Whale-Baby: Day 7 at home with my three-month-old son
So that we may relive
I wanted this one to be about writing. I make some notes early this morning when I take Levon outside. The grass is high again. White weedy flowers sprouted over night. What to write about writing? Levon poops — looking pensive, sniffing the air, following an invisible smell-current — poops, then darts away from his poop, as if it were going to chase him down. He comes to me. I pat his flank, pet his back — good boy, good boy — he looks behind him warily, anxious to get inside, to escape what he has just left in the high grass.
It’s 3:39 pm, and I am at the library for heads-down time. I have not read a single page of Moby-Dick today, and the few thoughts I scribbled this morning are still all I’ve got. I did, however, tend to my work inbox: Respond later; delete; respond now (tersely); respond later; read later; read now; respond now (effusively); delete; delete. I am in control of my life.
When I arrived at the library, there was a crew of window washers packing up their gear. A few of them glanced my way, one guy said something, the other guys laughed. I looked down to make sure I was wearing pants.
I am in control of my life — mostly.
When I left the house, Lauren was roasting all the vegetables, prepping for the week. Oven at 400, knife chopping, olive oil drizzling. I text her to check in, and she sends me a photo of our kitchen counters covered with sheet pan after sheet pan of potatoes, broccoli, sprouts, beet spirals, these butternut squash french-fry things. She says Hagen is asleep and Levon is snuggled up on the couch with her. It is in moments like this when “I love you” spills out, not as a general statement, but as a particular thing you are doing/feeling right now, in this moment. It is the right and proper usage.
Along with Moby-Dick, I brought a few notebooks I’ve been writing in this past year. I consider using them in some way; it is satisfying to shuffle them, feel them stacked together. This cup of coffee — my last of the day — is now empty. A large man at a computer station leans back, looks up. He has a faraway gaze.
I did not bring a pen.
I have been staying up too late writing these essays. I need more sleep than I have been getting, but the late nights I’m spending with this feels sacred: sleepy house, only a desk lamp on, the cats asleep at my feet, the sound of Hagen’s empty Rock ‘N Play still whirring upstairs. I watch the clock, which watches back. During these moments, I feel a little like Ahab manically focused on capturing this time just so, at the expense of my wellbeing. If there is a healthy balance of sleep and coffee, I’m tipping perhaps dangerously toward the latter. My White Whale is time itself, and I’m seeking revenge for its passing too quickly by. There is just so much, it makes me want to weep. We do the best we can. We burn at both ends.
Tomorrow begins my second week of paternity leave. Hagen and I have another five days together, plus another weekend. There is so much time; time has moved to fast.
Today is busy. We get up early for early church, attend a meet & greet after church, then stop by our friends’ baby shower. It seems like everyone there had kids. We have a kid. Here he is in my arms. We visit for half an hour, happy to show the expectant couple the joy at the other side, to bounce and sway our little guy. We leave early so we can swing by the grocery store before the next feed. We cram life within three-hour pockets, which is exhausting and exhilarating.
I spend some time on the fluid management front: unload dishes, wash dishes, scrub all the bottles, bag a bounty of milk for freezing. Fun fact: the words milk and milky are used 23 times in Moby-Dick. I change Hagen, blow raspberries on his big belly, and I’m out the door.
Which brings us to the library, where the notebooks sit in a neat stack. It’s 4:47 pm. Still haven’t read any from Moby-Dick today. And still, I have no pen. Lauren texts; it is dinner time for Hagen, which means it’s dinner time for us. I go home.
It’s 8:09 pm. I am trying to be in bed with you by 10:00 pm. The notebooks are fanned out on the desk. You’re nursing Hagen.
Earlier, while you were showering and packing up breast pumping gear for work this week, I flip through the notebooks, dog-earing pages, skimming sentences I hardly recall writing, all of sudden giddy with what I’m experiencing: it’s time travel.
What follows, Lauren — my first and best reader — are snippets of writing from the months you were pregnant with Hagen. Some are straight-up journal entries, others pure fiction, some thinly veiled autofiction (he being me in most cases), some have nothing to do with anything. All are self-indulgent. But I think they are the best way to demonstrate the role writing has played in all this. Here’s the abridged account of the Great Biscuit Pregnancy of 2017.
Later, we’ll fill in the gaps together.
April 9: This week they found out they were pregnant…an unfurling, the grand sense of beginning you get at the start of some giant book…but the most significant thing is this: the world now demands more attention…
April 14: His cat jumped on the bed and plopped herself down on his pillow…morning of sleepy musings — the cat is now zonked — he begins to think about their child, now just some impossibly small nugget…a new wild thing they’d thought they’d been appropriately anticipating…
April 20: Right now, you are just that little thing becoming something…but we have time…EIGENZEIT is a word you should learn soon. It’s a German word, and it means “right time” or “proper time”…taking as much time as you need for a thing…
May 22: 7 months until the baby comes, and he doesn’t know if he’s figured out things enough. He thought he might have, but then he had a pretty exhausting Monday and couldn’t even articulate his core values…
June 1: He’s ready for difficulty, for the last-minute laundry because the baby spit up or shit explosively.
June 2: “If you never let me read it, how will I ever know?”…he clammed up at the thought of sharing his writing…
June 13: I have decided that becoming a parent brings you closer to the front lines of time…
July 5: “Do what?” It was early, and he could not understand what everyone was doing out in the streets so enthralled by whatever it was… “Let’s go out front,” Lauren said. “There are these birds. We don’t know what it means.”
July 9: …by the time my child grows old enough to read, I hope he or she knows the most imporant thing: paying attention…
August 2: I forget for hours at a time that our son is growing and stretching inside Lauren…what do our conversations sound like, Biscuit?
August 5: Biscuit…you and I will doodle nonsense drawings. We will hike the woods…
August 26: Biscuit, we’ll be holding you just 4 months from now…it scares me how fast things are now…
September 2: Today, Saturday, I have weeded the garden beds and assembled the crib…
September 6: I felt Biscuit kick last night.Or maybe it was an elbow…
September 7: …We heard the roof rats…
September 20: Lauren and I are three years married…Biscuit now the size of a coconut…Biscuit, I hope you learn the lessons of life early…be more easily kind than I am…be wild — make loud animal noises…
October 16: What does he want to be able to say about pregnancy and fatherhood…? He cannot know that yet…
October 24: …that night, he picks up his dog and holds him like an infant, practicing…the robot vacuum traces its rounds in the basement, and in the quiet of their home there is an air of expectancy & joy…
October 25: “The first story of the world is one of safe passage.” I do not know exactly what this means…it tells its own story…It strikes me now…that the first passage is one of birth…that will be his first story…
November 1: There were eleven boxes on their front porch…tomorrow, life will continue, and each of the boxes will be there, stacked up by the door. And L’s belly will continue to grow and so will all the joy and terror…of this rich pageant…Why should it bother you that the tub handles don’t match the vanity drawer pulls…?
November 24: …he would, each our or so, take an inventory of all that still needed to be done before the baby came…Last night, he read a book to Biscuit. He will do this every night…
December 21: Today is Biscuit’s due date — winter solstice — …on my morning run I saw a large, pale possum…
December 22: Get on it, B…
December 23: Last night I dreamed Biscuit was born, that it was a girl…
December 24: Scattered thoughts…when my mother was pregnant with me, she took a hike on Signal Mountain, which did the trick & brought me…more thoughts on “safe passage” and first stories…how to document life with a child…
December 26: …you’re now 5 days past when we expected you, and I hope & trust that this means that to us you will be a constant surprise…the horizon is wide but it curves…
December 27: We are at the hospital…this is not the plan…I was reminded of a quote I heard somewhere… “when the map doesn’t match the territory, you have to go with the territory”…we cannot wait…the world opens up with each moment. Your mom’s tailbone is killing her, and you are feeling contractions.
I read just a few pages of Moby-Dick today. I am in bed before 11:00 pm.
I’m on paternity leave for two weeks with our son, and I’m going to write about it. During this time, I’m also reading Moby-Dick.
