Motherhood, Dreams, and Writing Through the Fog: A New Mom’s Reflection

Three pages every morning. Before I do anything else, I’m supposed to write three pages every morning. It doesn’t matter what the content is, the idea is just to let my brain flow into words and take shape on a page. I’m trying to write continuously, when I stop I start to think too much. 

Kris is playing with Charlotte in the stroller beside me, Hank just farted and the smell is assaulting me. As Kris heads back up to work he stares down from the staircase into her stroller trying to get her attention. She’s recently started following us around the room, smiling from afar just at the sight of us, like she just got a new pair of glasses and the world is opening up for the first time. 

A little sneeze erupts from the stroller. Normally I would take her out of the stroller and put her into her swing, or onto her playmat, but after our walk I felt overwhelmed with inspiration for my story so I sat down at the computer as fast as I could to start writing. Of course, once I got there, all of my giant ideas melted into mush, which is why I abandoned that project and came here. It’s much easier to write three pages about nothing than it is to write three pages of a short story with messaging and symbolism and foreshadowing, fleshed out characters and such. 

I wonder how writers create their worlds. If it’s free flowing like this, as I’m writing now, or if it’s in little moments, stitching together their plot with little vignettes – sewing threads where they need to. It’s probably some combination of both. They say art imitates life, so if I were just writing as if I were journaling her day perhaps some symbolism would pour out the way God intended it. I am writing about feeling lowly, the sun escapes behind a cloud. I am writing about being angry, a tea kettle boils in the kitchen. I am writing about being happy, and my dog comes running, smiling at me. 

She’s starting to talk, as if she knew I was getting too thoughtful about those symbols. Charlotte is a great companion. She is quiet, but entertaining, she let’s herself be known but not obnoxiously, she lets us know when she’s tired, hungry, if she’s uncomfortable. 

We read that different cries have different meanings. For example, if you listen closely to a baby’s cry you’ll hear a Neh, Heh, or Weh sound at the beginning of it. Neh means she’s hungry, her tongue is touching the front part of her mouth (the mechanics of making an En sound), the Heh is her breathing rapidly with vocalization and let’s us know she is uncomfortable. Weh sounds indicate she’s tired, as her mouth is open and yawning as she cries making the Waaa noise. 

I’ve read something similar about adults, how the chemical composition of our tears varies depending if they are happy tears or sad tears. I guess in this way I am proving my point, that art imitates life, and if I just let the words flow out of me the symbolism will appear. Sure, writers are architects creating worlds, but perhaps that world, the world I’m creating, already exists as it would exist in this world. Maybe it just needs a little sharpening, some additional threads to tie it all together here and there. 

God, three pages is a lot, isn’t it? I just double spaced this in the hopes I’d be at least halfway done, and I’m not. Now Charlotte is crying. 

I moved her to her swing, the cry was definitely a Waa, meaning she’s tired. It’s so strange this  motherly intuition – sure I just described the science behind cries, but I’m certain, if that information had never presented itself to us I’d still have known just now to put her in her swing. I know she’s tired.

Maybe it’s not so special. After all, we get to know the people we live with pretty well. I know when Kris is tired by his behavior, I know when he’s hungry (which is pretty much always), and I know when he’s lying (which is virtually never, these days). 

She’s crying again – this time it’s a pacifier. 

Pacified. 

Kris asks me about it sometimes, how I know what she needs, and the best way I can describe it is she is a part of me. When she is hungry, I feel it for myself, or tired. I’m reminded of when I was first learning to drive, and my Dad told me that one day the car would feel like an extension of my body. Charlotte is an extension of my body. 

In writing more, reading more, and spending more time outside, I’m having very vivid dreams. Last night I had a dream I’d accidentally stolen a red sweater and red shorts from Zara, and that my father and Gaspare (a family friend who passed away recently, leaving behind a family mirroring my own – two older boys, one daughter, and a stay at home mom – all the same ages as us) were riding a train together, and recording their life stories in a way that we could watch them later on. It wasn’t explicitly said that “later on” meant after they were dead, but that’s the feeling I got. 

The world outside the train window was blue skies, white puffy clouds and green treetops, as if we (they) were traveling upwards. I asked if it would be replayed to us as a movie, or as a book. As I understood it they were to narrate to some AI: their life history, all the memorable moments, everything they wanted recorded of themselves and passed on, and the AI would generate a film with actors and scenery giving us a visual of their life story. In ninety minutes? In two and a half hours? It’s an interesting concept. 

Then we were on a Disney cruise, and I’d met a basketball player named Tomas, he was black and very tall. We were flirting (Kris doesn’t exist in this world), and then I started talking to one of his friends and he became possessive, why are you talking to him? He just wants to get in your pants etc. etc. Though I had just met Tomas, and so I knew his requests were ridiculous. He said he would walk me back to my room, and once we got in the elevator he started making out with me, rubbing himself on me, and we missed my floor. We were now on deck seven, which is where Andrew and Katie’s room was. We met Andrew and I followed him into his room (with Tomas). Andrew went for a shower, and Katie was sitting in a towel in the living room part of the suite (which was far too large to be on a ship, and more liken to the apartment I had in Philadelphia). Tomas told me he was feeling uncomfortable (because Katie was in a towel), I said it was fine, and Katie said it was fine – she didn’t mind. Suddenly Tomas is shoving his tongue down Katie’s throat snd she starts screaming, and I start screaming, and we kick Tomas out together. 

Then I am a young boy. I’ve been kidnapped by some older fat man with wirey glasses and not much hair. We are in a school bathroom, we’ve been driving along a highway and stopped in this school. He’s trying to change my appearance so I won’t be recognized. I know I have one chance to get away, and I push past him and run out the door, I’m on a very large eight-lane highway, I make it across to the median, and cops are there. I am safe now, and back on the train with my Dad and Gaspare. 

I don’t know what it means. I could probably spend these three pages every morning dissecting it, I’ll keep that in mind for tomorrow.