clearbluecup

Check out this forecast: BBC 5-day Forecast for Cork, Ireland

And it's been clear, sunny and 20+ degrees since Tuesday already! I've got my first sunburn of the year as well, a bit of pink on my chest from a 30-minute walk home yesterday around noon.

We're off to see the midwife this afternoon to talk about homebirth and ask all our questions. I'm looking forward to meeting her, and finding out as much as I can about the risks and benefits involved.

Other than that, not much is happening here. I can feel the summer laziness creeping on already, and right now nothing sounds better than a tall glass of icy lemonade and reading a novel in the shade. Hey! I just remembered there are lemons in my fridge *right now*. yum yum yum...

Last night I found myself in a house that was dark and small, with low ceilings and several roaring fires. We were about to go somewhere, I think, or somebody important was about to arrive, and it was my job to make sure the fires were stoked. I would pay attention to one and find that another was about to go out, or I'd leave the vent open too long and the coals would burn so hot and fast that they turned blue. At one stage I tried to count how many chimneys there were, because someone had asked me whether it wasn't all pointless, all this tending the fires, because doesn't the heat just go up the chimney anyway? I counted seven chimneys. There was a big cast iron stove, an oven that was long and flat like a pizza oven, a big open fireplace made of huge stones, and a modern-looking stainless steel stove with glass in the front to look in at the flames.

The night before that, I dreamed of a little blond boy who resembled my nephew Ben. He was somehow involved in politics and the toppling over of a large tower like the World Trade Centre in New York. "Vinyl and plastic!" he exclaimed, holding out a black band-aid with two false teeth attached to the bottom. He put it in his mouth and grinned, the two teeth sticking out like chiclets. He then proceeded to apply shaving cream to his baby-soft face and shaved it all off.

The night before that, I dreamed I was wandering along a high wooden fence in the dark. It was pefectly straight, an arrow flying true through the flat prairie. Tall, dry grasses brushed against my feet, and I noticed several strange billboard-sized signs out in the field to my left. They had geometric orange shapes on them, and even though I didn't recognize them I knew they were airport signs. I was trying to get to the airport, I had to give a ride to someone else to get there, and I couldn't find any opening in that fence to get across to the airport. I was late, and suddenly I remembered that somebody had given me a strange pill along with a card saying where I needed to go before I started wandering around out here. Had I eaten that pill? Suddenly I remembered that I was pregnant, and felt violently ill with the feeling that I might have harmed my baby out of sheer stupidity. I leaned up against the fence and tried to make myself puke.

Feeling apprehensive and unsure of myself, I continued walking along the fence until I came to a man sitting on a bench. I looked at him, and knew that I had known him at some time in my life, but couldn't remember his name. He looked much, much older than when I had known him, balding and tired now. I stopped and said hello, and was about to continue on when I turned back and said, "you know, I think I know you from somewhere but I can't remember where."

"I know you too," he replied. "What are you doing out here?" The dry, dusty prairie wind picked up and whirled around us.

"I'm looking for the airport." I said. "I'm supposed to bring someone in my car, but I have to get to the airport first."

I looked up, out towards the horizon, and saw several churches lit dimly against the black night sky. When I turned back towards the man I could see through the slats in the fence, and recognized the windows in the church I used to go to.

"Hey, I think I know where I am!" I exclaimed.

"You can go around that way to get to the airport," the man said, gesturing towards a new corner that had appeared in the fence.

"Thanks!" I shouted, and hurried along through the opening in the fence and into the airport offices.

I found myself sitting at a desk then, with a woman in uniform on the other side of the desk totting up numbers on a piece of paper. She pushed the paper towards me, and I saw columns and columns of pencil numbers in the tens of thousands, with strange mathematical symbols and equations performed upon them. I didn't understand how it worked, but apparently I owed an astronomical sum in late fees, and I had missed my flight.



My unconscious is overflowing at the moment, it seems.

The days and weeks are slipping by, and it seems that the numbers are adding up much faster than I would expect them to. 28 weeks, then 30 and 32. My pre-due date schedule is filling up and I know that one of these days I'm going to blink and realise that I am in labour. And that day could arrive anytime after 37 weeks of pregnancy, which is only 5 weeks away. 5 weeks is not a lot of time!

So, what's been happening in the world of michelle these days?

1. We've decided to have a homebirth. I'm seeing an independent midwife who will be in charge of all my prenatal care, attend the birth and take care of baby and I for a few weeks after the birth until we get a handle on feeding and sleeping and care. I might even have a birthing tub to labour in. I'm really feeling very positive about this and I love the personalised attention and care I've gotten so far from my midwife.

2. We have been considering moving back to Canada in October. Tom's been in discussion with a company in Vancouver that is interested in hiring him, so we've been discussing whether this is something that is right for us at the moment. Nothing is set in stone yet, but it's in the realm of possibility.

3. I got called to take my driving test again! July 3rd this time. I am so going to kick butt on that test.

4. We had been planning on going for a short vacation before I got too close to d-day, but with all the thesis-writing and job-hunting that has been going on around here we found that time had slipped away before we had booked anything, and it was really more important that we were here so that the thesis-writing and job-hunting could take place. So, instead of going away we decided to take some of the money we would have spent on that and book tickets to see several shows in the Cork Midsummer Festival. My social calendar hasn't been so full in ages! We're going to see a cabaret show in the spiegeltent tomorrow, the Nofit State Circus on Friday night and Shakespeare's Tempest on Saturday. Next week we're seeing a play about chatroom politics and a play held on the train to Cobh.

5. I have almost outgrown ANOTHER pair of jeans and a good few of my maternity t-shirts. It doesn't seem to show to anyone else though. This morning I went to the hospital clinic for an appointment and when the receptionist couldn't find my name on the list she asked me if this was my first visit. Bless her, she couldn't see my 32-week belly beneath my hoodie!

And lastly, but most certainly not least, Tom and I are celebrating our anniversary tonight by treating ourselves to gourmet vegetarian dinners at Cafe Paradiso. Four years! We survived our leather anniversary and have arrived at the year of flowers and fruit.

Fruiting indeed!

Yes, it's that time again!

Week 25



Week 26



Week 27



Week 28



Week 29



Week 30



Week 31



Week 32

I've been ruminating for a while over my writing or lack thereof over the past few weeks. time keeps passing and I am just calmly watching it pass, without any of my usual frettings and flappings over having to record events and analyze outcomes and commit thoughts to paper (virtual or otherwise). And after reading a long email from a good friend, a realisation came over me.

I am waiting.

This is now, and it deserves my attention because it's not going to last much longer, this particular now. and at the same time there is a big THEN approaching. well, several of them. and they're all biggies. so I'm hovering, like that moment at the very top of the drop of doom in west edmonton mall, when you hear the mechanism click and you roll forwards and read the sign that tells you exactly how many stories you are going to freefall in how many seconds. There is something very exhilerating about to happen, but in that now, the moment just before it happens, nothing is happening.

I feel like I'm really struggling to convey this idea.

We went to see a play staged on the train to cobh on wednesday night, and on the way back tom & I sat together and watched the suburbs of cork pass by. We glided past old stone churches, picturesque colourfully painted pubs, old men lined up on the quays with their fishing lines and cigarettes. We soared alongside cork harbour and into the city, past the backs of old, half-dilapidated houses with their walls and gardens right up against the railway line. Slates hung crookedly off the wooden beams of rotting roofs, brick chimneys rose in neat lines up above the crazy mismatched angles of back garden walls and laundry lines. And I remembered riding into london on the heathrow express after our manic last day and night in Edmonton. Tom and I had sat together on the train and I looked out on rows and rows of terraced english houses, with their old brick chimneys all lined up straight and I thought - I'm living here now. I'm not going home in two weeks when vacation is over. And the difference between the familiar north american suburbia and these seemingly infinite stretches of brick chimneys was totally overwhelming.

After a while, though, and I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, gradually I stopped being so overwhelmed by the differences. I stopped converting currency in my head. I stopped noticing every stone ruin along the side of the road. I started to understand what the gangs of youth were shouting when they passed me on Patrick Street. I started to consider the moss and snails and misty wet days as totally normal.

After many moves I'm starting to recognise the process my mind goes through during the leadup to the decision. There is a lot of romanticising that goes on, both of how life could be in this new place, in which it's always summer and I have piles of free time to do things like sit outdoors at cafes reading books and such, and of how great life is in the current place, in which I have a comfortable home, friends to go out with, where I know how to go about getting things done and where the best place for a croissant is. I alternate the romanticising with the fear, the fear of getting stuck in one place forever, the fear of having to make new friends all over again, of having to stumble through trying to get things done, of missing opportunities and making mistakes and learning from them and feeling like I've regressed in my ability to successfully live life. What if it's horrible? What if I don't make any new friends? What if we get stuck living in a horrible house? What if we don't move and miss out on something great?

When I know that I'm going to move, there is another process that is set in motion, in which my mind attempts to absorb and preserve as many memories of that life as possible, while simultaneously detaching from it.

So I wait. And I romanticise about chimneys and pubs and stone ruins, and I start to notice the traditional fiddle music that is playing in the foyer of the supermarket instead of tuning it out. And I absorb and encode and preserve it all in my mind, ruminating on the romantic and the anxiety-provoking, because somehow writing it down takes me away from the now-ness of it all, and I feel like I can't miss anything right now.

I don't know when to expect it to change into then.