Glory Ho

In the early days of my pregnancy, I read Loving Frank, historical fiction which details the affair between architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick, a feminist at the turn of the century. It was magnificent. Everything I devour. A story with some truth. Real people from the past. Womanhood. Choices. Tragedy. Bits of my local Boulder. But most of all, it was a follow up feminist meets motherhood tale.

Growing up, I always thought I would be a Mom. Wasn’t that what women did? At the time, there were no childless couples in my small world. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening stirred my senses a bit in college. The heroine had children, but she dared to be as interested in her own passions as she was in them, and that was considered a scandal. Her conclusion was important. She said: I would die for my children, but I would not give my life for my children. This seemed to say that it was possible to have kids and maintain your self, too. I ran that by my Mom once as we were driving along I-80. She agreed wholeheartedly. And I was relieved.

As I evolved through my 20s, I always felt that feminism didn’t really work for me–couldn’t I be a good Mom AND my own person (with possibly a career) too? Why did feminism have to bash motherhood and why did motherhood have to bash feminism? Why was everyone so extreme? But this was the 90s, when a career just seemed like a good idea. I had yet to evolve.

From there, I began to settle into life, becoming enthralled with various pursuits–triathlons, non-profit volunteerism, book clubs, local feminism history, my own business and Buddhism.  I became so interested in life, that I realized I would fill it up–even without kids. It was strange to consider, but the notion eventually sounded normal instead of neanderthal. I met people without kids. And I liked them. I hadn’t made any decisions, but I realized that I had a choice. My mother, afraid to pressure me, encouraged me to do what was right for me. “Maybe you guys won’t have kids. That’s fine, too.”

Then we left the country. The idea of kids hovered overhead, sometimes part of the smog we inevitably breathed, other times, the very stars we wished we could see. We talked endlessly about future plans because that’s what you do in the Peace Corps. Would we live in DC and work for the campaigns? Teach English in Korea? Spend time in India? Move back into our house on Emerson?

It was such a paradox. We KNEW we wanted kids, but they were always the leftover screw after you thought you’d successfully put together the $99 entertainment center from Target. Where did they fit? But at that time, any ideas about home were far too surreal for concrete plans and we knew nothing could really happen until we were within a two mile radius of a Walgreens anyway. We’d successfully put it off again.

But Wanderlust or Bust opened portals to worlds we’d never even pondered. And although deep down, I knew the answer, there was a shift in my thought pattern that took me from “generally agreeable” to “ready”.

At first, I thought it was when a sick, sixteen month old Ugandan baby called Innocent fell asleep against my chest when we were living in a thatch-roof hut in West-Central UgandaLake Nkuruba teaching daily Social Studies classes and evening computer classes to orphans. But that’s not right. It was a week or so later, when we visited Sarah Burke, a Peace Corps volunteer. She was young, with naturally curly blonde hair, a subscription to Sun and a very optimistic aura. I was taking in her modest African bedroom–you know, the predictable photo of girlfriends gathered on the beach, demonstrating their loyalty through linked arms and tilted head smiles. And instead of reminding me of my own college memories, I instinctively thought: I hope our daughter one day has a bulletin board filled with the celebration of good friends and good times. I was thinking about a daughter I would one day have. I was instinctively projecting my own hopes onto someone other than myself. And I wasn’t pregnant.

That was the hour I first believed. The hour I first knew for sure, that I wanted to create a new life. Creation, no matter what you’re working with, is what life’s all about anyway. Right Brent?