Day 15: Friday: Like a birth or a resurrection

When I was in seminary I used to go sometimes to watch the Baptists down at the river. It was something to see the preacher lifting the one who was being baptized up out of the water and the water pouring off the garments and the hair. It did look like a birth or a resurrection.

When you were baptised, what did you die to? Into what were you born? What are you dying to now, and what are you being born into now? Pray for courage: to die to the things you must, and to live deeply into your calling.

♫ Extra: To listen to ‘Down in the river to pray,’ click here.

Reading from Marilynne Robinson Gilead (London, Virago: 2004), 72.

A little humiliation is good for the soul

I was on my old bike, pulling a trailer heavy with child and labouring uphill when I saw that the council in its wisdom was watering the bike path. Eight rotating sprinklers ensured that two sections of path were being soaked at any given time; yet a sudden veer into the grass would take me straight into another line of sprinklers. The only way was through. I tried to time it to wet only my calves but misjudged a sprinkler’s rotation, and was promptly sodden from my crotch to my knees. I had to ride home looking for all the world like I had wet my pants; even my underwear was soaked.

Some mystics suggest that a little humiliation is good for the soul. It reminds one of one’s place in the world; it punctures one’s pretensions; it keeps one humble.

Lucky me – I am humiliated all the time. Like so many parents, I have generally relied on young children for my daily dose. It began at childbirth – the little poo that came out with the baby – and was quickly matched by the baby’s far greater poonami in a public place that shot up to her shoulder blades and smeared over my hands as I discreetly tried to clean it up. There were so many little episodes: the pregnant woman’s desperate need to pee seventeen times in an hour and the toddler who absolutely must piddle in the gutter right now; the mother screaming at the three year old and the three year old screaming at the supermarket. My oldest daughter was two when she first asked me to ‘dress more stylish’; how humiliating, to be chastened for one’s fashion sense by a person who had recently dangled her plaits in the toilet. I might have looked more chic had I not gone out so many times with a smear of snot on my black-clad shoulder, unseen until I left the house.

It reminds me of a local mum, when she and her husband first left the kids overnight. For the first time in years, she wore a strapless dress and dined at an elegant restaurant with friends. Halfway through the meal, someone pointed to her bare shoulder and asked, ‘What’s that?’. She turned and discovered a parting gift from her children: a louse. Humiliations galore!

Of course, these are only the physical embarrassments that children bring. More toxic, there have been times when my behaviour has been so abominable that I have felt sick with shame. My frustration, my filthy temper, even my violence – and always over the little things – have shown me how frail I am. Without enough sleep, without food at very regular intervals, without a bit of peace and quiet, I am absolutely unbearable – and without children, I might not have learned just how low I can go.

So I am grateful to the kids for the small humiliations, and the ways they have shown me up; and I am grateful to have learned that despite it all, I am loved. Yet the kids are growing up. I get more sleep, less snot and have better learned how to regulate my mood; and the humiliations seem to have dwindled. Am I at risk of being overtaken by pride?

On reflection, whether it’s wobbling on my bicycle and falling in slow motion into the gutter (my six year old laughed so hard she was nearly sick); or eating a rare candy, losing my temper, and having my eight year old ask quietly, ‘Have you eaten sugar?’ – well, I find I am quite able to humiliate myself without the children’s help.

It takes very little to tip me over: a steep camber on a road, a teaspoon of sugar on an empty stomach; clearly, I am unbalanced. It’s embarrassing, but what’s a girl to do other than look in the mirror, recognise the fact, and sigh?

A good humiliation used to make me feel physically ill; I suspect it was because it was so challenging. I had a puffed up ego but was empty inside; to burst the bubble was terrifying. These days, I feel more grounded, more humble. I am beginning to know who I am. I’m no giant, just a little person pottering along close to the earth; I have less distance to fall.

And so humiliation is losing its power over me. These days, I tend to see it as an opportunity. If I am humiliated by my own behaviour, it’s a chance to apologise, and learn. If I am humiliated by something that happened to me, it’s a chance to let go of my sense of self-importance: who am I that I can’t look silly sometimes? Often, I even find myself laughing.

A humble person can’t really be humiliated; and by taking the humiliations on board and letting them break through my pretences bit by bit, I am slowly getting there. Even wet from the crotch down, I wasn’t really embarrassed; instead, I imagined with delight the gales of laughter as I would tell a particular friend. So I think the ancients were right: a little humiliation has been good for my soul.

I was out walking, pondering these things and thinking I should write them down, when a bird anointed my forehead with crap.

(Disclaimer: Of course, this doesn’t mean that humiliating others is ever okay, nor does it mean that one should remain in an abusive relationship where humiliation is the norm. On the one hand, the world provides plenty of humiliating moments without our help; on the other, we do not need to seek out humiliations in some kind of cosmic self-flagellation. But those that do come our way... well, we can use them.)

"Humiliations galore!"

Menstruation

 

We are staying with good friends this week and, as almost always happens on our family holidays, I have begun to menstruate.

So here I am, anxious in case I leak a spot of blood onto their sheets. At night I usually wear a rubber cup with a cloth pad for back up; but because I am away my back up is a disposable pad. The disposable pad is less reliable than the cloth pad; and yet I brought disposables because I couldn't imagine washing out a cloth pad and hanging it to dry on my friend's clothesline. Instead, I am anxious that I might spot on their nice clean sheets – far more humiliating indeed.

I usually remove the rubber cup in the shower and wash the night's blood down the drain; then, on days one and two of my period, I switch to tampons. This morning as I was getting dressed, I realised with a gulp that I had left the cup in the shower, so I rushed back and retrieved it before anyone else went in.

I had been preoccupied in the shower because I was worrying about where to throw used tampons. If you flush them, they can block the drains. There is a small bin in my friends' loo, but it contains finished toilet rolls so I was worried that they use it only for that – and what if, when they went to throw the loo rolls into the recycling bin, they discovered to their horror that it was a bin full of blood? I can wear the rubber cup during the daytime; and so I wondered whether I should wear it while I'm here so that I don't have to think about tampon disposal at all.

On the other hand, the cup can be a bit leaky on days one and two, and so I'd have to wear a panty liner – which also would need to go in a bin somewhere. The loo is in the middle of the house, and carrying a small bloody mess down the corridor, through the side door where the screen door slams and round the house to the bin outside is a three minute walk – too much of a palaver to be discreet.

Meanwhile, changing a rubber cup is never as neat or quick as changing a tampon. I invariably get blood on my hands, which I wipe off with loo paper; but it never all comes off. Ten people are in the house this week; and the hand basin is in the bathroom, down the corridor from the loo. I'd have to walk like Lady Macbeth, hands bloodied, to wash them – presuming, of course, nobody else was brushing their teeth or having a shower and I didn't have to detour to the second bathroom or the laundry. I still have to wash my hands after using a tampon, but there is no evidence as I flit from one room to the other looking for a free hand basin.

Why am I writing all this down? Because I am thirty six years old, and I still haven't got over my fundamental embarrassment that I menstruate. We are staying with good friends who also have children; and the lady of the house has borrowed an emergency tampon from me from time to time, so I should hardly feel awkward about it all. And yet I do.

I can't blame my parents. It was never a big deal in my family. Perhaps my embarrassment is due to my experiences at high school. 500 girls cycled together, so once a month there were long anxious lines snaking out of the toilets at recess and lunch; the boys walked past and sniggered. The sanitary bins were always full, and so pads were folded and stashed between the pipes and the wall, reaching higher and higher as the day went on. Signs on every cubicle door warned us not to flush tampons; of course, with no other option, we did. Often pads were left bobbing around the loo, too. It was absolutely revolting; I still cringe when I think about it.

I thought about the loos at high school when I read about Arunachalam Muruganantham's quest to develop cheap hygienic sanitary towels. Over 70% of women in India have reproductive tract infections brought about by having no sanitary options during menstruation; and so he has developed an inexpensive disposable sanitary pad.* Woman all over India are now being trained to run the machines and sell the pads for a pittance; and the money they earn from their work is going towards basics, such as education for their children. Muruganantham's company has distributed 600 machines so far; he is aiming for 100,000 machines employing one million women. But behind this good news story were the years of trial and error, in which he wore a sac of goat's blood to test the pads. He was accused of black magic and witchcraft; his wife left him for shame; and he endured humiliations galore.

Muruganantham is my new hero. His willingness to go beyond the taboo of menstruation for the common good shames me and the awkwardness I feel. My husband isn't bothered by menstruation; in fact, he is the one who keeps track of things and, when I feel strangely tired and downcast, gently reminds me that I am due to bleed the next day. We have no taboos about sex or sleeping together during that time, and I can participate in every aspect of community life. Everywhere I go there are flushing toilets and sanitary waste disposal and places where I can wash my hands. I have absolutely no excuse to feel embarrassed.

Menstruation is a sign that I have been able to conceive and bear three beautiful daughters; and that I am fortunate enough to be able to choose not to have another eighteen children. It shows that I am young and fertile and healthy. And I am grateful, so grateful, that we have access to hygienic disposable pads and tampons, and good washing facilities for rubber cups and cloth pads.

Now, I sense my tampon is close to full, so I'm off to ask my friends what they would have me do. Then I'll change the tampon, toss it in the right bin, and pee and flush the toilet. I'll wander down the corridor and wash my hands; and as I lather up the soap in good clean water, I'm going to give thanks.

*Note 1: reusable cloth pads are terrific when you live in a society where there is no shame about washing them and you have access to good washing facilities. They are not a good option when you have to wash in a public or inadequate facility and the taboos associated with menstruation are great. It's kind of like nappies (diapers). Cloth nappies are great for middle class families with a washing machine and hot water. If, however, you have to save them up in a small apartment then take them to a public laundry with three kids hanging off you, and have to pay for every wash, disposable nappies are the only reasonable option.

*Note 2: You can order a rubber menstrual cup here or here. In my experience they are fantastic for lighter days and overnight (with a cloth pad for back up at night). The second site also sells a silicon cup (for those with allergies to natural rubber and latex), and cloth menstrual pads. You can compare the rubber (the Keeper) and silicon (Lunette) cups here. I have also found that, in lieu of the menstrual cup, a folded ragged old face washer, while bulky and inelegant, is the best overnight option by far. Unlike every disposable pad I've tried, and I've tried a few, it never leaks. In the morning, throw it on the floor of the shower and stomp out the blood while you wash, then chuck it in with your next load of laundry.

Mrs Perfect, go to hell

Many people use the time of Lent to give things up, things upon which they are unhealthily dependent, as a way of investigating the hold those things have over them. This year, some friends gave up drinking to investigate how reliant they are on beer as a social lubricant; others gave up not drinking, to investigate the ways they might be holding back from social situations. People give up social media, or even all electronic devices altogether, and kids often give up chocolate, or a particular game or toy.

Me, I'm not giving up any of those things. I might need these props to help me challenge the one thing I am trying to tackle head-on, with, it must be said, no expectation of success. But perhaps there is dignity in the attempt!

This Lent, I'm trying to give up Mrs Perfect. She's not easy to give up; in fact, I've been trying to silence her for years. But in these next few weeks I am putting some serious energy into naming and shaming her.

She's the sanctimonious voice that whispers, 'A real mother wouldn't have done that', or 'If you were a better person, then....'. She's the one who tells me a hundred times a day, in a hundred different ways, that I'm not good enough, never have been, never will be. And it's more than time that she went to hell.

These are some of the things she says, and which I struggle to deny:

You're not a naturally maternal type. It's true that I'm no earth mother goddess. I don't breastfeed my kids past six months, I don't make my own yoghurt, I don't bother with a highly charged tantric sexual practice with my husband, I don't home birth, I don't knit, and I use the public education system. Worse, I'm shy around strange kids, I'm scared of kids in groups, and it takes me time to get to know them.

But what exactly is a 'naturally maternal type'? I have given birth to three children, with very little intervention. I have raised them as best I can in a relatively clean and loving home. I have cared for five other little kids while their mothers went back to work; and I am about to be trusted with a sixth. I spend hours every week with kids – kids in the classroom, kids in the schoolyard, kids in the playground – and the ones I know smile when they see me and tell me their stories. Their friends come over and introduce themselves and have a conversation too.

Mrs Perfect, I don't know what you're talking about. You're a silly old bitch.

If you're not going to be an earth mother goddess, you could at least work. By that, she means I should be back in paid employment and building a career. Her comment stings, because at one level I think I want a career, and yet my actions show me I don't. If I pause for a moment and reflect, it's clear why not. On the one hand, I can't stand to leave my pre-school kids in childcare, or even for very many hours at a time, with anyone except my husband; and on the other, I had perhaps fifteen jobs before having kids, and I pretty much hated every single one of them. Sitting at a desk and doing repetitive tasks in an air conditioned office turns me toxic. I hate phones, I hate politics, I hate work clothes, I hate commuting... enough said.

On a bad day at home with kids, a grindingly repetitive task can make me cry. But at home at least I can weep with frustration and let those healing tears do their job; at work, the emotion turns inward and sour. So no, Mrs Perfect, I won't go back to crappy paid employment unless I absolutely have to. In any case, what, exactly, is work? I run a household, garden, cook and clean, I read with kids and I write. Couldn't that be enough?

But if you were really serious about writing, you'd have written a book by now. Perhaps, I say, but I haven't. I've slowly written the equivalent of a book, but instead of having generated a great burden of hope, a mass of paper which bounces from rejection to rejection, I've put things up on the blog and had some fun with it.

That writing is pointless, says Mrs P about a thousand times a day.

I certainly have times when I can only see the flaws, hate what I write, and despise myself for having written it. Habits of self-loathing runs deep. But I write in faith, which is not a feeling but an attitude. With that attitude, I write the best I can about what is most pressing at that moment, then set the words free. It doesn't matter how I feel about myself that day. Someone somewhere may find my words useful; and I write in faith that they will.

That's all very well, but you're terribly lazy. Well yes, that may be true. For example, my father is picking up the older girls from school and staying for dinner. I'm not planning much, just half a quiche leftover from last night and a couple of salads. I will fret about this decision all day, and feel guilty that I'm not cooking up a storm; but the food is there, and it is very good, and in any case I'll probably bake something for afternoon tea.

Apart from failing to cook a three course dinner, the floor needs a mop, the toilet a scrub, and here I am writing. Perhaps I am lazy, but the writing exhausts me – and yet, for all its exhausting pointlessness, it feels too necessary to ignore it and scrub the toilet instead. When I'm finished writing, I'll sit in a chair for ten minutes before the after school onslaught begins. Better a dirty floor than to make myself so tired that I scream the kids to bed.

Speaking of that laziness, you're still carrying the baby weight. Well, it bugs me too, but it's time to get over it. I've had three kids; I'm hardly going to look like I'm eighteen. Anyway, when I was eighteen I was miserable and fat. I don't have a nanny or a personal trainer and, like so many adults who spend their lives hanging around little kids, I keep getting sick. Every time I get into an exercise routine, I catch another cold or bout of gastro, and that's it for a couple of weeks. You may remember, Mrs P, that I was up until one last night hacking away with my latest chesty cough?

Anyway, I suspect my kids think my soft breasts and tummy make for nicer cuddles. So there, Mrs P, you scrawny old prune.

Observation: Every morning and afternoon, my two year old runs into the schoolyard and throws her arms around first one mother, then another, then perhaps a child she is particularly fond of. A wildly confident passionately loving child like this does not come out of a terrible home.

Conclusion: My parenting is good enough. There is always room for improvement, but that doesn't mean I have to listen to that sly voice which tells me every hour of every day that everything I do is flawed.

Conclusion: Mrs Perfect can go to hell.

My happiest day...

should have been each time I gave birth to a child, but oh! the first birth was so fraught and difficult, days of labour and a contemptuous obstetrician and a supervising midwife who talked about me as if I wasn't in the room and I wasn't really sure I wanted a baby anyway let alone like this being ripped to shreds and when the baby was born she didn't sleep for hours just lay there looking at me with her big eyes and sucking out the ragged remains of my soul and I've been picking up the pieces of my shattered self ever since.

Perhaps it was the second birth, or the third – but then again, each time the hospital wouldn't let me go as soon as the baby was born so I paced the room like a caged animal and did crosswords to distract myself while my husband held the baby and adored her; and each time I was filled with guilt that my husband was more affectionate than me, even as I was frantic to whisk my daughter home.

It might have been the day that I married, but my mother had exacted a death-bed promise that we not postpone it. A week later we held her funeral; and a week after that, the wedding.

I wore my favourite dress, a red cheongsam slit up the side. Instead of pants, I thought I should wear stockings. I hate stockings. In my grief-stricken muddle, at the last minute I stripped them off and went bare legged. As I stood on the steps up front, I realised my white thighs were on display to the congregation, and my new sandals hurt. I beamed anyway at my pale and grumpy groom, who was standing at a lean; he had an ear infection.

Undeterred by sadness or dresses or illness or shoes, I bowled through the vows until 'in sickness and in health'. I had hoped to gallop through unthinking. Instead I stood there on the brink of eternity with my mouth gaping open and no sound coming out; although I loved my husband I didn't want to nurse him as my father nursed my mother – bathing, dressing, feeding, toileting, propping up with pillows and turning in the night – and I sure as hell didn't want him to nurse me. The congregation waited out the minutes, grieving with me, and out of the silence I felt them lift me up and find the voice to make that hardest vow.

Perhaps it was a day in Italy, where we had a long holiday with friends. I sat on a hillside and for the first time put pen to paper and knew I could write something that wasn't academic. I wrote about visiting the Sistine Chapel where the guards bellowed at the crowd to be quiet; I wrote about God, and Michelangelo, and the sanctity of chickens. And later it was published. A good day, but I was a tourist there; to be deeply happy, I need to feel at home.

Perhaps it was the day I first had dinner with my husband and stayed for hours? The day in Washington when it snowed at Christmas and our grandfather took us sledding at midnight? Or was it one of many days we picnicked on a hillside; or the cold night we built up the fire, stayed late and, as the thermometer dipped to zero, watched for an eclipse?

Or was it a rainy day, uncomplicated by anything much? I was a child, I don't know how young. My parents were gardening and, in the joyful lunacy of being outside in the rain, were at peace; my mother didn't even criticise. For the time being, we were safe.

My sister and I wore raincoats and plastic pants and gumboots. A shallow concrete gutter ran down the side of the house, keeping the water which ran down the driveway at bay. We floated leaves and sticks down the gutter and ran races, leaf against stick against leaf. We watched our little boats churn into the drain, then scooped up the water and drank it, clear and cool like a mountain spring, flinty, earthy, tinged with eucalyptus from the trees which hung over the drive.

We jumped in puddles and sent them splashing; we kicked up water and threw it around as rain sheeted down and the drive shimmered silver. The world was awash.

At the end of my sleeves, my shrivelled hands were pink with cold. Damp tendrils of hair curled around my face; my lashes were beaded with droplets. Rain ran down my runny nose and dripped onto the ground. I was sodden, yet I burned with delight; I felt ablaze and alive and wholly me.

And, as simple as that, and for all the adult joys and delights, that's probably it. On that well-remembered day in a year long gone and otherwise unremarked, I was, however briefly, the happiest.