jam//out//loud

jammie — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:36:53 +0000

There are certain things you dread post a trauma. Or in my case a loss. Things that remind you of what is no more or drive home the point that that loss is a permanent one. One niggles that painful nub tentatively, not quite sure how badly it may hurt or bother and sometimes one is pleasantly surprised at how many steps towards “normal” life have been taken quite inadvertently.

Yesterday was M’s baby shower. Even a month ago, I was not in the mood. M and I are babily connected, something that I always considered a blessing. Last time we had daughters 20 hours apart and this time too, we were going to have kids within the week of each other. So I had no idea how I was going to feel and this time, I didn’t want to do something for someone else that didn’t feel good for me too.

Truth be told, I am so so excited to have a baby around again that while yes, there are sad pangs, the anticipation of that baby smell and gurgles is a happy high and one that selfishly, I want to celebrate. I have also realized I like people getting together. It is one of things that in my currently enlightened epiphanic state, I am in the mood for.
It heals. Laughing groups of people with pretty lights and decorations. Like on my birthday also.

So we went all out for M, who mind you isn’t exactly the ideal person to inspire celebration. She is obsessive, guilt-ridden, suffocatingly affectionate when in the mood and massively annoying and a control freak all in one. Yes, lovably so, but still. To remain consistent in wanting to do something for her requires Herculean effort, even though it comes from the heart. Many pompoms, hearts and raindrops and clouds and food and colour and friends and cousins later, we were all achey painy, the kind of tired only good parties filled with close people inspire.

April has been all about showers of both the rain and baby mama sort. It has rained, leaving everything cleaner, greener, lighter. It is raining outside as we speak and I am already looking forward to going over to Mama’s later for chai and pakoras. I feel grounded. Surrounded by the right people. Happy enough to ignore the minuses when they come to needle me.

three months later.

jammie — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 05:53:00 +0000

“Some people, they can’t just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me… I don’t know. I didn’t want to fix it, to forget. It wasn’t something that was broken. It’s just…something that happened. And like that hole, I’m just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time. ” - The Truth About Forever.
For Zo and Chotu, as M has nicknamed him, I love you both. Nice to say it out loud sometimes.

Collateral Damage

jammie — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:33:51 +0000

I think I first came across this term post 9/11 when Afghanistan got attacked and all losses were being termed as “collateral damage”. It brings to mind the idea of a greater good but where little pieces- little people?- suffer in the consequence. Visually to me it meant aiming the ball for the target but not caring if the vase got knocked down in the process. The term unnerved me because it meant we had to decide what was more important and not care about the other. Not exactly the best parenting call as I could see it. However, as the years have gone by I must admit the term has made more sense- not in the peace war kind of way but in understanding that sometimes, it simply cannot be helped.

I am not a dwell-in-the-dark sort. I get derailed like the average person but after the jolt, I steady up and some odd combination of elements in me has always helped me see things a bit differently. Maybe it’s less normal and maybe it’s more. That isn’t the point.The point is collateral damage. Things that got blasted in the process of something else.

So post Jan 15, which was the day I found out I had miscarried, I have been darker than usual. Certain parts of who I possibly always was have asserted themselves more emphatically, leaving me a little confused, a little lost because it was new to me.

For one I have been angry. Not angry at the universe or the powers at what happened- but angry at people for thinking that I am strong enough to deal with it. The number of people who threw words like “grace” “brave” “kind” “inspirational” “strength of faith” at me has been disconcerting. I hadn’t wanted to be all these things- I wanted weak and coddled. I wanted people to call me, look out for me and check in on me, over and over. Not resume normal process because they thought I was fine, even if I looked it.

Two, I have been unforgiving. To me, it is not okay anymore to be emotionally stunted. People who claim they don’t know what to say or come and skirt around the topic awkwardly- well that is simply not good enough. As per your role in life, if I expect something from you, by now we are at the point where you must also deliver. It isn’t ok to vanish. Radio silence post a friend losing her baby is a not allowed. And no, it doesnt matter at this point what you are going through. For those 3 minutes (or a few more) it is your turn to be there for me. Just like I would drop everything to be there for you if you ever, God Forbid lost your child, an idea which I hope you never have to go remotely near, ever. Normally, I would shout/confront/deal. This time I had nothing. To a normal person that is scary because when you have nothing left to say, well, then there is really nothing left to say.

The three month mark is a few days away. The doctor told me we can try for another baby after a 3 month break, if we still want to. Maybe the last extent of my inner healing has been connected to this date. Maybe post April 15, I will be fine and all that got rubbled in my reactions will miraculously rebuild itself because I will in one sense, feel whole again. I don’t know. What I do know is that I have lost a couple of relationships which meant a lot to me and which I am not, currently, at all in the mood to rebuild. I also lost a lot of my sense of self- I reacted in ways that were alien to me and which threw me off in their intensity. The damage that ensued was not anything I could control and for once I was ok to let it be damanged without immediately trying to fix it. I am much better now I think. I started doing those things which are inherently me almost automatically at some point. I was holding back, I could feel it but somewhere along the process, those impulses returned. Some peace was made, some stuff still lies there untouched. Collateral damage is an unncessary painful thing, yes, but it shows you so much more of who you ought to be, should be, could be, can be.

musically delicious.

jammie — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:03:29 +0000

You know you need to change the music you are listening to when your 2 year old excitedly tells your 5 year old she had a “hookbar” before coming to pick him from school. #trashymusicrocks #parenting

tumblings- i.

jammie — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 06:27:58 +0000

“Shouldn’t the world stop? Don’t they know what has happened to me?” – Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom.

As I mentally approach the three month mark of the miscarriage with some trepidation, the mad clarity is not any more comfortable. I am edgy, anxious and impatient. I don’t see why everyone is still unchanged by what has internally happened to me. I am angry too. Not at the the loss but at people’s inability to use a sense of loss to make a postive change. “You do realize this is all very personal, dont you? It’s happened to you so you have the opportunity to change for the better, Others not so much, ” says my preachy voice of reason. I call her preachy to be mean even though I know what she says makes sense. “It has happened to me, but everything should change. Even if just a little bit” I insist.

Perhaps thats the part of the healing I am unwilling to address. That to so many others, nothing is different and when they see me laughing or smiling, they forget that to me everything is. Why is it so important that they know that I am changed inside? Maybe because the change (not only in me but in others also) is all the memory I will ever have of the babies who are not with me.

The Lily Diaries – tips on staying moisturized.

jammie — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 19:48:16 +0000

Turn around and finding lily smearing my favourite cream all over herself liberally.
Me: what do you think you are doing???
Lily: Puttin’ cweam!
Me in utter exasperation: Kaisee HO tum Leila!!
Lily: Sho shoft, Mama.

The Lily Diaries: Spiderman vs Batman.

jammie — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 18:43:01 +0000

Backseat: Lily and Nadi playing with Batman and Spiderman figures.
Nadi swipes at Lily’s Spiderman with Batman.
She gives him a look and states emphatically “I ANGRY!“
Nadi obviously, tries again.
She pins him down with a glare, very familiar to me. “I SAD!!“
Feeling third time might be the charm, Nadi executes another swash on behalf of Batman only to have her finally lose her temper and smack the seat hard saying, “I NO LIKE IT!!“

Front seat: K and I in agony over trying to keep our expressions straight and not burst out laughing at this two year old, whose vocabulary and expression of disapproval can match that of her 60-something Headmistress grandmother.

And yet another Love.

jammie — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 19:31:04 +0000

Tradition demands I post about love today. And perhaps it being a milestone of sorts, perhaps it is time to talk about it. So on some date in October, I fell in love for the fourth time when I found out I was expecting again. After the complicated adventures of last time, I expected this time to feel a little scary, a little more roller coaster, a little less smug (for the lack of a better word) and I was not disappointed. The thrill overode the trepidation however and I fell headlong into the bubble that accompanies being pregnant. Despite all the friendly warnings and be carefuls and your own sense of self preservation, dreams get woven and you start envisioning little heads joining the ones already in your life and for me 2013 became the year of the complete family. Many a night while creepily watching the kids sleep, K and I would connect over the tops of their heads and grin at the thought of a third similar yet different version joining us.

Things were perfect really. Glowy and perfect.

They call these missed abortions. There is a whole medical debate around the terminology, my doctor explained while I tried to nod intelligently and interestedly. “Think of it as God’s quality control” she said. “When the baby isn’t progressing a certain way that is natural, it stops itself.” I liked that explanation so I held onto it to examine during the darker moments I knew were going to come up ahead.

Looking back to the last month, I wish I could say with flat out conviction that it has been the worst time of my time after Zo. That life could test me again so cuttingly is something I am grappling to understand everyday. I think if I got angry at the Power that Is and got all cynical and messy it may heal faster. Worse but faster. Instead the last month has been a mixture of many things. Mostly more love. Everything is so heightened. Like how grateful and lucky I felt when I saw Nadi and Lily post hospital time- it was a tangible thick feeling in the air, one I could cut with a knife if I could. I have felt that love almost suffocate me several times in the last few weeks. To walk around in a semi perpetual state of epiphanic realizations is an isolating feeling because cocoooned away in this bubble, where everything is louder, clearer brighter and just so much more that you tend to not belong to the daily shenanigans of this world.

So this day today, I dedicate to my little Baby Bean who spent such little time with me but still made me feel so much new love- who will join Zo up there and have a great view life as we live it.

The lighter side of being.

jammie — Sat, 24 Nov 2012 11:26:06 +0000

Usually Karachi bad stuff bothers me more than world bad stuff, for obvious reasons of course. It’s realer. It always hits closer to home. It always seems to directly concern my kids future and I am still one of those people who staunchly idealistically believe that better times are within reach- minus a few logistics. USUALLY. Perhaps it was the increased number of dead children photos on Facebook or perhaps the world is finally getting to me, or maybe I am more a citizen of the world than I thought i was, but the Gaza situation really got to me this time. It was horrific and claustrophobic and no amount of trying to block out the news/reports and articles by mindlessly playing Fruit Ninja helped.

The next thing that helps is talking about stuff but somehow that too was depressing. There is really nothing left to say that people far more intelligently analytical than me haven’t already said, on a news channel no less. So while preparing dinner last night , K and I chat about the bigger picture -the impact of Jews all over the world. Jews as business people, Jews in community work, basically Jews and their presence in the current world.

Lily was up and puttering around when suddenly she turns around with a concerned look on her face and seriously says ,”I no like lemon jewss mama.”

What Mama Does.

jammie — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 06:15:56 +0000