Gentle Fugue
Dear Reader.
If you are new here, welcome to my Substack. For the next few weeks, every Friday I’ll be publishing writing that may become excerpts from the book I’m working on “Glottis: Love Letter to the Open wound”. It’s about grief, trauma, childbirth, singing and the erotic. If you are the kind of person who wants things to make sense, you may want to go back to the beginning.
Thanks for being here…
The episodes of the story that I share here on substack, are fragments of memories, stacked in accumulation, building towards a narrative that I hope will one day make sense of what happened to Leo and I. The further I go on the harder it is to steer around the big terrible times, and I do not want always to do so. But the timing has to be right. I do not want to let go before I’m ready.
“ No wonder feminist work is often about timing: sometimes we are too fragile to do this work; we cannot risk being shattered because we are not ready to put ourselves back together again. To get ready often means being prepared to be undone.” (Sarah Ahmed)
Last week’s entry brought us as far into the story as an idyllic Sunday afternoon with Roy Orbison. Then I skipped ahead to the dreamy repetitions of the long hospital stay. That was an experiment. A toe dipped into the waters of the most painful moments. I felt my blood rise. I held my breath as long as I could. Then reached back for safety, to the deeper water of history. Slowing my flood with anchors of context. And I felt held by so many kind and loving voices reading along. Now I feel ready again, prepared to be undone.
The worst time of the pregnancy was the week of the labour. The 4 1/2 days it took to get Leo out of me, and the couple of days before and after that. I’m not ready to share that yet. But I think I’m strong enough now to risk sharing “The second worst time” - The week leading up to, and then entering hospital for the final time. That’s going to be the topic of today’s post.
Sometimes whole episodes feel clear. Often I remember just small fragments. The mechanical chorus of heart-rate monitors, phasing in and out. A prayer 40bpm. Babies cries and birdsong form unpredictable counterpoint. Your father rocking back and forth, sitting on the floor in the orange light, holding a basket, a body, 50 bpm. Me facing the ceiling feeling, hearing, rubber wheels continuously hitching some groove, accenting an edge, twice a second. Or, No. That was some other time? Rolling me away.
I took to referring to this time as the “psychic glottis’. I realize my memory of what happened is unreliable. The terrors began to speed up, a rapid, periodic opening and closing. The high pressure environment inside and outside of me, caused rupture after rupture. Everything and every one seemed to want to escape.
The word Fugue comes from the latin : Fugare, to run.
— Fugue
MUSIC
a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts.
PSYCHIATRY
a loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment, associated with certain forms of hysteria and epilepsy.
(Oxford Dictionary)
Let us say darling, that in our music, you were the “short subject”. The theme of a Fugue, taken up by interweaving parts, successively. Our skills in developing those parts were limited. It was as if the pressure of your being here pressed upon each of our scars and wounds and out oozed the hell of ages. I don’t mean to say that you had any part in creating this mess. You were wanted. You did amazing. It was only that our particular combination of instruments were ill equipped to play the music. We called you into being, and I decided we would keep calling you, even though the point of entry was rough. I tried to make it gentle, but the one who introduces the subject of the fugue, no matter how determined, will inevitably get swept up in the general spirit of the ensemble. And ours just kept getting louder and more dissonant, more confused and non-communicative. Until finally: a glottis opened up I had not seen before. Through flashes in the dark edge of the wound, I slipped out to take a break from it all. It was easier. And it wasn’t a choice. Until it was again.
In the first meeting with the extraordinary human who would become our Doula “Caracol” she draws us a diagram.
“Das ganze ist ein Kreis aus Kreisen” - Hegel
She wants us to think about our supporting village. I am thrilled that she starts with this topic, after all, my dream of motherhood sails on an idealized Utopian ship of chosen family. I have a list of willing queers and ex-lovers lined up to play uncle. Is that what she wants to talk about? No… Clearly I have no idea. Instead, she speaks of deep body wisdom, of time and transformation. Of her ancestral knowledge, from her family in Mexico. Of plants and warming practices and what they know in traditional Chinese and Indian Medicine. How birth used to work in societies better connected to the cycles of nature and how modernity has eroded the knowledge that pregnancy is a sacred open space between living and non-living. She wants us to understand that I am no longer just a person, but I am a person holding a person. That I am living metamorphosis. That this time is a ceremony. And that holding all that, is a lot of work. Work I’m doing 24 hours a day. She tells us that I need to be well held, all the time. The primary person responsible for holding me is the non-birthing partner, the Philosopher.
Around the circle that represents the philosopher, are two bigger circles. She tells us, we both need at least two “back-up” support people. I explain I have no biological family on the continent, but I have an amazing chosen-family of friends. She stresses it is very important that the philosopher needs not one, but two back-ups, because he is not holding only me, but Leo inside me as well. And that is a big job. The back up people need to be 100% on our team, able to offer useful expertise, safe emotional support, time and the will to help. He needs to carefully choose who those two backups are. His mother was obviously back-up number 1. Then he explains the next closest emotional connection in his life is with his lover, the Burlesque Dancer. But that she won’t speak to me. That she isn’t exactly on board with our family plans.
That wont do. Said the Doula. Shaking her head and laughing nervously.
The body when overloaded with stress, and the instinct to flee suppressed by the fact of having no-where to go, may enter a state called “functional freeze”. It is as if one had the instinct to run, but finding oneself with no exit, no means of egress, over and over, eventually enters a state that might look still from the outside, but inside is a kind of torturous jitter.
As soon as I was pregnant my choices, my sovereignty, began to contract from view. But I had responsibilities. It’s not that I didn’t try to run. But I quickly learned the cost of not submitting was dire. Once I began bleeding, resisting had a heavy cost. I needed to soften. To hold. This was not the time to project myself into the world or fight for what I saw to be my rights trespassed by the Philosopher pursuing the Burlesque dancer against my will. At a time like this, the cost was felt bodily. I felt it in my sleepless nights my skin like fire my face in flush my tears my fear my fear my fear. I feared the price was not only mine to pay. I was not one person. I wished I could take you out of me, experience whatever all that adrenalin and cortisol were doing to my insides, then put you back when I had calmed down.
Phenosong. Genosong. Epigenosong.
This was actually a scenario I’d prepared for, as a singer. Instrumentalists can put their instruments in a case, keeping the precious object safe, when they go to the bar after a show or if they have a fight with their partner. I’m an opera singer. I have techniques. I’d made it through more than one performance after a night in a smoky bar or an argument.
“Unlike the instrument, which can be locked up and put away after use, the voice is something more than an instrument, precisely because it is inseparable from its interpreter” (Cathy Berberian)
I knew what it was to have this thing that is both part-of and separate-to the self, bound to me at inconvenient times. To have one’s most precious form of communication within your body, suffering from whatever illness or abuse your human form endures, and not being able to shield it. My voice (my child) that precious instrument, my way of projecting myself into the world, dehydrated, drunk, smelling of smoke, catching a sore throat or a beating.
The week my water broke was natural disaster. Everything that could have gone wrong did. All forms of connection seemed to break down. The flood came for us. You lost your home. I lost mine.
In the 20th week of my pregnancy I woke in the middle of the night. I woke in excruciating pain. A new pain. Totally novel. I was curious, might it possibly be the worst pain I’d experienced in my life? I wasn’t sure, how can one compare such an unfamiliar sensation? I had no idea what to do. I felt my uterus, my pelvic floor, my lower back, all alive with something terrible. It lasted for an hour.
When it was over, I thought to myself: that felt a lot like what people say labour contractions feel like. But I knew contractions were supposed to last seconds, a minute, not an hour. And they were supposed to be months away. Surely, it can’t be that. Don’t over react. I asked Dr google what they thought about hour long abdominal pains for pregnant women. It said something about “round ligament pain”. Totally normal. I decided to believe that’s what it was. I had an appointment scheduled at the gynecologist in the morning anyway.
The next morning, I walked to their office. There was sign on the door saying it was closed. All appointments were cancelled. I walked home. Texted my Hebamme “Hebamme” means “to lift up” in German. It’s a midwifery service provided by the German government health system free to all expectant parents. I tried to call her. No answer. I waited.
There was barely a trickle of blood. It was better than it had been. But the pain began again. Every time I’d been to the hospital they’d stressed there was nothing to be done at this stage. I did not know what to do. When there was still no answer from my midwife or gynecologist by Friday, I wrote to the Doula I had wanted to engage but wasn’t yet sure how we would pay for. I felt embarrassed to be asking her help. When I described my symptoms, horrified, she told me to go straight to hospital.
At the hospital. Again, they told me: the baby was fine and there was also nothing they could do. There was however a noticeable change from last time: the water level on my amniotic fluid was on the edge of what they’d consider dangerously low. They swabbed my vagina to test for “preterm premature rupture of membranes”. It was negative. Which was to be expected given that the contraction was already 2 days ago. It was now made clear to me I had indeed experienced, not an overreaction, but an hour-long contraction. All the fluid had already gone, lost amongst the weeks of blood and my ignorance. There was nothing they could do for me until the test came back positive. They said: I should come back if I felt more water loss. And noted that I already had an appointment scheduled for that Monday, with one of the most expert Doctors in the field, one of their professors. They said: go home and rest and reduce any stress and wait to see. There was a long debate about whether I could do some gentle yoga to “reduce my stress”. That seemed to amuse everyone. I did not know how to explain that the main source of my stress, besides my fear of what was happening to my child, was the person I relied upon to take care of me.
Late Saturday night I was alone in bed and the pain began again. I felt the waters leaving me, depositing a big wet patch on the bed. I called the Philosopher. He was with the Burlesque dancer. She had just arrived from Paris. He did not sound pleased to hear from me. I did not sound pleased to be in a position to once again to be asking for his help. I told him I think I’d lost more water, that if they tested me now the test would be positive. I wanted us to go to hospital. He talked me out of it. I let him. I could not think of anyone else to ask. I slept alone in my wet patch.
the “… human voice structures the sonic space that contains it “ and establishes humans as subjects “capable of being recognized” by other subjects … trying to understand ourselves through one another’s voices (Mladen Dolar), desiring unobtainable connection and encounters with meaning (Jacques Lacan).
On Monday the Philosopher and I went to see the Professor. My water level was at 2%. The doctors took many and detailed measurements and everyone looked at us with serious and compassionate eyes. At some point while I was in the office, I went to the bathroom and discovered a chunk of flesh had fallen out of me that was so huge I let out a small, involuntary scream. It was the size of a small organ. A kidney maybe. I showed a doctor. She told me it was just a very large blot clot. Nothing to worry about. Then they sent me back to hospital. The test for broken membranes was negative again. Too many days had past since the water loss. Same advice was issued as before. We went home.
Now this is where it gets just batshit crazy. Shall we take a few deep breaths together before going on? Feel the sphincters inside the mouth stretch wide, and the sphincters of the eyes, the throat, the groin.
In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
We arrived home from the hospital, to the lovely new apartment we had just moved into. Waiting for us in the mailbox, was a letter from the landlord. They were notifying us that we were being sued and that they were starting eviction proceedings immediately. They gave us 7 days to leave if we wanted to avoid legal action. The reason they gave was that the apartment we were living in was leased not to me, but to the Philosopher’s brother. That we were living there under the conditions of a 13 year old contract, with a rent much lower than market value. That we did not have the landlord’s permission to do so. All of which was true. They were going to seek our immediate removal, and to sue the brother for damages: for the money they had lost by not being able to raise the rent for the last decade or so.
One time, during a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, my Gastrointestinal Reflux Disease got the better of me. The cast had been to a Thai restaurant that afternoon. It was particularly good. Too good, I thought, as I struggled to lace up my corset. The incident occurred during Donna Elvira’s second aria - “Ah, Fuggi Traditor!” (Ah, flee the traitor!). The orchestra began, leaping string lines, allegro. I took a deep breath, my co-ordinated sphincters dancing their familiar but extreme choreography. Open, close, open, close. Just as I began to sing, I felt it. Bam - I vomited into my mouth. This was not the time. I swallowed it.
The journey up the stairs from the mail box, after the eviction notice, is a memory with circular repeat bars. It comes back up sometimes. The Philosopher was red in the face. He kept saying “fuck. fuck. fuck” in this panicked, backwards mutter. He was moving very fast. Taking the steps in 2s and 3s. He was an animal. I held the railing and counted my breaths and walked very slowly up each step. For a month I’d only left the house to go to medical appointments. I had trained myself to take these stairs so carefully, doing my utmost to keep you safe in there. Not twisted and bumped by a pelvic floor contracting too hard around you. I was light, focused. I felt like your Dad was on some other stair case, far away. I was totally calm. Just taking my steps. Refusing to react.
Upon later reflection, we saw the landlords were standing on shaky ground. We did have means to fight the eviction. But we were in no position for reflection or fights right at that very moment. The body has its limits.
The new glottis opened up two days later. It was a Wednesday. The Philosopher and I were sitting at the kitchen table. He had a serious look on his face. He said he needed to talk to me about something difficult. I knew what he was about to say. I could not believe that he was about to say it. He began with something about how: everything that had happened in the previous days had made it impossible for him to meet his commitments to spend time with the Burlesque dancer… we needed to renegotiate his schedule. When could he find time to be with her…. could he go spend the night with her tomorrow…
And then this great force took me. I was scooped up with an irresistible gravity, folding in to the black, vibrating, and slippery I felt myself getting smaller. Or maybe it was just that my skin was getting thicker. It was so thick, 10 feet of dermis, epidermis and subcutaneous tissue stood between the inside and outside of me. I kept going deeper, getting smaller. Inside was warm, and dark, and soft and safe. I felt so sad and so relieved. The shrinking and thickening slowed to a halt. I was still. And there in the dark was you my love. Do you remember? Of course you do. Your voice was there. You sounded a lot like me. But younger. The little thrush girl. Or some even smaller bird. Our voices just floated there, two calm beings touching edges in the dark and warm. My voice was so glad to be with yours. It overflowed. Your voice held mine firmly for a few minutes. Then pulled away slightly, just far enough from my face that I could feel your breath on my cheek, while still folded in your embrace.
You said: “You can not stay here. This is not your place.” I shook my head. Then again, you spoke: “You have to go back out there and fight for me. If you stay here we both will die. I’m not strong enough yet. There is no-one else for this but you”.
“A voice establishes me as an inside capable of being recognized by an outside. My voice comes from inside of a body and radiates through a space which is exterior to and extends beyond that body. In moving from an interior to an exterior, and therefore marking out the relations of interior and exterior, a voice also announces and verifies the co-operation of bodies and environments in which they have their being. The voice goes out into space, but also always in its calling for hearing, or the necessity of being heard, opens a space for itself to go out into, resound in, and return from.” (Stephen Connor)
I became aware that there was light on the edge of our darkness and that there was a 3rd voice out there somewhere. It was your father. He was terrified. The light was shaking. Behind the shaking light were his shaking hands, trying to get my attention. I turned back inwards. I wanted to wrap myself around you, to drink in your beautiful voice in the warm and the dark. I listened to your breathing. Your water breath.
A 20 week grown fetus breathes water like a fish. I wanted to stay with you there in that place you did not yet understand as either water and warmth but just the act of breathing. Then I remembered what little water I had left you. And I knew it was all for you. That it was time to be a grown up and go back “to open a space for myself to go out into, and call for the necessity of being heard”, in the land of the shaking and shouting. I took three deep breaths.
In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. I opened my eyes.
I don’t remember exactly what happened next. I do remember standing in the bathroom doorway. Wet. The last of the water had gone. I told the Philosopher that this time there would be no debate. Were going to the hospital.
I was relieved when the hospital staff told me that I would not go home again until Leo had been born. They did not know when that would be, but I’d be staying with them until it happened. The line of flight was set. Everything and every one seemed to want to escape.
