A Way We Are Going

Graham and I went and saw Away We Go yesterday, the movie about the thirtysomething kidults who are having a baby, and are searching for a place to settle. I saw the preview months ago, before I even knew that I was pregnant, and even then I had never felt so targeted for a preview in my life. The indie folkish music, matched by hand drawn credits, with pictures of a quirky and whimsical road trip of thirtysomethings trying to find themselves? Oh and written by the husband and wife novelist/editor wonderteam Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida--just to hook all those bookish McSweeny/Believer types? Yeah, they hit all the right buttons on my cash register, but at least I knew it. Then I found out I was pregnant and Graham said, "Oh, it makes the movie all the more RELEVANT doesn't it?"

I will say right now, critics be damned, I loved this movie. I thought it was hilarious and thoughtful and it is not only FANTASTIC to see Maya Rudolph show her acting props in a starring role, but it was great also to see a male character (John Krasinki's Bert) who had no qualms whatsoever about using the word VAGINA (with love and affection, I might add). What's more, when was the last time you laughed at a movie that didn't use ANY pop culture references as jokes? THINK about it. I felt as if someone I knew--a peer--had written this movie and that was both great and part of the problem. The problem with watching an emotionally accurate portrait of your own circumstance is that it either can make you LAUGH at your experience or it can PUSH ALL YOUR BUTTONS.

As I watched a movie of two people, who hadn't quite grown up, try to find their place in the world so they could help someone else grow up, all the comforting ideas I have about my artsy life started to feel uncomfortably half baked. I am a thirtysomething mother-to-be and I don't own a home, I am just starting to make a career, and I am still thinking of my life as transient. I have been thinking temporarily my entire adult life. I have lived in 6 cities in 5 states, always with the knowledge I'll leave at some point. Graham and I want to leave New York when he finishes his PhD and HOPEFULLY settle near friends and/or family. All the previous FEARS about having a baby that had dissipated came galloping back. What the hell was I thinking? How can I be ANYONE'S mother?

We went out to dinner after the movie and I was fighting back tears the entire time feeling as if my life had suddenly become as stable as a house of cards--how could it hold up another PERSON and where had all my time gone? What was it all for? For the record, Graham felt none of this. Thank God for the other person--for the most part we've only freaked out one at a time--and the other has stood there solid, truly being able to say, "It's going to be fine." This was Graham's role at dinner. He talked me down enough to revert to a way I like to work through most overwhelming fears. I counted the positives: we are in a good marriage, we have a home that can house us all, and we are both laying down a foundation of work and meaning that we can build on for years to come. Then, I remembered what I told Graham when he was freaking out, wondering if our home was as child friendly as a knife shop with gaping electrical socets. I told him about the home I was brought to from the hospital as a newborn: a converted chicken coop, furnished with furniture mostly made by my father out of nails and driftwood. They were living on food stamps and the money my dad got from painting the occasional rock poster. And I felt better. It always feels better to think about how differently you will do things than your own parents. It's the oldest trick in the book. Your parents did it about their parents and their parents did it before them. It doesn't mean you'll succeed, it just means for a moment, you believe you have a chance. Sometimes that's all you need.