*
After two weeks, we put him in his own room.
He wakes angry. Sometimes he refuses to be picked up. He gives us the evil eye. Unless we're already there when he wakes. Then he gives a bleary, devious smile.
Even if we wanted to bring him back to us at night, we couldn't. He is independent now. He demands his space. He's used to his rectangle, his freedom.
*
I put him down for his nap today and after awhile he made a noise so I went to him. But his eyes were still shut and he'd found his empty bottle and was sucking at it, so I waited. Then I backed out, watched from the door. His breathing was labored, but he was determined to rest, so I left. I read my book in my bed.
This morning at the bookstore I saw a book on scientific parenting, something about brain research and us all being mammals. In the sleeping section (the section I always turn to first in such books) there were pictures of koalas, orangutans, sleeping together, mother and child. We're the only mammals who don't co-sleep, the book explained. It is too dangerous, anywhere else, to leave your child alone. On another page, a newborn slept next to his mother, who "slept" only for the camera, with perfect, if natural-looking, makeup.
That's what we give up for what we have now. For society. We put our children in the other room. We have sex. It's good or it's bad; for me it's mostly great. We clean up. The man falls asleep. The woman lays awake, body still tingling with sex, with the biological hope of it, even if our minds don't follow. We fall asleep eventually, but then we wake. Our weakened bladders. Our stuffed-up sons. Our mammalian impulses. The helpless child in the enclosed rectangle.
I don't know if I'll ever sleep well again.
*
In Afghanistan, a woman could have friends. She could go to the University; she could dress mostly as she liked and walk with those friends and laugh. She could be a doctor. She could fall in love, have babies, keep a house, have a say.
In 1995 I graduated high school. In 1995 Afghan women graduated, too. They celebrated, maybe like I did.
In 1997, no women graduated in Afghanistan.
It could happen. To you, to your wife, to your sister, your mother. In a few weeks, a month. In a year, you could be covered from head to heel with cloth. Expelled from school. The windows of your house painted black.
Unable to see a male doctor, you could die of an easily treatable disease. Accused unfairly of almost anything, you could hang. If your ankle showed, you could be beaten with cables until you died.
Perhaps you would sit in your home and watch your son grow, helpless. Maybe you would wish for the black windows of your house to break. For the soldiers to come. For the bombs to drop. Maybe once you were a teacher. Maybe once you were a government worker. September 27, 1996. It took only one day, but it was brewing before then.
*
I took my book into The Bug's room. I sat carefully in the big chair, careful not to squeak. I watched him, and I read. Outside, crows argued, motorcycles roared, music pounded from parking cars, garbage trucks did their business, leaf blowers droned. But he slept. He pressed through the gunk in his nose. A few times, he made a noise, stirred, but fell back into sleep. I watched and I read.
This morning I thought it would be nice for him to be old enough to play alone, so I could do... what? My work, my reading, my cleaning. Already, though, he looks like he will soon outgrow that rectangle. I wanted to get in it with him, but I stayed in my chair. On his back, his breathing grew easy, then faint. His breathing is faster than mine. Little lungs need less air.
He slept and slept. He's still sleeping. He never sleeps this long. He's missed Gymboree. I let him sleep. I left to turn off my phone, and to write this. I'm going back now, because it can all go away. One day, one month, the water boiling so gradually that you don't know you're cooking. I want to see him wake up. I want that wry smile.
posted by Samus @ 1:13 PM
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