Still Passing Open Windows ....

Tagged by Meg

I am sorry, Meg, I have been away from my blog for a long, long time but there goes. And thank you for tagging me. I feel a warm little glow that someone on the blogosphere thought of me to tag, sort of like at school when someone picks you for their team.

The rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Be sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

Oh my word, six non-important quirks ... mmm...

1. I love reading cook books in bed. I like to take 2 or 3 to bed with me and lie reading Nigel Slater's gorgeous descriptions of roast chicken with tarragon or yet another recipe for hummus and baba ghanoush.
2. I don't like tomato seeds on lettuce in my salads. I like tomato salads and I like mixed salads, just not tomato in a mixed salad with lettuce. If I de-seed the tomatoes, I might add them to the salad but still, not a very yummy combination in my mind.
3. I love turquoise shirts and black trousers. I think at the moment I have 6 pairs of black trousers (one of which I fit into to) and three turquoise t-shirts and 2 turquoise dress shirts. if I went shopping tomorrow I would probably buy another turquoise t-shirt.
4. Every time I go on holiday I end up buying a hat. A big one, with a wide brim. And a notebook. I have a drawer so full of notebooks it almost doesn't open. The hats at least all fit into each other.
5. I will eat almost anything that has peanut butter or lemon & garlic. I will squeeze lemon juice on anything, from rice to steak. Divine. And thank goodness they don't sell Reesies here otherwise I would be at least 5kg heavier. And a note to Reesies: can't you up the peanut butter ratio to chocolate?
6. Leading on from my notebook passion, www.moleskinerie.com is my home page so I read it every day.

And who shall I tag? Mmmmmmmmmm ...

Sam

Ms Planner

Aunt Becky - one of the very few mothers I read but who always makes me laugh

I'm waiting to see if anyone else has any weird salad quirks.

On certain days I have some form of peace about the whole reproduction thing. On certain days I am relieved not to be monitoring my cycle, not to be planning acupuncturist's appointments, not to be trying to avoid coffee or eat raw food or take spirulina or whatever that month's magic pill was supposed to be. There is even a part of me that feels lighter and that skips from time to time with joy at the thought of being able to release everything that trying to fall pregnant and trying to stay pregnant involves in my life, of just being able to let go and live without worrying or thinking 700 times about everything I do.

Then this month my period was a little late. A very little late. My cycles are usually 24 days, this month it stretched to 27 days. Despite myself, despite everything that has happened and the probable end of another pregnancy, I felt that happiness that being newly pregnant after wanting it for so long brings. The world looked like a beautiful place. I felt special, happy with my secret. I even entertained thoughts of how I would have to cancel next week's trip, not go away for Easter either and how I wouldn't tell anyone, not even my doctor until 3 months. I felt that if this pregnancy had arrived miraculously without any intervention on my part that it would run a smooth course, even though Meg has walked that road and found it not to be the case. So not the case.

And now I think AF has arrived. It's good, I tell myself. I can carry out my fitness programme (ha ha ha) and continue trying to lose weight instead of spending 5 months wondering will it/won't it work this time. I can go to Paris and drink like a fish with an old university friend without worrying if the trip has damaged some fragile blood vessel which will bring the whole bang shoot to an end. I can go away for Easter and enjoy it with H and not sit at home trying to will the pregnancy to a successful end. Yes, this is much better.

But a part of me would still like to be pregnant. I was reading my journal from December when I wrote that sometimes it felt my grip on life was so tenuous, I felt it would almost be easier to drift away and that feeling of being on the edge of the void terrified me. I think surviving another loss would be horrendous, would possibly dip me into the void which I teeter on at times. And yet still some part of me would be so happy to be pregnant. It has to be something in my genes because all logic goes against it. It is possibly a bloody good thing that I don't fall pregnant naturally.

Missing

I miss being pregnant. I cannot help thinking that I should be around 7 months now. I know it doesn't help, I know I should avoid these thoughts but it keeps on coming back: I should still be pregnant. I miss the feeling of being special that I had when I was pregnant. I miss knowing that there was a child growing inside. I miss that feeling of hope. I miss thinking that I could just be a normal person with a child. I miss that.

Of course there was all the anxiety and fear that something could go wrong, but there was also so much hope.

We are working on other plans to have children but unless I am actively speaking to an agency, I feel that this is the end, that I will never have children, that I will always endure women's conversation as they discuss schools and childfriendly holidays, that I will always be the outsider. I feel that this is my life and one of the scary effects of this is that I pull away from H. This just feels like my pain and my issue. He could have children. He could move on and recover while I seem to be stuck. He seems to be doing ok. His job is going well and he is involved in exciting stuff. I am just in the swamps of self pity and despair and negativity. This just seems to be pulling us apart and I feel our connection growing weaker and weaker and weaker.

I am hoping this is just Valentine's Day fall out. All those happy, brightly coloured couples gazing into each other's eyes, reinforcing my view of stereotyped relationships where you get married and buy a house and have 2.3 children as the only way to live happily ever after.

How do you draw closer in bad times? How do you live happily ever after when your story is not the traditional one you grew up believing in?

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone, I hope it is a happy one.

I said to H I didn't want to celebrate it but today I feel strange not marking the day. I know, I know, I'm a marketing victim. It's a difficult day to celebrate. How do I celebrate it without looking at where we are and where we have come from? How do I sit down with H and not remember our years together and everything we have gone through which I never ever expected to experience and which have devastated us? How do I not remember our children who are not here?

Here's to a year when I can celebrate anniversaries without feeling sad, when I can just be happy that we are where are and not think of what might have been. Here's to a year when we can all celebrate that. (I'm half a bottle of wine down, can you tell?)

I wish you all an easy day, a good day with chocolate and red wine and love.

The dentist

Me: Good morning, I was wondering if I could get an appointment with the dentist this week. I've got toothache.

Dental assistant: Can I have your name?

Me: Carlynn H

Dental Assistant: And what do you have exactly?

Me: Really bad toothache actually, I'm taking pain killers every 4 hours.

Dental Assistant: Oh yes, I remember. You came to see me when you were pregnant and you had a cavity. I told you to call when you had given birth and make an appointment immediately! (said accusingly). The dentist is extremely busy.

Me: Yes, well, I lost the pregnancy and um, well, I was not really in any sort of state to ...

Dental Assistant: Oh. I'm so sorry.

Me: ... to make an appointment but now it's really sore so I was wondering if I could see him.

Dental Assistant: Would tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. suit you?

I guess that is what one would call the upside of losing a pregnancy; instant availability of the dentist.

Holiday

We spent a week in Cape Town and got back yesterday. It was good to be somewhere I loved and somewhere I have happy memories. I would like to be able to live there, in a Brigadoon-type existence. This week's plan is to move to the Russian steppes and photograph yaks. Enough of this trying to be wife and mother, it just does not seem to be for me and the steppes have an attractive emptiness which calls to me. I, of course, envisage publishing an enormously popular book of magnificent photos and becoming famous as the Yak Lady. The book will naturally be followed by a set of interesting commissions which will take me all over the world, photographing areas of natural beauty and the picturesque decay of colonial buildings.

 

and I had to include one of my favourites: a food photo, of which I have many. If I don't become the Yak Lady, I am contemplating becoming the Chili Squid Salad Lady.