Angie Kinghorn

Afterbirth

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The song still makes me tremble.

I’ve tried playing it in small doses to get used to it, musical allergy shots, if you will, but the violin pulls my heartstrings out and flays them bloody every time.

It was playing on my iPod when my mind and body, already bruised and fragile, cracked wide open like an egg.

Do you remember
When we thought we were immortal
And the games we played always had a happy end
But in the game of life all the roses wither
And time writes its lines upon your face *Vertical Horizon’s Lines Upon Your Face, from the album There and Back Again, 1992.

No part of me was whole as I sat there rocking back and forth in the darkened nursery letting the music pull every dark thing out of the deepest recesses of my head.  The memory of the traumatic birth was fresh, and I was literally being held together by threads.  The experience of birth brought forth thoughts of its twin, death, and the music unleashed images of my father in pain, coming to the hospital to meet his grandbabies the day before he started a clinical trial he hoped would buy him a few more months.  I was paralyzed with fear that his inevitable death would be as painful as my grandfather’s.  The babies were sleeping, and over the music in my earbuds I could hear the whooshing of the hospital grade breast pump as it sucked milk and life and joy itself from my cracked nipples.

It’s three A.M. and he’s been feeling lonely
Work’s been hard and the city’s hard too
He picks up the phone and halfway across the country
A brother listens to his blues he says *

With each verse another of the tiny fissures I’d sensed in my head since late pregnancy burst.  Darkness, terror, panic, dread, and despair flooded from them, covering me.

I didn’t understand.  This was why I started taking Wellbutrin again three weeks before the babies were born.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  How could I fail motherhood as a novice when I had a safety net in place?

My body poured out more tears than milk, so many that my hands-free pump bra was soaked and I didn’t even bother to reach for a Kleenex.  I sat rocking in a stupor, letting the pump run long after my breasts were emptied.  The mental and physical pain melted together into something so red-hot, heavy, and sharp that it was all I could do to breathe.

Mark came in some time later and that’s how he found me.  In pieces.

He couldn’t put me back together.

I’m not sure you can ever put all the pieces back in the right place after postpartum depression.  Even if you eventually look whole from the outside, you’re forever changed by the damage.

Putting me back together took a psychiatrist using 450 mg of Wellbutrin XL and 300 mg of Zoloft, as well as Valium.  Then, when the panic attacks started, Xanex.  I went to one support group meeting for mothers of multiples with postpartum depression.  We talked about our meds.  Most of them were only on about 50 mg of Zoloft.  When I shared my medication regimen with them, they stared at me in mute horror, as if I would burst into a murderous or suicidal rage any minute.  I was the outcast in a group of broken women who all felt like outcasts.

I never went back again.

That meeting taught me that if any activity was causing me to crack further, it would only make things worse.  It was vital for my family and for me that I put myself back together.

What else did that take?  Weekly visits to my therapist and countless calls he was kind enough to take off duty, plus a husband who had known postpartum depression was a big risk but wanted to have children with me anyway.  A husband who knows I’m broken but loves me anyway.

Sometimes I wish
That we all were immortal
And the game of life always had a happy end
But I know it’s not true oh time keeps passing
But I’m just glad to spend my time
With you. *

*Vertical Horizon’s Lines Upon Your Face, from the album There and Back Again, 1992.

This was written for the online writers’ group Write on Edge.  The prompt: One person’s Humpty Dumpty is another person’s omelet. In 400 words or less, write about a time when something was irrecoverably broken and the ensuing scramble.  I’ve obviously exceeded the word limit, but sometimes your omelet turns out bigger than you planned.

As we really are

In the middle of my grandmother’s 100th birthday party, somewhere after the bread pudding but before the champagne toast, the photographer came to our end of the table.  

We have endless photos for our children of the two of us, smiling into the camera.  The laptop is packed with family shots where someone is tired, cranky, not smiling, or sticking a tongue out for posterity.  Even if everyone is smiling, it tends to look like we’re candidates for a police lineup. 

I wanted to capture a image of just the two of us; a slice of the evening that will one day let our children see that the relationship between their mother and father is richer and deeper than they imagined when they saw us only as purveyors of food, toys, and hugs.  

I told Mark what I had in mind, and he thought it was sappy.  “Why would you want to snuggle my face in a picture?” he asked.

“Just trust me,” I said, leaning into him, letting my face settle next to his, loving the familiarity of our planes and curves fitting together.  I wanted this photo so our kids could see us one day as we are together, as we are when no one is watching.

He sighed, leaned into me, and we both exhaled and relaxed into each other.

The shutter must have clicked, but I don’t remember hearing it.
  

**This is a memoir piece for Write on Edge, an online writers’ workshop.  The prompt: This week, I’m asking you to take us into the moment your favorite photograph of yourself was taken, to show us who you were then and what the photograph means–in 300 words.

22 things I HAVE done

1. Jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.

2. Adopted an abused and neglected dog.  One of the best decisions I’ve ever made, even if this Christmas card was under-appreciated. 




3. Done a drug-raid ride-along with the police as a journalist.

4. Traveled by myself through two countries whose languages I didn’t speak.


5. Partied in Tijuana. 


6. Scuba dived on an iron-clad steamer in 100 feet of water.


7. Tried to give my anger to God in a collection plate.


8. Ridden on a motorcycle.


9. Danced on a bar.


10. Owned and ridden a unicycle.


11. Been in an elevator with Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton. 


12. Rode horses for years and won a dressage class.


13. Dressed as the Blonde Ambition version of Madonna at a Halloween party–and caught a husband as a result.


14. Endured 3 months of bedrest and preterm labor with twins and delivered two healthy babies.





15. Written an epic 100 item bucket list (and made a fair dent in it).


16. Had my ass kicked by postpartum depression, then returned the favor. 


17. Faced my biggest fear when my husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer. (He’s was given a clean bill of health at his last appointment with the oncologist, by the way!)


18. Did my own makeup and hair for my wedding (and still don’t understand why everyone thinks this was such a big deal).



19. Did my own makeup for last Halloween’s “sexy zombie” look.



20. Fallen down the stairs of the Anne Frank house (to applause from the people lined up to go in).


21. Used part of my semester abroad to bring “Animal House” to the Brits, along with toga parties and hall crawls.


22. Was there for my father when he was dying.


***This post was written for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop.  The prompt: Write a list of 22 things you have done.

Threads of a memory

The tulle was finely woven, fluid as silk stockings.  Intricate flowers of lace twined around the whole border, an alencon halo.  Alencon.  I whispered the word, tasting its strange French flavor.  My breath caught with the creamy threads as they snagged on the dry skin of my hand.
When I eased the comb into my hair, it tugged at my roots, whispering that the 32 years of marriage it represented were solid, substantial.  I slid in pins to anchor it, then it trailed me down the aisle. 


Something old.  Borrowed.  A thing of fragile beauty, crafted to endure.

** This is a memoir piece written for Write on Edge (formerly The Red Dress Club), an online community for writers.  It’s short, because we were given a limit of 100 words.  (Mine clocked in at 98.)  
The prompt: This week I want you to conjure something. An object, a person, a feeling, a color, a season- whatever you like.  But don’t tell me what it is, conjure it.