When I was in my twenties and working in publishing and doing comedy every single night someone once told me, “I’ve never met someone more in need of a hot stone massage.” A college friend called me “Tweek,” after the South Park character that “drinks lots of coffee, which is laced with meth, which causes paranoia and jittery muscle spasms.” Speaking of meth: another friend, after seeing one of my improv shows, grilled me over lunch about what drugs I was on, refusing to accept the simple explanation that I was on none at all. Just the natural high of long form improv, the drug of choice for those too Catholic for cocaine.
While I wouldn’t say this nervous energy propelled me into healthy productivity, it did keep me scared, and as anyone who has met a rabbit knows, scared things keep moving. But now I find myself in a stage of life where I have ground to a halt, and I’ve decided that rather than push the boulder up the hill I’ll watch it gently roll back from whence it came. I fear that from whence it came was a village, and the inhabitants will be crushed.
I wish I could say I was at peace with that, but of course, my former self still bubbles beneath the surface, forbidding me from enjoying the standstill / freefall in which I now find myself.
Having a baby, the universal excuse for everything, hasn’t convinced it’s okay to let go. I’ve been particularly taunted by the feed of a literary influencer who gave birth a few weeks after me, in the midst of publishing a book, launching a podcast, and being British. She posts pictures of her child swathed in ecru knitwear and calls the child the French word for baby, bébé?, which is what I would say is the opposite of a bridge to far—it’s a bridge too near. And it leads to nowhere, because here I am, a mother with nothing to show for it except a baby spelled the traditional way in my native language swathed in garishly-hued secondhand Target onesies.
What does this have to do with LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA? Well, it’s the land of being absolutely chill as hell, a mindset I find myself incapable of adopting even when fate’s hand is actively reaching into my skull and shaping my mind. Not writing this newsletter last week haunted me into this one, long nights brightening into blurry days, which fade into more long nights. My output is purely bodily—breast milk flowing into an adorable, insatiable mouth. Imagine a world where this act is enough! But actually, don’t, because I’m not sure if being food is exactly everything I want with the rest of my life. Imagine a world where I can be food AND human!
Anyway, this is the kind of content you get when I haven’t slept. Look, I may have (temporarily, I pray) lost my momentum and identity BUT there’s one thing I’ll never lose and that is my desperate need of a hot stone massage. And luckily, this is LA, where stones and massages abound.
Until next time?
First of all, may I be the first in a long line of your readers, to say that I hate your British friend from the bottom of my mother's heart. If you resent her supposed capabilities, even a little, rest assured that she is totally faking it and her baby will hate her as much as I do some day. Oh how all of us real people who have given birth remember how it wasn't just our bodies that splayed over our days and sleepless nights like a half-fried egg. Our brains were on withdrawal from some powerful chemical assists that made us relax into all those months of pregnancy. No one gets to skip this post-birth slog. The best is yet to come, and I mean this with no reference to Don Jr.'s girlfriend. There will come a day when Oona and you have a kick-ass day together, when she starts to feel competent at being alive and you start to feel better and more capable than you have ever felt before. Even your fights will be energizing. Does everything return to normal? I'm 74 and am still eating for two....
Anyone who is an influencer is by definition a bad one. You, my dear, are an inspiration. Nourishment for your readers' souls as well as for your that astonishing little girl's body.
I LOVE your writing and look forward to the next installment, whenever it arrives.