How I am Blessed

There is a tiny head resting in the center of my chest, breathing sweet milky mists in gurgles and sighs. And every day is brimming with joy. So much that the laughter, if strung together, would stretch for days and weeks. Maybe months, until it became foggy and faint, and we wouldn't know what it was for anymore, nor care. Deep, tickly breaths on the back of my neck at night; the kind that feel like they could have and should have been there every night since forever. And a sense that every day, simply waking up amounts to one step a little bit further into Happily Ever After.

Motherhood and the Decimation of an Angst-hole

My son, Charles Anthony Pumilia, was born on Tuesday, January fourth at 5:52 PM. Just as I suspected he would, he arrived in an undramatic fashion after just seven hours of active labor. He was perfect.

I thought that, upon getting the little guy settled in at home, I would immediately rush to my sketch book, notebooks, and even to this blog to commemorate and fawn over him in a "creative" fashion. As it turns out, I have yet to touch a sketching pencil, and aside from facebook updates, this is the first I have written about him.

This is partially due to the fact that the old "Caring for an infant is a full time job," axiom is completely true. I spend at least eight hours a day just nursing. Add to that diaper changes, baths, cuddles, and wardrobe changes, and my time is pretty well spoken for.

Still, I have quiet moments like this one where I could sit down and paint a picture or write a poem. I often choose instead to just watch the baby. I find him to be completely enthralling.

Having created something so completely unlike anything I ever created before has kept me in the moment. Art and writing require a sort of mental check out; a break from reality during which one must retreat into her own head and fish out the bits that need removal, massaging, or grooming before smearing them across a page with an eye towards either entertainment or self-therapy. Now, watching my child's facial expressions while he sleeps is endlessly entertaining and snuggles from him provide unmatched therapy.

I have always known that my creative impulses, and thus the work I have done in various artistic fields, stem largely from holes or gaps I felt in myself. I will almost certainly never again produce as much poetry as I did during a stretch of time in 2003 and 2004. In six or seven months I filled five, five subject spiral notebooks to the brim with verse, much of which has been deemed "good" by various readers, and a small percentage of which has been published.

The cause for such a rush of creation during that time period was a desperate search for a teenage identity coupled with a fair amount of angst and some mind-enhancing activities. My periodic unhappiness and instability needed an outlet, and thus I bled onto a page, rather than down a sink drain as some other "arty types" choose to do.

In the spring of 2005, while I was in my second term at Tulane and certainly at my most nihilistic, I wrote over 200 pages of a single spaced, 10 pt. novel in less than two months. It was almost definitely my most emotionally tumultuous phase, and it resulted in a manic flurry of word vomit in the form of a dark and melancholy monologue that will never be finished for various reasons.

The point I am trying to make is that I have always used creation as an emotional outlet, which is not unusual. Perhaps unfortunately, that means that as I have gotten older, happier, and more stable, my desire and need to create has diminished. By the time I got pregnant, I had only a very tiny angst-hole in my soul left to fill.

Now, I am filling that hole in the simplest of ways. Rather than absorbing my energy into myself, I am bouncing it off my little one to be consumed by the ethos. I am filling my hole by staring into the tiniest, steel-blue eyes and singing "You Are My Sunshine" on repeat. By kissing little foot arches and tickling minute ribs. By waking up in the middle of the night to petite whimpers that sound remarkably like Nicki Minaj's entire catalog of work. And I can't feel any holes anymore.

I have been told by numerous individuals who make their living in various artistic fields that the arts need not be an escape from pain and unrest. That Elliot Smith and Vincent Van Gogh are the exception and not the norm. These people claim to project positive feelings into their art. They hope that their work can inspire and entertain on its own. It need not be laden with hard-wrestled traces of their demons in order to have worth.

I never really believed any of that. I thought it was a grown-up line used to mask the unchecked adolescent torment that all artists must still possess. However, I might be changing my mind. I have a tiny, tiny, perfect face peering at me out of a fish-themed bouncy chair right now, and its vaguely simian expression is making my heart swell a bit. Maybe, if I can find a way to massage this love onto canvas and paper in the place of the formerly smeared pain, I can create something beautiful.

If not, it isn't really a big deal. My most beautiful creation is right in front of me, and I am pretty sure he is hungry again.