Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart for the express purpose of purchasing Corpse Bride, which I had never seen but my faith in Tim Burton is so absolute that I knew it wouldn't matter (and my faith was well-placed). As I surveyed the display in the middle of the floor that sported several versions of Corpse Bride as well as every Pink Panther movie every made, a very cute little boy about the age of three wearing a red coat wandered up from somewhere and began to look at the movies too. I assumed his parents were somewhere nearby. He went in the same direction around the display that I intended to go, so I sort of followed him, being careful not to tromp on his little sneakered feet, and I appreciated the fact that this unusual kid wasn't screaming or clamoring or yelling or making a racket; he was just looking. As we rounded a corner of the display, I glanced up to see a man in his late thirties or early forties watching me with this soft expression, and with the kind of visceral shock you expect when you jump into a lake in April, I realized he thought the little boy was mine.
I guess it looked like a perfect mother-son scenario: This lovely well-dressed young woman sharing a quiet movie moment with her cute and well-behaved little boy.
Suddenly my very good day darkened considerably. I felt a little winded, not because the man was mistaken, but because he was understandably mistaken, and because a part of me that keeps very still and small most of the time leaped up and shouted, That child should be mine! I want a family! What are you waiting for?
I think this is really the first moment I can remember feeling like that. Sure, I've wanted a boyfriend, a fiance, a husband...but to be honest, I've never wanted a kid, except in the most abstract way. Especially after holding inconsolable, irritable, restless babies for nine months in PEDS and just wishing they'd shut up and go to sleep so I could quit holding them because they were driving me crazy, and thinking these thoughts might qualify me as "bad mother" for the time being, I firmly and with a great deal of relief kept the idea of children extraordinarily abstract, and very far in the future. But yesterday, seeing myself through a stranger's eyes with huge amounts of approval as a mother, I realized that the fit would be good, and that I do want children, not abstractly at all. (Not tomorrow, of course, but sooner rather than later.)
I waited till the boy's parents called for him, then bought my movie and walked out to my car in a sort of daze. I very nearly called MP to yell about it in a crazed-single way, because that's funny and tends to relieve angst and restore perspective, but instead I turned on the country radio station (bad idea) and drove home.
Later that evening, feeling rather Wm Had a Headachey and maudlin, I decided to cheer myself up with a few poems by Billy Collins, who in addition to being brilliant is nearly always funny. Instead I read a poem that made me cry with its sweetness. Here it is. (But afterward I watched Corpse Bride and was marvelously, macabrely comforted. What an exquisite creation.)
Love
The boy at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid or expecting someone
and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in
and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakable shape of a cello.
She looked like an angel with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.
And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,
whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello.
And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manila envelope
now that they have left the train together
is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,
I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted
when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something remarkable,
something that identifies him as God.
No comments:
Post a Comment