True Love: Part II

Honest love, which is characteristic of noble people, whether they be rich or poor, is not generated by desire, like the other, but by reason. It has as its main goal the transformation of oneself into the object of one's love, with a desire that the loved onebe converted into oneself, so that the two may become one or four....
And as this transformation can only take place on a spiritual plane, so in this kind of love, the principal part is played by the "spiritual" senses, those of sight and hearing and, above all, because it is closest to the spiritual, the imagination. But, in truth, as it is the lover's wish to achieve a corporeal union besides the spiritual one, in order to effect a total identification with the beloved, and since this corporeal unity can never be attained, because it is not possible for human bodies to be physically merged into one another, the lover can never achieve this longing of his, and so will never satisfy his desire. --Tullia D'Aragona (1510-1556)

I read and reread this Tullia D'Aragona quote (note to self: read up on this woman), trying to fit her ideas together with Lacan. "Honest love" sounded a lot like the love of the subject for the Other. But perhaps it is something different-- the "transformation" driven by love instead of desire.

Anthony proposed to me on the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge, looking out over the water in East River Park. It was a warm July night, I was 6 months pregnant and severely creeped out by the area. We had walked through an eerily quiet area of projects to get there, and behind us was a poorly lit playground. We sat on a bench facing the water and talked. I think we were arguing about something, but I don't remember exactly what. He started telling me how much I meant to him (perhaps I had accused him of not loving me enough; give me a break, I was six months pregnant). I turned around to scan the playground; I was sure there was some evil hobo preparing to spring out at us with a knife. As I was turning back to face him, I heard him say "Will you marry me?"

I whipped around to look at him and he was down on one knee. My thoughts fumbled for a second. I wanted to give him crap for popping the question here, because I was still afraid of the imaginary hobos. But I figured it would probably be good to give the standard answer to the standard question, so that we could cherish the memory forever and so forth. "Yes, of course I will." We hugged, kissed, had our little squee about being engaged, and got the hell out of there.

I had been engaged before, and interestingly, that proposal was far more "romantic." It was on top of a mountain in early fall, and the ring was lovely. But that was for all the wrong reasons and the relationship subsequently went downhill faster than a concrete block on wheels.

Anthony and I have been married for a month and a half now, and I think I love him more every day. The most annoying thing about him is that I can't stay annoyed with him. Even when I go to bed irritated by him, I end up forgetting and snuggling with him. He makes me happy.

I was thinking, too, (and I forget if I've written about this before) about how I no longer have to perform. A few weeks ago we were walking down Myrtle Ave, and walked by a teenage girl wedged between two boys her age. I heard that flirtatious tone to her voice. That cutesy persona that I know so well. Boys that age (and even older) fall for that persona. That carefree, flirty, slightly aloof mannerism is completely calculated. I used to do it. I remember well walking home from high school with two or three guy friends, keeping them at arm's length but hopelessly in love with me. An attention-getting performance. I see women younger than me do this with new boyfriends, as well. I feel so freed; I no longer have to perform in any way.

Reminds me of this song:

I'm so tired
Of playing
Playing with this bow and arrow
Gonna give my heart away
Leave it to the other girls to play
Cause I've been a temptress too long
--Portishead, "Glory Box"

I'm sure I probably did "the performance" with Anthony when we were first together, but I don't remember it. Possibly I didn't need to do it, because he was pretty well smitten to begin with. So was I. I still am.

Just for the sake of mushyness (hey, it's almost V-day after all) I'm going to end with a list of things Anthony does that I love.

1. Whenever he goes to the store, he feeds my candy addiction by picking up a Butterfinger or a bag of gummy peach rings-- my favorites.
   
2. He wipes the counter and stovetop after washing dishes. He actually does this more often than I do and gives me crap for not doing it.
   
3. He gives me a kiss every day when he gets home from work.
   
4. He cuddles with me every night. Last night he even protested when I pulled out a book in bed, because he wanted to cuddle. I don't know how he achieves this nightly cuddling without his arm going numb.
   
5. He devours whatever I cook, no matter how good it turned out or whether I screwed up on it, and always proclaims it to be delicious. I can't tell if he's lying or not.
   
6. He doesn't mind wearing the baby in the carrier in public. I think he likes to do this, actually, and doesn't see it as an emasculating activity. He will also very willingly push the stroller.
7. He gives back rubs whenever I request them, no questions asked, no complaints, no matter how tired or achy he is, and never asks me to return the favor.
   
8. He enthusiastically codes things for me.
9. When I have a good idea, he tells me it's a good idea, and does it, instead of whatever less-good idea he had first. (I've had boyfriends who would NEVER do this, so I see it as pretty awesome.)
10. He would go out in the cold for me and pick up hamburgers. (Inside joke.)

Love you, pookie. <3

Updates

Just a few little updates. I realize that I leave a lot of entries as "cliffhangers" and have failed to follow up.

• A while back I wrote an entry called "True Love: Part I". I do intend to follow up that entry with a part II, and in fact have started that entry, but it just hasn't come together yet. I have a lot of half-formed entries just waiting for further inspiration.
• I never did get that errand done, but I did get out of the house. To my surprise, it was really cold, so Téa and I could not have got far anyway. The next day I took her to her doctor's appointment, which was so traumatic (for both of us) that I decided to put off the errand until next week.
• I ended up writing down one dream, which is now just sitting on the notepad by my bed. It's a shame; I've had a lot of good dreams and have failed to write them down. I'm trying to catch up on sleep and it's not going well. Téa will sleep through till 6am a couple of nights, and then have a bad night (like last night-- woke up at 2am and then twice again before 6:00, and was wide awake for the day at 8:00). As soon as I start feeling human, my energy gets zapped yet again.
• Re: My New Years' resolutions: I'm certainly not setting the pace for 50 books, but I have been reading. I finished Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, which was beautiful, and am now reading The Three Daughters of Madame Liang by Pearl S. Buck, one of my favorite authors. It's really enthralling; I've been reading it while I nurse the baby, and I've gotten back into my habit of reading before bed. And, obviously, I haven't given up this writing thing yet. People even read this thing!
  
• I still don't know what my unconscious is saying.

I am pondering the idea of e-mailing one of my college professors, who taught me everything I know about Lacan, and telling her about this blog. It'll probably take a while to work up the courage.

The gaze

“I can feel myself under the gaze of someone whose eyes I do not see, not even discern. All that is necessary is for something to signify to me that there may be others there. This window, if it gets a bit dark, and if I have reasons for thinking that there is someone behind it, is straight-away a gaze." -- Jacques Lacan, Seminar I

I was thinking this morning about why I keep putting off the errands I should have done weeks ago.

It came to me: This city scares the hell out of me.

This is a fact that I'm quite ashamed of. When I first visited the city, I was overwhelmed and excited. I come from a tiny, rural town in Maine and had trouble navigating the tiny city of Portland. New York was unimaginably huge. My trips to New York were always accompanied by Anthony, however, and I never felt frightened with him around, even in the sketchier areas. Pre-Téa, I thought how amazing and exciting it would be to live in the city with Anthony, to be free to explore it as often as I wanted.

So now, here I am, and I really don't get out and explore the city. Three things hold me back.

1. It's !#&@ing cold. And, worse, it's windy. I can't really blame myself for not going out when it's eye-wateringly cold out.

2. Téa. Both for the above reason (she's about as big a fan of the cold as I am), and because taking a baby out into the world is a hassle. I either have to wear her (and she's getting quite heavy) or bring her stroller, which is tough for one person to handle on the trains (stairs, nuff said). Plus her diaper back must accompany on any long trips, and I've got to plan around when she nurses. I'm not the biggest fan of nursing in public, although I do it if need be.

3. I'm scared. I was trying to figure out why exactly that is.

Am I afraid of getting lost? No, I pretty much know how to get from A to B, and Anthony's only a phone call away if I lose my way.

Am I shy around people? Yes, but that doesn't really deter me. Whatever clerks/bus drivers/etc people I've had to deal with have been, for the most part, extremely nice. And though I'll occasionally encounter a heavy accent that I have to decode, which I find really embarrassing (Hey, I grew up in Maine, remember? No foreign accents), communicating with people isn't really that bad. Plus, I always have a baby attached to me, and people love her.

It hit me, finally. What frightens me about this city is the gaze.

I constantly feel like someone is watching me in this city. Walking down the street, getting on the bus or train, walking into stores-- there are people everywhere, and I feel like they are all looking at me. This was not so much a problem in Maine or Massachusetts, because there were much fewer people, and I just drove everywhere. In a car, you're all alone and most of the time no one can see you. You're free to sing along to music, curse at other drivers, etc. Here in New York, I feel exposed.

It doesn't help that I'm extremely conspicuous. Strawberry blondes with blindingly white skin are not common here. So to some extent I'm really not being paranoid; people DO look at me. Even in our Polish neighborhood, I stand out.

But I am being paranoid. I feel like the eyes watching me know that I'm not from around here, that I'm sort of fumbling my way around New York and I don't fit in. Like they've caught me at something. Like I don't belong here.

So much for being adventurous. This fear is really debilitating. However, I do have an errand today. We'll see if that gets done.

Birth of the (m)Other

“The Other is the locus of speech and, potentially, the locus of truth, which can be called on, even from the position of the unconscious, and which, latent or not, is always already there” Lacan, J. (1981). The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis.


I don't know whether Lacan writes anything about becoming an Other. I suppose he must. I guess being a psychoanalyst must be sort of like being the Other.

I still find it odd (I always will, I'm sure) that to my daughter, I am the Other. Her whole life, the driving force behind her existence and her unconscious, will be indelibly marked by me.

I've never really written much about my pregnancy. A few updates in my LiveJournal. I wrote a very detailed birth story. But my innermost thoughts about being pregnant, I mostly kept to myself.

In January, I suspected I might be pregnant. My cycle was off, and usually it's quite regular. I just couldn't figure out how exactly I could have become pregnant. I had only been off the pill for a couple of weeks (most people trying to conceive have to try a few months after stopping the pill, right?), and we had used protection. I started drilling Anthony about what he would want to do if I was pregnant. He wouldn't answer until we knew for sure. I waited until a weekend when he was visiting me. I bought three dollar store pregnancy tests. Early in the morning, before he was awake, I tested myself. The first test was clear as day. Two lines. I didn't believe it. I must've done it wrong. I rechecked the box and used the second test. Two lines again. I didn't even have to wait the 30 seconds or however long it said to wait; the lines came up immediately.

I got back into bed beside Anthony. He snuggled with me.

"Well, I did it."
"Did what?"
"Tested myself."
". . ."
"I'm pregnant."
"What?"

We weren't upset so much as mystified. I told my roommate that same morning; in retrospect I wonder if I should've kept my mouth shut. It breaks my heart to think about that morning, and the few subsequent weeks. It was so hard to come to grips with it and decide what to do. Anthony had money, but I was flat broke, despite working three jobs. We had only been dating four months. We had two clear options, and they seemed equally undoable. Keeping the baby meant changing our whole lives, risking our short-lived relationship and our financial well-being. Getting an abortion would take a heavy toll on my emotional health. I didn't know if I could go through with it. I knew I wouldn't regret having the baby; I knew I absolutely would regret aborting it. Anthony was supportive of whatever decision I made; I couldn't get him to say what his preference was. It was my decision, ultimately. Later he said he really did want to keep the baby, but I'll never know if that's true.

Once the decision was made, I kept waiting for the next milestone of pregnancy, at which point I thought I would feel a connection to the baby. We heard the heartbeat. It was neat, but I didn't feel much emotional attachment. At the first ultrasound I got to see the wiggly little fetus, the little head and face and limbs. I felt a vague fondness, but no real sense of love for this creature living inside me. At the second ultrasound, we got to see the little fingers and toes and organs, and we found out we were having a little girl. I cried when I found this out. I felt happy. But I still didn't feel this "bond" that pregnant women speak of. I enjoyed poking the little feet that moved around in there, and found it cute when my belly was hiccupping. Even into my third trimester, though, my pregnancy just felt surreal, and I couldn't grasp that this giant belly was a baby. (I also continued to wonder if I should have had an abortion. Even well beyond the time it was too late, I agonized over the decision.) By the time my due date rolled around, I was uncomfortable and tired and just wanted her out. I was sick of being pregnant.

It was still surreal after I gave birth (by C-section, after 44 hours of labor). Anthony held her next to me and I looked at her little face. "She looks just like you, Anthony." (She is the spitting image of her father; everyone who sees her says so.) I was too tired and drugged up to absorb the situation. They kept trying to put her into my arms as they wheeled me back to the room; I couldn't hold her and couldn't manage to make them realize that.

The next thing I remember is breastfeeding her, and being amazed that she latched right on the first time. I had read up on breastfeeding beforehand, and it just floored me that this less-than-an-hour-old baby knew was she was doing much more than I did. When my family members held her, she regarded each one very carefully with her little brows furrowed.

It took me a couple days to bond with her. She spent her first couple of days in the nursery with an IV and an oxygen tube, and I couldn't breastfeed her for a while. Finally, though, when she was back in the recovery room with me and I was starting to learn how to take care of her, I got a rush of maternal feelings.

I don't remember much about those first several weeks. I got so little sleep. I lost all of my pregnancy weight, plus some. The pain and gore that came along with breastfeeding is too graphic to even write about. But Téa and I bonded.

I don't regret keeping her, although I do still wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't, or if I'd never gotten pregnant in the first place. I think I'd still be in New York with Anthony, but with a lot more freedom and financial security. A small price to pay.

It's hard reconciling my pregnancy with motherhood; the former made me so miserable, so stressed out and terrified and unsure. It's a wonder she's so laid back, with all the stress hormones I must've sent through her system.

Anthony was traumatized by the many hours of labor I went through, and claims he never wants us to have another child, but I hope we do. I so envy those women who go through their (planned) pregnancies happily. I'd love to experience pregnancy again, when we're financially stable and truly ready for it. I feel like I got cheated of a very beautiful experience, because I was too busy freaking out. Next time around, I want to do it the right way.

Dreams

I've been having some disturbances lately. Insomnia, nightmares, exhaustion, random pains. Possibly the winter blues kicking in, as it usually does. Téa's not been sleeping as well as before; I guess her 4 month sleep regression is starting early.

I dreamed I was pregnant again, and it wasn't Anthony's. Somehow I'd had an abortion and was still pregnant, and I was terrified that the baby would come out deformed.

I also dreamed that I took a wrong turn while skiing, and had to ski down this giant cliff. There were these little ski jumps every several hundred feet, and then I was falling off the cliff again. The final ski jump had boulders falling onto it, and I was sure I'd be crushed. But I wasn't, and then I fell into a freezing lake and had to swim to shore. Once I pulled myself out, I found myself right near a warm building, and went in to recover.

I'm contemplating starting to do Lacanian analysis on my dreams, which involves writing them down in detail as soon as I wake up. I've been wanting to do this for years, and I do have the perfect set-up-- the streetlights make our bedroom light enough to read in at night with all our lights off. I wake up at least once in the night to feed the baby, and could probably write while she's eating. Interrupted sleep makes for the best, most vivid and analyzable (made-up word?) dreams. And I've been dreaming a lot. I remember them when I wake up, but soon forget them.

I think I'll put a notebook next to the bed tonight.

Worthwhile resolutions, in action

(This is sort of a continuation from the previous entry. I split them into two different posts for the sake of audience. I figure two shorter entries are more likely to be read than one giant entry.)

Maybe not an act of forgetting, but an act of stupidity led to the first test of my New Years Resolution.

The resolution:
2. Be more adventurous, less shy, more confident, less timid.

The scenario:
I borrowed a friend's car for the holidays, as she was going on vacation elsewhere in the country and needed her car looked after anyway (in New York you can't just leave it parked somewhere; it's gotta be moved several times a week for street sweeping). All was well, I drove us up to Maine for the holidays, and drove back to New York without incident. Then, the most dreaded part. I had to find a parking spot.

Téa (my three month old) was an extremely good rider for the entire 6 or 7 hour trip from Maine. We got home, we unloaded the car, we relaxed for a few minutes, then got back in the car to find an overnight parking spot. At this point she was at the end of her patience with riding, and I can't blame her. After a few minutes of driving around looking for a spot, she started fussing. And then crying. And then wailing. I was nervous already, anxiously looking for a spot (I hate parallel parking, hate driving on the streets of Queens, hate doing both of those all the more with cars behind me, which there were). I pulled back up to the house and ordered Anthony to remove the screaming baby from the car; I'd go find a spot myself. I drove around for another 10 or 15 minutes, sure I would never find a space at this point. The later it gets, the harder it is. Finally I saw a space, or what I thought was one. On the corner of a street, there was a bus stop, then a fire hydrant, then a driveway, all of which I knew to avoid, but behind those things was what looked like a perfectly legal spot. It seemed a little iffy, but I was at the end of my rope. I was tired, I was cranky, and I there was the distinct possibility of a very hungry crying baby at home. I parked there.

I felt nervous all weekend. I wanted to get rid of the car so I could stop worrying. My friend was coming back Monday, so Sunday we set off to move the damn thing back to her house.

I was panicking as we were walking toward the car, sure it would be gone (I get a bit worst-case-scenario when I'm anxious). Lo and behold, it WAS gone. It got towed for being too close to the bus stop.

So, my Great Queens Adventure was yesterday. I had to

1. Take the bus to the impound lot, up in West Maspeth (Queens)
2. Walk from the bus stop to the lot (about a mile)
3. Get car
4. Drive back to my friend's house in East New York/Bushwick area (Brooklyn)
5. Take the L train home

All by myself, with baby in tow.

So, here was my first chance to be adventurous! confident! less timid!

I was scared shitless when I left the house.

It really helped to have the baby along; I had someone to talk to. A lady on the bus talked to Téa (who looked at her suspiciously; she'll be a good little New Yorker) and asked me about her. The bus driver was nice, which I was not expecting (seems like no one's very interested in helping anyone here in the city, usually). He let me know when we got to the stop, but I knew anyway, because I had a detailed list of what roads we would pass before getting to the stop (thank god for the internet).

We got off the bus and were suddenly in sort of a creepy industrial district. Lots of warehouse-looking buildings and 18 wheeler trucks. It was a little windy, so I pulled up my coat around Téa and she slept. People at the impound lot were very friendly, especially when I commiserated with one of the workers about what an ass some guy was being. (I'm of the opinion that no matter how pissed you are, you should always be polite and friendly with people who are just doing their jobs.)

Got the car, drove out of Maspeth, part of Williamsburg (ew!), through sort of borderline Bed-Stuy (at which point I locked the car doors and prayed for green lights), Bushwick, and finally to my friend's street just over the border into East New York, where I parked the car in a LEGAL spot and got the hell out of there on the L-train. Téa was fussy in the car (short stop-and-go rides annoy her), quiet on the train and the walk home. She was all smiles when we got home (me too, god!).

Thus concluded my first real solo (completely boring) adventure in the city. I took the bus, walked, drove a goodly distance, and took the train, alone. For a homebody who entered the city feeling completely terrified of it, I navigated pretty well.

Next adventure: Getting a New York ID. Ugh.

Acts of desire

"Writing is an act of desire, as is reading. Why does someone enclose a set of apprehensions within a book? Why does someone else open that book if not because of the act of wanting to be wanted, to be understood, to be seen, to be loved?

"And desire is also an act of reading, of translation" -Dionne Brand

It's been a few days, and I was starting to get The Fear, that I've lost my nerve as far as this writing thing goes. I've set the bar very high for myself-- regardless of whether this blog is any good or not, it has been good for me. My entries so far have been written with as close to my full heart and mind as I can manage. I feel good about what I've written and I've worked through some things. Where to go next?

I took the above quote from a random blog. I do find myself hoping that people will read this blog and understand me, and praise me for being so insightful and so creative. I can't seem to escape the gaze of my potential audience (which I suppose is a present absence; I'm sure not many people are reading). It's sort of annoying because escaping an audience was my whole reason for starting a new blog; my old LJ was just a performance for people I knew were reading it; each entry sort of shamelessly whored itself out for comments.

So, what to do about this writing for an audience thing? I think it's inevitable. Even in my paper journals, I always had in mind the idea that someone might read them someday, and so I censored myself a bit even there. Maybe there is no act of writing that is completely oblivious to the gaze of the other. So, I work through it. I just need to keep in mind that this blog is for me.

Lately I have been dealing with various calamities and thinking about the signifier, which is how the unconscious reveals itself, through speech, dreams, and most notably for this entry, forgotten acts.

Thanks to my knowledge of Lacan, I am struck with fear whenever I forget something that I really should have remembered. What does that mean? I think. What is my unconscious trying to tell me?

I'm sure most of these acts of forgetting are fairly meaningless, but for example, on the day I got married:

I remembered the marriage license. I remembered the rings. I remembered my wallet and even double checked for my Metro card. We dressed up, I did my hair and makeup, we brought everything the baby could possibly need, and we set out.

We got to Manhattan. We walked around and took pictures of City Hall until our two witnesses showed up. We went in. We got in line. I opened my wallet.

My drivers license was not where it was supposed to be. Immediately I knew exactly where it was-- in my jeans pocket, the jeans I wore two days earlier, when we got the marriage license. I had to show the ID to get the license, and instead of returning it to my wallet like I always do, I slipped it into my back pocket.

So, on our wedding day, two and a half hours before city hall closed, I realized that my ID was an hour train ride away. We had to drag Anthony's friends, who came along to be witnesses, all the way back to Queens. I ran back to the house while they waited for me on the corner. I grabbed my ID (just where I knew it would be) and my sneakers (I had been wearing heels but we would have to run to make it back in time, so I changed shoes). We caught a cab to the city hall in Brooklyn, which was closer. I changed back into my dress shoes in the cab. Only later, after we got married, when we were on the way home and my feet were aching, did I realize that I had left my sneakers in the cab.

I don't quite know what these forgettings mean, if anything. Anthony will joke that I was sabotaging our wedding day because I didn't really want to marry him. But I did marry him, happily, and so far so good on the whole being married thing! But I do miss my sneakers.