Against Wind and Tide: Letters and Journals, 1947-1986

  Dr. A. explained that gall bladder conditions are irritated and increased by child-bearing. This had evidently been going on a long time. (An early report of an X-ray taken before Anne’s birth showed the same clue that Dr. A. had followed.) Dr. A. then felt that I should probably not go through with it. It is easy enough apparently to take a gall bladder out but if a stone gets out and lodges in the intestinal tract somewhere (which possibly happened in the attack in the Ford Hospital, though if it did, it passed through safely), then you have a very difficult operation under any circumstances, and really a dangerous one in the middle of a pregnancy.

  Dr. A. consulted with a surgeon and an obstetrician and the result was to advise me to interrupt the pregnancy and have the gall bladder out three months later. Here was my legal out. Even a moral one. I began to prepare to take it, somewhat reluctantly in one sense, but relieved. When C. brought up the possibility of my having the gall bladder out first and then going ahead with the pregnancy (“If it’s such a simple operation”), Dr. A.’s surgeon advised against this. C. then called two surgeons he knew and they said it was perfectly possible and could be done, etc., and weren’t worried about the situation at all.

  On being presented with this, the doctors at the Medical Center then said they could do it. And the proposition put before me was: the safest course we still advise is to have an abortion and the gall bladder out in three months. However if you insist, the next safest course is to have the gall bladder out at three months and then go on with the pregnancy (in a semi-convalescent state). We do not advise, and consider dangerous, your going through the pregnancy with the gall bladder left in.

  Again it was put up to me. I, who thought I had made the decision once and for all. I felt the trap had closed down again. For though the legal out was still there, the moral one seemed to me to have been taken away with the possibility of that mid-pregnancy operation. An operation which made the ordeal far more difficult than it was originally (when I had felt it was unbearable) but which made it safer. (Ironically.)

  Feeling desperately trapped and low, I again made the only decision that it seemed possible for me to take, the second and hardest course. I then went home and let down—or rather started to adjust to the long ordeal.

  Two days later, apparently for no reason at all, I had a miscarriage. After the first shock, I was incredibly relieved. That is too mild a word. I took it as a pure act of mercy from God. An act of mercy to be accepted without a shred of guilt but with a heart full of humility and gratitude. A sign from heaven, a rainbow, a promise of presence. A deliverance which exacted not guilt from me, but a challenge—a sense of responsibility about what I was delivered for.

  The whole incident was perhaps a warning to me—before it is too late—that “I must be about my Father’s business.” This is now the task, to find out what it is—for me—my special task.

  January 29th [1947] [DIARY]

  The afternoons, especially the late afternoons, belong to the children. (Anne coming to me at my desk, “I’m glad you say ‘yes, yes,’ Mother, but I wish you’d come.”) And Reeve. I suppose this is my greatest joy of the moment, to sit in a room with Reeve, on the floor with her, and let her give me bits of thread or broken toys. What wonderful wordless and completely satisfying communication it is!

  The first communication—how pure it is—and yet how it holds the essence of all communication in it. What words of a lover could be more miraculous than the gesture of a child giving you a half-chewed crust of bread or a piece of raveled thread she picked off the floor? It is sheer communication, that is all—it is the first lip of land rising up out of the flood of the unknown, the unshared, the vast depths of the unknowable. It is the olive branch that the dove brings back.

  Communication is wordless at both ends of the arc. When one has said all one can possibly say and when one is just beginning to speak. The lover and the child are one.

  February 4th [1947] [DIARY]

  Yesterday I drove into town for a long dentist’s appointment. I shopped and ate cold coconut pie at the Cos Club* by myself. A rather brisk clubwoman was just getting up as I sat down. She said something about the club being crowded. I answered without thinking much what was in my mind, “Yes, when I saw that great pile of coats downstairs, I was quite frightened.”

  “Yes,” she said, with assurance, “but usually, if you come late, you can still get something to eat.” She had interpreted my being frightened as a fear of not getting anything to eat! I had to remind myself that there are some people to whom a pile of coats means nothing to be afraid of! It maybe even induces a pleasurable and anticipatory sentiment in them: How wonderful! A crowd of people upstairs!† They lick their lips.

  February 5th [1947] [DIARY]

  Scott looked up solemnly from his lunch yesterday and said: “Does anyone want to be turned into an ugly little worm?” He looked at each of us in turn, around the table, and then let his gaze fall finally and rest mightily on his father.

  February 13th [1947] [DIARY]

  I am sitting up in the hospital bed the night before an operation.* I know it is a simple “routine” operation. I know intellectually that I should not be afraid, but I have this panicky feeling that things are unfinished—untied-up—if anything should happen to me. One always has this before a baby, a voyage, an operation. So much is unfinished—in relationships, that is. One longs to explain, to be sure they understand, the people one loves.

  C. first—does he understand, does he know how much I love him, value him? Will he always believe it in spite of all the contradictory things he might think or find, all the contradictions in me? They do not contradict my deep love for him. Will he forgive me for all mistakes, errors in judgment and actions, all stupid blind stumblings after truth and right? Believe that the main current in me is true and loving? Yes, I think he will. I am grateful for that.

  One would always die with things unfinished. Always. You must live so that people understand, and trust in their forgiveness.

  Forgiveness—mercy seems to me the most beautiful thing on earth, perhaps because it is unearthly, and the touch of God in us: the miracle of mercy, the unexpected, the arms of the prodigal son’s father, the ravens bringing food in the night, the cup running over.

  Dr. A. told me that when coming out of ether after an operation was “not the time to practice being a girl scout.” I laughed. “If it hurts, say so,” etc.! How very perceptive he is! How well he knows me.

  A week later [DIARY]

  After two days of really incredible pain and weakness, one slowly finds one’s way back. I feel so unable to concentrate, to think, to read, to dwell on anything for long. And the world seems enormous and chartless. Only the tiny world of the hospital is safe, like a boarding school with its routine and its rules and its hero-worship and jealousies. The very charming, witty surgeon—yes, I understand his warmth and charm, but it is not what Dr. A. has—that steady quality of dry compassion.

  This is one of my landmarks now in this chartless sea. I seem adrift for the moment.

  Home again

  March 6th [1947] [DIARY]

  I got home three days ago. The day you come home is difficult, of course. You have “elevator stomach” all day, just from emotion, but you get through it. How beautiful the children looked, unbelievable, each one ripened and whole, like a fruit. One sees them more clearly when one has been away. But in spite of one’s joy in them—and what a joy it is—one gets quickly exhausted. Reading a story, watching five people at once, and the noise: one finds oneself homesick for the hospital.

  March 10th [1947] [DIARY]

  When one is tired or weak, one is unable to be other than one’s most real and honest self. Only the bottom of the well is still there—nothing flowing on top. And so, one can only be with the people with whom one can be completely honest, completely oneself. It takes too much effort to put on a mask. My intellect does not function well when I am weak. My heart functions always, whether I am weak or not. It is
the deepest part of me.

  I was reading the story of Esau and Jacob last night to Scott and Anne. I explained about the birthright and how in that country the younger brother had to listen to the older brother.

  “You understand that,” I went on, “because you have older brothers and you listen to them. You listen to Land and Jon.”

  “I listen to Jon,” said Anne quickly, not willing to admit she listened to Land.

  “I listen to myself,” said Scott squarely.

  I threw my arms around him and said, “That’s right, Scott. Never do anything else!”

  Scott was pleased by this show of emotion and then turned and, looking at me with his straight blue eyes, he said gravely, almost accusingly, “You listen to Father.” I laughed. Oh my children.…

  I am convinced that Jon has whooping cough. That means they’ll all get it and it takes weeks to get over it. I wonder when we’ll all be through! C. might get it too—poor C., with a house full of invalids when he should be free to work on his own work.…

  I have been reading a very good novel and also an article by Jung, “The Fight with the Shadow.” Very exciting—the price of unconsciousness in the world and in individuals. Perhaps the mind is not dead but working in new channels!

  April 4th [1947] [DIARY]

  We have had three appalling weeks, the kind one hardly believes while one is going through it. And afterwards, as now, it seems quite unbelievable—except for the inexplicable weariness. Written down it sounds merely funny.

  Jon came down with whooping cough. When Land started his cough a few days later, we assumed it was the early stages of whooping cough. He sleeps in the same room and we did not bother to change him. We watched him go through the same stages of fever, cough, etc.—waiting for him to whoop.

  At the end of a week, I realized to my horror one evening looking at him that [Land] was coming down with measles! Dr. S. came down the next morning and confirmed it. But he said not to worry about Jon as it was very rare to have two contagious diseases at once. Then, after saying this, he crossed over and looked into Jon’s throat and said, “Well, he already has it!” And from the coughing paroxysms, he guessed Land had whooping cough too.

  Then followed a week of trays, making beds, taking temperatures, alcohol rubs, reading, carrying drinks, emptying basins, washing, etc. I felt excruciatingly tired from running up and down stairs. After a week of this, when Land’s spots had melted (he also had an earache one night), and his temperature was down, we let him get up one day. The next day he came down with mumps! Well, at least Jon couldn’t get that—he’d had it. Land was discouraged and Dr. S. incredulous.

  In the meantime, the little ones were starting. Scott and Anne both coughing. Reeve with a fever (four in bed by now). Scott was clearly whooping, Anne coughing and feverish. There was always a child calling for you. You left one to run to the other. After a few days, Reeve came down with measles—and then Anne—and then Scott. (Five cases of measles, four cases of whooping cough, and one mumps!) And Land got some kind of intestinal flu, and another earache. Scott was throwing up and Anne whooping and Jon still whooping badly. And oh, how they sneezed—Scott tearing through box after box of Kleenex.

  “But Scott, you use them up so fast!” I protested.

  “But my nose runs so fast,” he answered quite justly.

  I read Mary Poppins and distributed presents and rubbed backs with witch hazel and washed out slop buckets and gave medicine and ran up and down stairs and dropped into bed at night too tired to think.

  Outside Lexington, Virginia

  May 26th [1947] [DIARY]

  I am sitting in the trailer parked under a cliff by the side of the road in Virginia. The clutch has given out in the car and C. has taken it to town to fix, so I have a “lost day” to use before going on with our journey home.

  I have been five weeks in the trailer with C. touring the West—Arizona, Utah, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas—then across the South, motoring all day. Every night in a new place, almost.

  It has been a strange life, very lovely for a while, life in a vacuum. Pure, so to speak, with no distractions, no outside people or demands—or outside pleasures. A very simple day-to-day life. No intellectual problems and very few physical ones. Housekeeping in this tidy compact little room, following the road, making the day’s run, watching the map, counting the mileage, shopping for food, deciding where we’ll stop for the night, cooking a hot meal, washing up and to bed—usually very late and tired.…

  A single thread, a single simple life. Not really (curiously enough) so very different from the big trips (the flights) we used to take. The same simplicity of living in a world in which there were only he and I, of a life that looked (for me) ahead only as far as the night’s stop—a set job to be done and no complications once I learned my job. It was not as arduous as the flights, of course, nor so dangerous. This was playing at something, not a life-and-death contest. And yet there was that same quality of adventure that C. puts into anything he does.

  This business of taking an overloaded trailer lurching over rocky cattle tracks, or slithering down gullies, over mountain passes (Cloud-Croft, La Lux, N.M.). We pay, of course, for this adventurousness—in tires, leaking radiator, broken clutch, etc., and general wear and tear. How many times has C. jacked us out of a position his adventurousness got us into (mud, sand, a ditch we got stuck in)? And our tires are gone with rock bruises. How many times, too, have I climbed out, jammed rocks or blocks under the car or trailer to get out of a tough place? Going over the pass at Cloud-Croft, we unpacked five hundred pounds of equipment; I sat on it while C. took the trailer over the hump and then came back for me and the load. At Pagosa Springs we were stopped by hills too slippery with mud and rain—and we just put up and waited until they dried.

  But these adventures have not meant danger. They have, at worst, meant discomfort, delay, a lot of hot work for C. (he always manages to get himself out of the fixes he gets into), long dusty waits for me, irregular hours of sleeping and eating. And if we paid for them, we gained by them too. Campsites unusually beautiful, remote, silent—like the High Sierras or Silver Bell Mountain or our last campsite in the Blue Ridge Mountains. (The clutch finally gave out here and we had to be pulled back up the hill by tractor.)

  Actually these were not—did not seem like—ordeals to me, but more like adventures. The difficulties lie for me, curiously enough, in what is most ordinary for all the other women in the world—in keeping house, in shopping, in cooking, in ordinary living. I am very stupid at it because I have really never done it. I have never shopped and cooked and cleaned for my husband like an ordinary woman.

  When most women learn this—when they are first married—I was learning to fly and to operate a radio and to navigate and fly a glider. So I do not know a good cut of meat from a poor one or what things cost by the pound (I know about how much thirteen people eat in a month) or how to cook a good steak or omelet or how to light a lantern or a stove (a gasoline one). But I am learning and I am glad to learn such simple things—it seems ridiculous what confidence it gives me: how to tell stringy meat from tender, how to fry chicken and cook vegetables, how to time one’s meals so one doesn’t burn everything. I feel sometimes just like the funny paper jokes about Miss Newly-Wed!

  [France, August 1947]*

  Dearest C.,

  I am sitting, quite cold. The smoky waiting room is jammed with people, baggage, etc.: paper parcels, wicker trunks, string bags, a bicycle, sailors in red pompom caps, two old Bretons in black with their white horned caps, a baby wrapped in blankets—wide-eyed, placed on the wooden bench. I arrived at six a.m., the stars still out, cold and still on the platform, no porters. I can just manage to carry my three bags a few steps at a time. Finally made the station.

  Last night was really an experience! I arrived in the sleeper car with my three bags (carried by a porter this time, for it was Paris) to find it a small compartment with two bunks
made up (one above the other), and a stranger’s portfolio in the top bed! “What? I’m not alone?!” I protested to the porter. “But no, madame. One is never alone in a sleeping car, there are two berths. You thought …?” I said, “In America …” I sat down on my lower berth—and waited.

  Pretty soon a little Frenchman came along—young Breton. “You permit, madame?” he said politely sticking his head in the door. “Ah, it’s yours?” I asked, nodding to the portfolio.

  “If that does not disturb you.” The berth was his but if I really minded he could get his sister-in-law in the same car to change with him. Only he admitted, discreetly sympathetic, that his brother and sister-in-law were newly married; it would be a shame to separate them. It turned out my room-mate was also newly married (that makes him pretty safe, I jotted down mentally).

  We then embarked on a discussion of American trains, French trains, American customs, French customs, etc. He was in the Resistance under De Gaulle, “a great man. The people will have him back in six months.” Also was a translator for the Americans when they came into Brest. He learned English at school. He likes Americans—likes American women better than Englishwomen—finds them less reserved! I prod him a little on the American soldiers in France. He was polite and didn’t want to hurt my feelings, but it is always the same story: they destroyed too easily. “C’est la guerre américaine. You are quick. You go fast. You save men. But you destroy the country—it was an Allied country.”