A New Heart

Here goes…

I keep saying I’ll write this after the next doctor’s visit, then the next. I know that’s fear talking, the need for continual reassurance with something we’ve learned can be so tentative. But it feels like the right time to share that Ryan and I are having another baby <3. I’m 24 weeks along with what appears to be a healthy baby girl. The pregnancy has gone well. We’ve seen her four-chambered heart. She kicks. She’s already here in so many ways. And she deserves all the love that is waiting for her.

The journey has been anxious, at best, for me. Once you lose as we have lost, Innocence leaves the building and takes peace of mind with it. Nothing is taken for granted. A sense of control doesn’t resurrect itself. Each pregnancy symptom is embraced and cherished because it’s another sign she’s still growing and because you know a healthy baby is not a promise. Every ultrasound brings remnants of the trauma and, in the case of this baby, new reasons for joy.

Somehow that joy leads back to trust. Trust in this little girl’s life force all her own, just as we trusted in Lorenzo’s.

At 24 weeks, this is uncharted territory for us. A lot converged this past week, knowing it was the same period of time during the pregnancy that Ryan and I were making the ultimate decisions for Lorenzo, knowing that another of his September 20th due dates was coming to pass, knowing how this baby looks and feels because I held her brother at this time, and believing that soon I’d be on another part of the path.

Now, here I am. Here she will soon be.

There’s been a surge in the writing too, a need to get down the last few chapters of my time as Lorenzo’s mother. That time is endless, but as I’ve felt since I started writing about Lorenzo, I need to write from here, before too much time or perspective shifts immediacy into reflection.

I’ve debated announcing this. My heart accelerates knowing I drafted a similar post that I never published because everything changed so soon thereafter. Things do change. Our own bodies shock us into new states of being. The loss moves in so close to the hope.

I sometimes wonder how it has all re-made me. I am not a first-time mom. This is my third pregnancy in under two years. But this will be our first child to open her eyes, God willing, come January. What will that feel like? To witness the life force? To somehow distract myself from thinking she could suddenly be taken away, the air again sucked from the room, Ryan and I left to spin.

In re-reading the unpublished announcement I once wrote for Lorenzo, I’m tender toward my own Innocence. It’s what I often see in moms who are expecting healthy children. It’s a mix of giddiness, sharing untempered by loss, and expectation that things will continue on because the bad things happened to other people or because the odds are on their side. The bad things happened to me, for instance. We were the statistic. But that doesn’t mean that good things can’t also happen, or that the goals for motherhood I had at the end of May 2012 don’t still apply:

I can still be a good mom and support my child and my husband and the new shape of our family.

I can still raise a good person, who respects the world and the creatures within it.

I can still be present as the physical dimensions of that world re-appear to me as they appear to her.

I can still be open and accepting of a new life force’s own heartbeat, movements, dreams, and ambitions. Because we as parents are shepherds, not owners, as a mother of three once wisely advised.

I hope I was a good mom to Lorenzo for the short time I was able to be. I hope he believed in us as his shepherds. I hope this baby girl grows to run down a long, long path that I will never gain even a glimpse of the end of… I hope this is truly a new beginning.

What Is Chile Really Like?

So much of what I write these days is about Lorenzo, and that has felt necessary in the most profound way these past 15 months. It will continue to be necessary.

Santiago skyline.

But because my everyday life is here in Santiago, I forget how foreign this city really is to many of you back home. Even after chronicling these “Notes from the Southern Hemisphere” for over two years, friends still ask: What is it really like there? I’ve heard it’s similar to L.A.? Aren’t you close to the coast? Is everything dirt cheap?

It’s clear they are still a little mystified, just as I was when I first arrived. Now, it’s home, well, home for now (our next locale or time frame is still up in the air). I thought I’d attempt to clear up some of the fog in honor of the upcoming Dieciocho—September 18 marks Chilean independence from Spain over 200 years ago and is truly bigger than Christmas here. This year, it falls on a five-day weekend of fondas (big parties in big public parks), cueca dancing, asados (bbqs), and military parades.

Getting our fonda on for Dieciocho, 2011.

Two years ago, I wrote all about our first “Fiestas Patrias.” Last year, Lorenzo’s due date, September 20, was too close to all that boisterous celebration for comfort. So, Ryan and I flew north to Perú to find a little peace by the Pacific. Literary Mama recently published that story. This year, we’re staying home again. We’ll try to find a “low-key fonda” though that is something of an oxymoron. Ruby will be with us this time, and since she is 100% Chilena, that feels right.

Ruby at Parque Bicentenario, her home away from home.

Now (or, as they say in Chile, Entonces…), to answer your questions:

What is it really like there? 
I’m still figuring that out. What I know so far mostly concerns Santiago, a city of 6-million (or, a third of the country’s overall population) situated at the base of the Andes Mountains. Santiago is very different from the rest of Chile. I just watched a stunning trailer promoting an upcoming documentary, Wild Expectations. It shows you more of Chile at large than I will ever be able to, and I highly encourage you to take a few minutes to watch it and escape. It reminds me that much of the country is indeed wild, pristine, and full of creatures that exemplify the diverse landscape, which is skinny and stretches from the world’s driest desert in the north, the Great Atacama, to the ice fjords of the south that penguins call home, to an isolated island way out west in the middle of the Pacific.

Easter Island/Rapa Nui/Isla de Pascua, 2013.

As for Santiago, we live in an area commonly called an “expat bubble.” That means it’s clean, there are four (soon-to-be five) Starbucks within walking distance of our apartment, and cranes dot the skyline due to the new skyscrapers and glass office buildings sprouting up. It means you have to make an effort to find the poverty and the dirt roads and the struggle (the average monthly salary here is the equivalent of $800), though it is all relatively close. It’s like any city that way. It’s like some cities in that when you’re out there on the road or on the sidewalk, it’s everyone for themselves. Doors aren’t often held open. Red lights are frequently run. I am extra cautious whenever Ruby and I cross the street. It isn’t like many cities in that crime is often petty. Gun control seems to work. I never, ever, ever read about a mass shooting. I feel safe.

Development.

I’ve heard it’s similar to L.A.? Is that true?
Yes and no. Yes, in terms of overall climate and population size and the proximity to the mountains and how much sheer ground this city covers. We also get an intense level of smog. (I believe Santiago recently ranked third in the world for worst air quality, behind Beijing and New Delhi.) No, in terms of culture. Chile in general is conservative. The country is 90% catholic. Abortion is illegal without exception. Appearance and first impressions matter. It’s family focused. Most striking and most unlike L.A., it’s a 90-minute drive to the coast.

Punta de Lobos, technically more like a three-hour drive from Santiago.

Aren’t you close to the coast?
See above 🙂

Is everything dirt cheap? 
Again, yes and no. If you do your shopping at La Vega, the giant farmers’ market downtown, yes. I don’t have a car or the time to dedicate, so I often resort to the nearby supermarkets, which are not at all cheap. A lot of things are imported, which drives up cost (ditto for electronics!). I rarely walk out without having dropped $100 for a few days’ worth of food, which makes me feel right at home. Gas prices are also comparable to California’s. Dining out is about the same. Right now, rents in our neighborhood are pretty high as well because as I often hear, “Chile is booming.” Ryan moved down here shortly after 2010’s big earthquake, so we got a relatively good deal for what is technically a three-bedroom apartment (though the third bedroom is only large enough to function as Ryan’s closet 🙂 Taxis! Now, those are cheap.

Peonies and tulips for about 10 bucks each.

I’ll also offer a few clarifications:

Our time change is not your time change. 
We “fell back” back at the end of April. We actually just “sprung forward” this past weekend, meaning we are four hours later than the West Coast and one hour later then the East Coast. When you all have your time change, it will move to five and two, respectively. And Emily always has to remind me what time it is in Texas!

Make a wish. I always do.

Winter is ending here. 
Yes, our seasons are opposite. This winter was relatively mild. We didn’t get very much rain in the city or therefore snow in the mountains. Now, flowers are blooming and birds are chirping, but the air is still crisp, especially in the mornings and evenings. When summer comes around in November, we’ll be talking 90-degree days, that smog, and not a cloud in the sky for months on end. Very few things are air-conditioned aside from the enormous malls (there are 15 in Santiago alone!) and those tall glass buildings. I melted my first year, but I’m getting used to it. Thankfully, it’s a dry heat.

Our 9/11 means something else.
Forty years ago on September 11, General Augusto Pinochet took over power from President Salvador Allende in a military coup. A socialist country became a dictatorship, and Pinochet held that power for 17 years. Depending on who you talk to and how old they are, you’ll get varying accounts on what this really meant for Chile. If you’re interested, here’s some in-depth reading about it: The Other September 11; 40 Years After Chile Coup.

Ruby and a hidden heart.

I’ve lived here for over two years now; Ryan, over three. During that time, our lives have changed in ways that have nothing really to do with Chile. But we were here when we learned about Lorenzo’s heart, here when we lost another baby. We may be here yet when we do finally bring home a child of our own. We found Ruby here, and she’s helped me find hundreds of hearts.

At the end of the day, that is mostly what Chile is really like for us.

Isla Negra, Italian Hearts, and Green Paws

It’s been a while since I told you about Chile, where winter is winding down and flowers have begun to bloom and where yesterday wasn’t Labor Day. My mom visited last week with her sweet beau, Bill. She’s been here once before and seen most of the sights, so this time we could just hang out, walk the neighborhood with Ruby, and talk, talk, talk… the things we would do if she were always around. The things that mean much more because there are usually 6,000 miles between us. When I realized I’d likely only see my mom twice this calendar year (and I only saw her once last year), I honored the occasion and took time off from my current freelance projects (one of which, Yellow Brick Runway, where I’ll be interviewing photographers, designers, and other fashion industry professionals, just launched… be sure to check it out!).

 

 

It was nice to get out and about again. For our big excursion of the trip, we rented a car and drove out to Isla Negra, one of the three houses the famous Chilean poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda built. One is here in Santiago and the other is out in our port city of Valparaíso, but many say Isla Negra tops the rest.

 

 

It’s hard to disagree… it sits on bluffs overlooking the Pacific. It’s designed to resemble a boat and a train. It’s where Neruda loved and wrote in his trademark green ink and kept the majority of his books, though they are now shelved in La Chascona, his Santiago home, for better protection from the elements. It was where he was sitting when a wooden cellar door washed in. “Look, the sea has delivered me my desk,” Neruda said, or something along those lines, after he and his third wife, Matilde, rescued it from the waters. It’s where they chose to be buried side by side, succulents rooted in the dirt covering them, the sea at their feet. Even Ruby came along, and we all got an outdoor table under the sun at the cafe next to the house. It was one of those perfect days.

 

 

Back in Santiago, I took her to Barrio Italia, a neighborhood I discovered only after her last visit and which, both of us being Italian, I’ve been eager to take her to since. We explored alleyways and ducked into shops and stopped for coffee and gelato. As always, we collected hearts for Lorenzo.

 

 

It was also nice for Ryan and I to see our home through others’ eyes. Living here, we sometimes miss the wonders of it when we get bogged down in the day-to-day. But it is safe and clean and modern and convenient and booming. And when the city overwhelms, you don’t have to go too far to find open roads and, eventually, blue waters.

 

 

Of course, we did our fair share of lounging with Ruby, then took her to Parque Bicentenario, where the grass had just been cut and stained Ruby’s feet green as she ran around and around and around and made us laugh.

 

 

What else did we do? We ate a lot of good meals, played Uno and Dominos, baked a frittata, did some shopping and other girly things. For ten days, we just were, and it was lovely. Now, it’s back to the routine: writing and editing, walking the dog sola, and seeing my mom along with so many friends and loved ones over Skype rather than right here in my living room. Even after two years of expat living, it’s still a little strange that many of them will never really share in our lives here because we live so far away. When someone you love comes to town, it’s nice to remember how easy it is for all those miles to disappear for a little while.

Lorenzo Has Made Me a Literary Mama

I’m honored to share that Literary Mama has published a personal essay I wrote about facing Lorenzo’s due date in Perú last September. It’s called “What More, I Say, What More?” and you can read it here. (Please feel free to share it.)

It’s part of the story I didn’t share here when I told you about Perú. It’s about an effort to understand the immaterial. It’s about peace and how it comes and goes as we try to let go. And, as it always is now, it’s about Lorenzo. Because it’s a true story, it validates something of my form of motherhood.

Máncora, Perú

From the moment we arrived in Máncora, I felt the essay forming, words on the run that I wanted to sift through and pin down. The sign I was looking for and the heart I ended up finding, which would become the very first heart in the chain, felt larger than my power to simply observe them. If I could shape the experience, I wanted to reach out to other parents facing a similar milestone. It’s a horrible in between time—when your baby should still be growing, a part of you, but isn’t. I wrote this essay right after that time drew to a close, when Lorenzo should have been there with us, but wasn’t. That’s the time that goes on forever now.

Next month, we’ll face another September 20. I’m not sure how it will feel, but I don’t think I will need signs in the ways I did last year, when the grief was so new and the guilt so hungry and the future so far away. Then, it was difficult to gather strength from my actions as a mother. Today, I brace myself less. I explain different aspects of the story. Other aspects I no longer feel any need to explain at all. I do, in fact, feel stronger.

 

Moving forward, the day I most identify as Lorenzo’s is June 2, when I saw him with my own eyes, when I looped his fingers over mine. I know now from honoring both of these days that rituals are important, as is stillness, as is remembering, as is feeling the breeze against your eyelids, as is doing something to make someone else happy. It all means what we give it to mean.

I give these words to Lorenzo.

Staying Open Forever

This New York Times Magazine piece, “George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You’ll Read This Year,” came out back in January, ahead of the release of Saunders’s new story collection, Tenth of December, but I’m just getting around to reading it, as I’m still getting around to reading the collection. Memoirs are what I devour these days, stories by other mothers about other losses. But my mind has started to wander to fiction again, where, of course, all the real things also happen. In the article’s opening, Joel Lovell writes:

“We’d been on the subject of death for a while. A friend I loved very much died recently, and I was trying to describe the state I sometimes still found myself in — not quite of this world, but each day a little less removed — and how I knew it was a good thing, the re-entry, but I regretted it too, because it meant the dimming of a kind of awareness that doesn’t get lit up very much.”

Then, a few lines later, this:

“‘It would be interesting if we could stay like that,’ Saunders said, meaning: if we could conduct our lives with the kind of openness that sometimes comes from proximity to death.”

Then, at the end, Lovell quotes an old piece Saunders wrote for GQ about a trip to Dubai:

“‘Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.'”

This is all getting at what I’ve been feeling lately, so I’m grateful I didn’t in fact read this back in early January, but now, in early August, when the tension is greater, when the re-entry is bringing about both regret and faith in the future. While I’m not convinced that the kind of awareness that losing a child lights up could ever dim, much less go out, Ryan and I are also in the land of the living, more and more so each day.

I went to an adorable little girl’s first birthday party last weekend and I wasn’t undone, as I would have been a year ago, as I might have been six months ago. I did plan ahead and attended with a girlfriend who knew my story and would pull the parachute line with me if I need be. But I didn’t end up needing an escape route. I had a great time. The babies made me smile and I did all I could to make them smile. But these things have never been about the babies; they’re about the parents… who ask if I have children, who, after I tell them it’s a work in progress, respond either excitedly or, worse, with an air of fatigue, “Oh, it changes everything!” Of course, I don’t expect them to know that Lorenzo has already changed everything. If the moment is there, I’ll tell them about Lorenzo and often discover grace. Lovell describes this kind of feeling arising in Saunders’s fiction, “when we risk revealing ourselves to someone and they respond with kindness.”

Over the past year, I have spoken of Lorenzo and received an almost uncontainable amount of kindness.

Walking Ruby recently, I looked down and noticed half of a white eggshell lying in the green grass.

My first thought? LIFE.

I bent down to take a closer look and noticed Ruby sniffing a small grey mound, of displaced dirt perhaps from the construction site nearby. But then I saw the shape of a baby bird emerge from the mound. The bird from the shell. This moment was about death, in fact, not life. I cried. Not as much as the last time I saw a bird who had fallen from a tree, but a raw gasp all the same at life just leaving like that. Of course, the cracked shell shouldn’t be on the ground. It should be protected up high in the nest, left behind only once the bird was ready to take flight. I wondered where the mother was and how long she had stood there singing and grieving before taking flight on her own.

The proximity of life and death is a close one, especially when we are caught off-guard or as we await miracles. Ours is a society that will do almost anything for a miracle, holding out through unimaginable suffering when the odds are stacked as high as they go. I get it; it’s the ending to the story we all want. But it’s not what happens the far majority of the time.

Most of the time, the body follows nature, lighting a path, for those of us left behind, to that removed world. Then, it’s on us as the survivors to take slow steps back to the rest of you, to find the edge of the water and test the temperature, all the while letting our hands float back to the light.