Gone North, Part 1

Left Spartanburg: 11 am, Tuesday, July 24

On the way: Roadwork near the North Carolina border (dead stop on the highway three different times); $140 speeding ticket in Greensboro, NC; listening to Daniel Johnston and Beulah; catching up with Rachel Ramsey; assimilating to the eternity of the road, not thinking for a long time and then coming to this: I have nothing to be afraid of.

Arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland: 8 pm

Purpose:

the babes

…and the mamas

I went to Maryland for the bris (circumcision) of Elinor’s first born son. It is a ritual performed on the 8th day of a Jewish boy’s life to symbolize the covenant between God and the Children of Israel (so tells me Wikipedia, where I have been refreshing all of my Hebrew day school lessons these days). The name of the child is also announced at the bris, and is kept secret, even from immediate family, until then. (Wikipedia could not provide an explanation for this, but I found one elsewhere: “Contrary to popular perception, it is not forbidden to announce the name of a baby before his Bris. In a metaphysical sense, however, the child does not actually ‘receive’ his name until the Bris. This is based on the fact that God changed Abraham’s name in conjunction with his Bris at age 99. Also, the boy only receives the full measure of his soul at the Bris, and a person cannot truly be ‘named’ until attaining that completion.” Care to elaborate, Elinor or Orli?)

The name is integrated into the service, so you have to listen up for its announcement. The baby’s name is Mayer Israel (or Meir Yisrael in Hebrew, pronounced Meh-ear). I love it.

I have never been particularly drawn to the idea of having children of my own. It has just never been something I wanted. And given my assurance of impending environmental collapse, it seems plain irresponsible. When it comes up in conversation, most people, and especially strangers, will say something like this: “You’re young. You’ll see. You’ll have children,” with a kind of all-knowing smile. It is infuriating that strangers should feel so smug about every woman’s “innate” need for offspring, that they should know me better than I know myself just by virtue of my sex.

Elinor’s family is like a second family to me, and so when they tease me about my eventual maternity (and they do, constantly), I allow it, but I uphold my resistance.

But here I admit it: in the less than 24 hours I was in Maryland, I began to detect a deep sadness in my staunch rejection of motherhood. I remember a long while ago, a man asked me, “How could you not want to have a baby? Even I want to have a baby.” He was talking, in this case, not about the child, but about the labor. “It has got to be the most intense process in human existence. How could you not want to experience that?” He framed childbirth as necessary for the real understanding of life, of the body, of the human condition. At the time, I was not particularly convinced. But, Tuesday night, sitting at the dinner table with the family, I felt like a child– the only female at the table besides the seven-month-old Tamar who had not been through it. And in the very short day that followed there were dozens of moments, too personal and somewhat terrifying to relate so publicly, that only reinforced how little I understood about all of the above– life, the body, the human condition– and especially where it concerned being a woman. There is a profound pain and sacrifice in the whole ordeal that I consciously took for granted, that I never internalized before. I was startled to realize that, in many ways, I might remain a child until I produce one. I suddenly wanted maternity in the way my male friend had described so many years ago, I wanted it the way I want travel or books– I wanted the knowledge trapped inside of it like water in a cactus. I wanted the pain, I wanted the miracle. And I grew sad, because I still don’t want the baby, a feeling that persists, despite and because of all of this. That is painful in and of itself.

Left Silver Spring: 3:00 pm, Wednesday, July 25

On the way: Wrong turn; nowhere Virginia for two hours. When I tell people where I am trying to get to they look at me pityingly and say, “Oh darlin’, you are lost;” I call my father, panicked. He finds me on Google Maps and begins to call out the street names before I get to them. He directs me to I-95; listening to Big Bill Broonzy, Hank Williams, The Breeders and Dane Cook’s “Retaliation;” catching up with Alex Diaz; coming home to Spartanburg, the first time alone, the first time in the dark. A big red glowing cross, the only light on the highway, tells me “Jesus Saves.”

Arrived in Spartanburg: 12:15 am, Thursday, July 26

I have been known to say that giving the finger in pictures in one of my “pet peeves,” but when an infant does it, it’s just badass. Don’t mess with Mayer, y’all.