Yellow Brick Road

This morning I was thinking about the huge jackhammer that rattled outside my window during all those months in Jerusalem.
It wasn't out of nowhere, this thought - there are a lot of jackhammers rattling around San Francisco right now.
I used to say that my least favorite sound in the world was the sound of jackhammers.
I still feel that way, even more so and especially the really big ones right outside my window.
For about a week during the summer or early fall - I can't remember if it was when Tikva was alive or afterwards - one of those big jackhammers was working outside our house.
I had to laugh at the twisted sense of humor of life, as if that was just what I needed again.
To my relief it stayed for only those few days, then it was gone and it was quiet in the Outer Sunset again.
Man, those months in Jerusalem were hard for me;
I will never forget them... will always remember them with a slight shudder in my spine
And no small amount of sorrow for the difficult journey that began there.

The other night Dave and I had a date in our dining room
And had tea and carrot cake
Across from each other with the Tikva candle burning between us,
And talked.
Then we took our chairs to the living room window and watched the rain outside from the dark room.
I watched the cars go down Sunset Boulevard past the big pine trees that block so much of the noise.
I watched the occasional nighttime jogger or dog walker with dog.
I noticed the new trees that had just been planted in between the big older ones.
I just watched, and we sat, and talked.
And I appreciated the quiet of this very outer corner of the city
Where it is so peaceful.

I have cried so much over the past week.
Tears of pure sorrow, as if taking a hiatus from the weeks before
When I felt more connected to the bigger picture,
More trusting of the rightness of life's unfolding.
I've been crying another layer of tears that seem to come out whether I'm ready for them or not,
Except these tears keep coming
And they are weighty and abundant.

It's time to take another hard step forward.

A few days ago I put away Tikva's shrine from Day of the Dead last November
So her little face no longer looks out at me when I go to sleep at night or wake up in the morning.
I put it in a bag on top of her box of things
Under the little table in the corner of the bedroom,
Close to me but out of sight.
Tonight after looking at each page slowly
And crying such thick tears
I put away her photo album,
Also with her things,
Easy to reach when I want to
But her face no longer peaks out at me every time I go to the dresser.
I think I need to change the image on the inside of my phone
So that her little face doesn't come up every time I open it to check my calendar or send a text message.

It breaks my heart to do this,
But it breaks my heart not to.
It feels like something I have to make myself do
Because something is holding me back
And it's not my Baby Girl... it's me.

Tikva doesn't need me to see her face everywhere I go.
She doesn't need me to long for her every day.
She doesn't need me to dwell on the sadness of her passing.
She doesn't need me to dwell on the what-ifs.
She doesn't need me to dwell at all.
I wonder if, rather, this is something I have come to need
Just a little?
It doesn't serve me, though.
It serves me better to feel Tikva's spirit when I look up at birds in the sky.
That feels neutral, less charged,
Even if the rebellious kid in my spirit says,
Damnit! I don't want a spirit baby to see in the birds! I want my real live Tikva!

And it's okay if I look up and just see birds and feel very little of Tikva.
It's okay not to feel her with me in every single moment.
It's like she's released me, but it's harder for me to release her.

We've been talking about what to write on Tikva's headstone
And every time I think about it I cry...
And that same kid in my spirit says,
I don't want to make a headstone for my baby, damnit!
Damnit.

When I looked at her photo album tonight,
I thought of the first night of Tikva's life
When we went to see her in the ICN about an hour after she was born.
I remember looking mystified at her little body,
Already connected to all those tubes and wires,
Ventilator tube down her throat into her lungs,
And thinking,
Does she really need all this to live?
Might she be able to do it on her own?
After all, she looks perfect.
I can't tell you the number of times I was with her in the hospital thinking that I could just take her in my arms and carry her out of there and back home with me.
If only...

Grief is such a strange thing, and so is the mind.
It's as if there is all this old stuff, from 7-9 months ago, that I am still integrating into my psyche.
I feel like I could just cry for two weeks straight if I let myself and had nothing else to get done.

I think every so often what it would be like to take a vacation from the babylost blogosphere.
If I stopped writing on my blog for a while.
If I stopped reading the blogs of my babylost friends.
Would I stop crying,
Stop feeling heaviness in my heart,
Feel more or less alone?
Would it create space for new energy to come in,
Like a new baby spirit perhaps?
Now that my heart is so wide open,
My sense of compassion so fine-tuned to the ups and downs all around me,
Is there a way to remain connected
Without holding myself back?

From what?

I have in my head the image of the very beginning of the yellow brick road
When Dorothy sets off in her ruby slippers to find the Wizard of Oz.
It is the very spot at the inside of the spiral,
And with every step around and around, the spiral opens up wider and wider
And the road gets bigger across and feels more distant from the coziness and safety of home.
I feel like I am somewhere halfway along the road,
Far away from home and as far away from my destination,
And I'm not exactly sure what that destination looks like.
It's nebulous, like the Magical Land of Oz
And I already know the Wizard is a sham...
At least that Wizard I used to think I believed in.
You know the one: He used to give me confidence that came from firm, defined, unshakable beliefs.
Well, my beliefs got shaken big time.
Consistency is overrated, especially when it comes to beliefs.
Time to reinvent what I believe, I suppose.

Speaking of confidence... mine has been shaken lately too.
I'm not sure why, maybe it's purely emotional PMS related.
I guess it makes sense, to feel shaky in the boots of self-esteem that used to hold me up.
I wonder what my almost 38 year old body is up for now
After all the cracking of my heart.
I wonder what my ovaries and fallopian tubes and uterus and hormones are up for.
I wonder if I am ready for baby spirit number four.

I had this strange "Duh!" realization recently
That the next baby who will join us won't be Tikva.
I can't really explain it,
Maybe it's because I am still so close to the experience of having carried and birthed and loved her.
Maybe because I wouldn't be thinking about another baby now if Tikva were here with me, sleeping by my side.
It just kind of hit me: Tikva won't be the one to come back.
That's not even exactly it.
I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that there could possibly be another baby I will love as much as I love Dahlia and Tikva.
And yet I get glimmers of that one -
The sensation-filled image of nursing again;
The feeling that I'm not done yet;
The feeling, the glimmer of a spirit, a baby, who is completely new
And wow! I really can love that baby that deeply!

Like a moment traveled to another time ahead
By tapping the heals of my sparkly red mary janes,
Since all time is really happening all at once.

I'm not really sure right now where home is.
We're here in San Francisco, supposedly, for another 4 months.
In this place where we weren't supposed to be right now,
In this place but without Tikva,
This in-between place.
Then we're off not to Kansas, but close, to Ohio.
It's become mythic, this magical land called Cincinnati.
We've been planning to go there now for almost three years.
The continuation of Dave's rabbinical program awaits us there.
Some new friends await us there.
Our things await us there...
My purple pea coat - I wish I had it with me right now - awaits me there.
I feel ambivalent about Cincinnati.
I don't dread it like I did Jerusalem before we went there in 2007.
I don't exactly feel excitement,
Mostly because I don't have any expectations to create that excitement.
And because how exciting can Cincinnati, OH really be... really?
But I'm not grumbling and moaning about going there.
I look forward to a smaller place, a calmer place, a less expensive, less crowded place.
I look forward to warm (hot and muggy, actually) summers without fog
Where the only reason to bring a sweater anywhere is because of indoor a/c.
I look forward to seeing Dave back in rabbinical school.
I look forward to starting pre-nursing classes.
I look forward to finding work that is not related to fundraising.
I do not look forward to winter...
But who knows, I might surprise myself and actually enjoy the experience of seasons.

I look forward to growing our family.

There, I wrote it.
It's what I desire,
The reason for this hard step forward,
The reason I don't want to hold myself back.
The reason I hear Tikva whispering in my ear each time I cry over her,

Go on, Mama. I don't need you to hold me so tight. Go on...
See the rainbow?