The Thought Train Derails

I imagine this is a preview of senility. I find myself in a nether zone between the "order" I had made for myself and a mental chaos that is overtaking me, where I am both aware that I'm not making sense but I can't seem to get it back on track. I used to start my day with a plan, goals on a to-do list that I attacked methodically. (1) Get kids to school. (2) Write in journal. (3) Call contractors. (4) Research documentary film festivals and funding sources. (5) Fold laundry. Etc. Not a very exciting list, but reassuring. But these days, I can't get anything straight.

The bedroom MUST be painted, and it must be Hawthorne Yellow, and I can't think about anything else until it's done. But then again, the brick in the kitchen is crumbling, and we can't hang the kitchen lights or plaster the holes in the wall until we get that done, but the mason can't get here until maybe next week, and the brand new back door is leaking, and oh my god, I never paid September's pre-school bill, not to mention October's, which is due today, and I haven't read my writer's group pieces, and how did my video camera get specks of Hawthorne Yellow on it? And I haven't called CBS construction about the cover for the bathroom radiator, where of course Reeve burned his hand this morning -- only the second day the boiler has even kicked on, and why didn't I just take care of this in July when I first started worrying about it? And I need to order the rug for the bedroom. Should I be pursuing the H1N1 vaccine more aggressively? The pediatrician tells me it's going to be chaos when it's released, even though I'm supposed to be the top-priority group, but this is New York where you have to fight to get anything -- which reminds me to ask Memar whether it's possible Gar's mom was pregnant when she died of the flu in 1918 -- this possibility raised by Jordy, given the greater mortality rate of pregnant women, adding a whole new level of tragedy to that situation -- but really, do I need to be thinking about this right now?

The thing is, I've got those wiggles in my fingers again, the electric pulses I only get when I stand before something that truly terrifies or excites me or both, and I suppose that Thing would be Giving Birth. As I said to Jordy, chat chat chat, at 10 pm last night while the poor man's eyes were at quarter mast, I am reminded, There Is Only One Way Out of This Situation. I've gone along with the pleasant hormonal high of pregnancy for some months now, just big enough to be visibly With Child, not too big to be uncomfortable or have to contemplate the Big Event. But this week I declare myself 7 months pregnant, because suddenly the urgency to paint my bedroom a cozy yellow that I imagine will welcome my baby as if in California sunshine, despite the New York winter solstice that will actually greet him, has overtaken all other rational thoughts. (In truth, he'd probably prefer a dark chocolate room, like the one he has inhabited these months, but tough luck, kid, it's Hawthorne Yellow or bust.)

So I guess my disordered mental condition might be called Nesting Syndrome. It does not, however, feel serene like the little robin who sings while gathering her sticks and twigs in Mary Poppins. It feels more like frantically trying to build a sand castle while wave after wave washes over my efforts. (Today I opened the Hawthorne Yellow to discover it had been improperly mixed -- not only did the can almost explode from over-filling, but the yellow was so light, it was practically Weston Flax, heaven forfend!)

Waves brings me to this summer, while on Fire Island, I had just gotten Reeve to sleep under our sun umbrella, the gentle waves lulling boy and pregnant momma into a happy afternoon slumber, when not two minutes later a rogue wave, exactly 8 feet wide and vicious, overtook the embankment and doused us in cold waking reality. Not a single other person at our same latitude on the beach got hit. Waves have an agenda of their own.

Which brings me to, of course, labor. I remember now how quickly the waves came with Reeve, and even at this safe distance the memory constricts my breath. The first two contractions were 5 minutes apart, and they only got closer from there. His labor was so much faster than Duncan's that I felt like a marathon runner who found herself thrown into the 100m sprint. I now know how different each labor can be, so I approach the third time with humility and, to be honest, a little more fear.

I know fear is the enemy. It will make me tense and obstruct Baby's passage rather than ease it. It will shred the last remnant of order from my thoughts. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," and so on. Yes! I chant the mantra. But I just noticed that this latter bit of oft-quoted wisdom leaves off at a diagnosis without a prescription for getting OVER it. Clearly a statement made by a man who never gave birth. (Ok, so the man had polio, but still?)

So I will turn to Jodi (as in Foster) who tells me, "Go toward your fear." Deep breath. Okay, I've done this before. Some woman did it for every person walking the earth; so too can I. Maybe it will even be a "beautiful experience." And now it's time to go pick Reeve up from school already, a track for this train to grab hold of. And then we will make Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, and then we'll have a nap, and then it will be time to pick up Duncan...