interlexionality

Dear friends,

It’s been a while. This is going to be sad and tell you things about me that you won’t be able to un-know, so if that’s not what you need at this moment, come on back later, or never, as you see fit.

(Here’s your chance to go eat a sandwich instead. That is a respectable decision, I promise.)

I haven’t been writing because I’d learned in March that I was pregnant, and I’d been floating in all the secrecy and joy that entailed, but I am not pregnant now. Our first sonogram showed no heartbeat. A few days later, I took medication to induce contractions, at home. And now, I am not pregnant.

Some things to know:

We are ok. We are so sad, and we are going to be, but we are ok.

We are loved, my god, we are loved. I’ve never had the world, my corner of it, wrap itself around me like it has done, but my god I have learned that I am way stronger than I’d suspected, Bill is truly every bit the miracle I’ve known him to be, and all this in us is fed by our beloved others, and we are so full.

It’s true what they say: that this is very common, and women just don’t talk about it. Well: they talk about it if you tell them it happened to you. Women have shared such tender things with me in the last few days, things I grip and treasure. I am not here to tell women to talk about it, because the only possible reason to do so is to help bail the ocean of inrushing grief out of your own boat. But sharing it has helped me, so I am writing this, and if it happens to you, you can call me.

I will probably write about all this in more detail later. It’s been so personal, but some of what’s hard is also bound up in the culture we all live in, so it just seems like something I’ll need to put my words on eventually.

The only thing Bill and I need is everyone holding us in love out there. I know that sometimes when someone is grieving, I desperately want a thing to do that shows up in physical space, even though they say to just love them. So if you need a physical-space thing, here’s what you can do: go find small candles that smell good. Smell a bunch, and when you get to one you just love, or reminds you of us, or smells like you wish the whole world would, send it to us. This is truly not a request, just a way for you to participate in our process if you are called to. One small gift of this time—and there have been many, and I’d never have expected that— was getting pointed to a book about the role of grief in culture, and it makes a beautiful case for opening our processes wider than they are. So, come on in. You are welcome here.