got pregnant, decided that the child was exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, and to everyone's surprise, announced that she would have her baby, Jonathan and all.

Let's just move on.

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