Transition

Transition

Life is one big transition  - Willie Stargell (American baseball player)

He was worth the effort

It’s 4 am, and I’m writhing on the family room floor. I’m alone and hunched on all fours like a wounded animal. The pain crashes in waves – constricting each muscle in my body, then relenting, releasing. I nearly relax during the release, but the knowledge another round will grip me again locks in the tension. Oh, make it stop…make it stop. I fantasize about morphine. I’ve never had it, but I want it. NOW. I picture myself swimming in a trough of morphine. No pain, no pain…

Drug fantasies are a hallmark of transition for laboring women. Transition is the last part of active labor, where your cervix opens wide enough to deliver a small county’s mail. Actually, just enough for your precious baby to emerge, bloody and screaming, already demanding an X-Box and an MGP scooter.

The past two weeks have sent my head back to Spokane on October 14^th, 2005. After delivering my daughter via cesarean section in 2004, I desperately wanted a natural delivery with my son. Sean and I attended three months of Bradley (husband-coached child birth) classes, which empowered us to plan a plain-‘ol-fashioned drug-free birth (a rarity in intervention-heavy, lawsuit-obsessed American medicine). Lack of painkillers meant an abundance of pain. And the worst of it – transition – is unavoidable. You can’t get to the other side of labor without punching your transition card. It’s hard work. But even in your pain-crazed state, you know something wonderful, worthwhile, even miraculous awaits.

The weeks leading to our departure of New Zealand have been hectic. There’s the practical – confirming flights, packing possessions… and the emotional – the saying goodbyes, performing the “lasts:” last runs, last café visits, buying the last bottle of sweet chili sauce. You wonder about the mundane: Will this shampoo run out before I leave? Will I finish the rest of this passion fruit curd? Will I need to buy more toilet paper?  Just to ratchet up the stress level a hair, we’ve moved into a new house less than a week before fleeing the country.

The sweet, small moments unleash a torrent of tears. Last Friday, while driving the kids to school along the same road we’ve traveled for a year, I asked them to sing New Zealand’s national anthem (which they know in English and Maori). We started with “E Ihowa Atua/O nga iwi matou ra…”

Finley says, “No, sing it in Eng-uh-lish.”

Fiona, Finley and I start singing:

            “God of nations, at Thy feet/In the bonds of love we meet,”

I don’t even make it to “Hear our voices we entreat…”

The tears start. I suck in a breath and stutter “he-he-he,” the way you do during a snuffly cry.

“Mommy, are you crying?” asks Fiona. “Why are you crying?”

I respond, “Because Mommy’s sad to leave New Zealand.”

Fiona says, “It’s okay, Mommy, I told you to get a cardboard cut-out of Petey to have in America.”

Oh, Fi. Cardboard’s not gonna fix this.

I pull myself together and deliver the kids one block from school, kissing their juicy cheeks goodbye before driving up Marine Parade. This could be my last run up the Mount with the Joggers. I’m going early so I can summit (it’s just 761 feet tall but a steep workout, nonetheless) twice. I run alone, just before nine. Even though my mates aren’t yet physically present, knowing I’ll see them at the top provides a mental nudge. I climb the stair track first, since stairs are my nemesis, and the North face of the Mount heats up faster than the South. Plunk, plunk, plunk, go my feet for more than half a kilometer on the wooden boardwalk before I reach the stairs at the hill’s base. I run until the stone steps, where I hike. I never run the stone steps. They’re steep and uneven, a hazard. Once on gravel, I return to running uphill. Shuffle, shuffle, slog, slog.

I regain my breath and bound up the next set of wood-framed stairs.

 “Excuse me,” I pant.

            “Look out, we got a fast one comin’ through,” says a woman in a track suit who’s hiking with two other women.

Is she talking about me? When I first started climbing the Mount, I couldn’t run the whole way. I stopped as soon as I saw the stairs and launched into fast-walk mode. Now, I can almost hear my friend, Paula behind me saying,

            “Just take it one flight of stairs at a time. Run super slowly between them to recover.”

So I do. And it helps.

In the morning’s cool, I hear cicadas chirping, snippets of conversation, feet pounding the track. Will this be my last run up the Mount? I continue climbing, mounting the steep stairs that rise in triplicate. I pass the tree my friends have told me is the half-way point. The track curves right, where a new set of stairs emerge, covered in rubber or plastic non-slip netting . The tree canopy here is thicker, and the dirt trail levels out for a couple dozen feet, giving me a few seconds to regain breath. Then, the path zig-zags to the top – each short stack of stairs begets another. After a final left turn, the tree canopy thins. Several more stairs – and you’re at the top. Touch the trig station, perform the requisite calf stretches. Pivot around to watch surfers in the Pacific, to see the greens and whites of 

Mount Maunganui and the blues of  Tauranga Harbor.

I turn left and run the four-wheel drive track, picking my way carefully down the steep gravel slope. To my right, on the horizon sits Mayor Island. Just across the harbor entrance sits Matakana Island, a finger of land coated in pine trees. Each summit and descent of Mauao (the Maori name for the Mount) reveals something new.

After descending the steepest part of the track, I fly past the uphill walkers and runners, dodging sheep pellets on the way. I run to the asphalt of Pilot Bay, turn around and summit again, back up the four-wheel drive track. You wonder, during this last leg, if you might cry at the top. I have at least five minutes until the others arrive. Maybe I’ll sit myself down for a tear or two.

Just then, I hear two distinctly American accents - Southern twang from a couple in their 60's. They're taking pictures of each other. I offer to take their photo together and ask where they're from. Virginia, they say.

“Are you here on holiday?” the man asks.

“Yes,” I say. “For a year.”

“Wow,” says Mr. Virginia. “Lucky you.”

Yes. Lucky me. I knew this even several days ago during a full-on sob session at the beach. Just me and the sea. I thank the ocean for its presence and silently curse the circumstance that brought me here.

            Dammit, Sean, why did you die? I wouldn’t be in transition on the other side of the world if you were still around. Of course, it’s not your fault. But I still get angry. And I still need your strength and kindness.

 Especially when I’m sad. Or scared. Or trying to make a major decision. Stay, or go? Push – pull. Pack to leave while preparing to return.

Transition entangles those nearest you, the ones you love. You challenge them. Test their mettle. It’s the classic TV show line, shouted by the woman in labor to her husband: “YOU did this to me! I wouldn’t be in this state if it weren’t for you!” Cue the laugh track. Cut to the scene of mom with new babe-in-arms.  If only all our transitions ended with the delivery of a pruney-faced crying infant. On second thought…

Back to the Mount: Running it twice in one morning was fun – why not pull a trifecta? I’ve wanted to bring Pete there for an evening picnic for months. The weather’s windy and overcast, so the view may not be spectacular, but the temperature’s comfortable for hiking. We slowly  wind to the top. I’m mindful not to rush – Pete’s unaccustomed to hiking, or any sport without a ball. Exercise is my thing – not his.

We unpack the meal I’ve sherpa’d: wrap sandwiches and a bottles of bubbles . We’re sitting at a picnic table at the top of the Mount in a dip that shelters us from wind. Only after I finish a glass of faux champagne do I summon the courage to tell Pete what’s been keeping me up at night (beside the obvious anxiety about leaving NZ):

            “The fact you haven’t turned in references for Air New Zealand makes me feel really insecure about the relationship,” I say, careful to frame this as my issue, not his. “If you don’t even try to get into the airlines, I’ll continue to shoulder 90% of the finances.”

Pete works overtime managing ground courses and other operations for the local flight school. It’s maximum responsibility for minimum pay. We’re both delighted he’s got a job in his field, but it’s a stepping stone to what he’s been training, studying and going into $100k of debt for, which is flying. It’s hard to be supportive when you watch your loved one procrastinate his opportunity. Air New Zealand e-mailed Pete, saying he met their minimum requirements, and would he pleased send references? That was two, maybe three weeks ago. The thing-left-undone, combined with my neurosis about leaving a place and people I’ve grown to love, has left me sleepless and insane. This is not my problem. Why am I making it my problem? Because I want action. And I’m tired of being so damned responsible.

Pete, a former sales guy who could sell blubber to a whale, explains his stall: He’s been slammed at work; he had to contact his references first, and they had to be the right kind of references… I tell him he’s a procrastinating perfectionist. I know, because I’ve walked the same not-gonna-do-it-til-it’s-flawless-path. It’s never finished. Never ideal. I tell Pete I worry he’s got a mental block preventing him from pulling the trigger. Like, maybe he doesn’t think he’s ready to fly. My conjecture. My fear.

We talk in circles for 15 minutes, resolving nothing, except I’ve finally offloaded my burden. Maybe this is the out I’ve been searching for – the one that releases me from attachment to another fatally flawed mortal. 

Monday, he says. He’ll get the references in Monday. I pause on the way down the Mount to remind Pete I’m on his side.

Later that night, I nuzzle Pete’s bare chest. I sink deeper and deeper into his warmth, trying to memorize the feel of his skin. I squeeze his bicep, laying my head against the rounded contour of muscle. I adore Pete’s biceps –they’re generous, born of years pulling one-ton planes rather than months of lifting weights at a gym. Usually, they make me smile. Tonight, they also make me cry. I’ve told Pete my favorite place in the whole world is wrapped in his arms. I’m wondering how life will feel outside his embrace. I lay my head on Pete’s chest and sob. It’s a “he-he-he” snuffly, wet-eyed, snotty-nosed cry that makes my head shake, chest heave. It’s part of transition. I’m powerless to do anything but yield to the surge of grief that spikes like a sudden fever.

Leaving New Zealand. Leaving the bubble. Leaving Pete. Even though we’re preparing to return to En Zed in six months, transition hurts. Even though we’re returning to friends, family and the familiar, flux sucks.

It’s like transition in labor without the tightening vice around your uterus. I never got the morphine I fantasized about for Finley’s birth. 

Eventually, I gave into the pain of contractions, moving with them instead of steeling myself for the next round.

Finley emerged, pink and screaming, exercising his vocal cords to one day ask for the MGP scooter.

We’ll all reach the other side of our travels, possibly pink, probably screaming, stronger for the effort. Transition isn’t the trap. Imagining you’ll always be mired in it is.

We’ll see you, my friends, on one side of the ocean or another.

*True to his word, Pete did, in fact, submit references to Air New Zealand today.