on pee and puke and philosophy of action
Can I talk about throwing up for a quick second? Okay, great.
I've been throwing up a lot this pregnancy. Not every day, which would bump me me into the category of British royalty. But frequently enough that I can run gagging to the bathroom while my family is at the breakfast table, and nobody even batts an eye. Nobody says "Poor Mama" or "Are you okay in there?" Everyone just goes on eating breakfast like it's no big deal, except Harvey who maybe yells through the door, "Mama, when you're done can you get me some juice?"
I was thinking about this yesterday while I was puking, I was thinking that there's nausea and then there's actually puking nausea, and they're only very subtly different. There are many times in my life where I say, "I feel like I'm gonna puke" and I don't actually do it. Still, in those moments I'm sure that I feel so poorly that vomiting must be only moments away. And when I'm feeling that way, you better believe everyone around me knows about it.
But then there's this whole different feeling, the feeling of vomit in its immediate urgency. I don't know how it feels different exactly, but it's different enough that in those moments there's no whining or complaining - there are only agile feet finding the quickest route to the bathroom. When it counts, when I need to puke not all over my rug, there is surprisingly little commentary - there is only action.
Right now I am highly in favor of action that short circuits complaining. But a moment ago I stuck my arm wrist-deep into a toilet Harvey had filled with his pee to carefully extract my wedding ring. I had run into the bathroom when I heard a clink followed by Harvey screaming. I thought perhaps he had knocked his tooth out on the toilet. When I saw there was no blood, and then that he had merely thrown my ring in the toilet, I was pleasantly relieved.
Or last night, when I was on the toilet peeing and Zion was playing with toys by the side of the tub I had just filled, and he fell in headfirst and fully clothed. I jumped up and snatched him out of the water, unconcerned that my pants were around my ankles and that I couldn't stop myself from peeing on them.
In retrospect, this is kind of disgusting. But when you're saving your baby from drowning, or saving your wedding ring from an expensive plumber extraction, or saving your carpet from being covered with semi-digested shredded wheat, disgusting does not trouble the imagination. Nothing much does, indeed. There is just the imperative ACT NOW with such urgency that meta processing is meaningless.
I would like to live more in this way, with less thought and more action. Even when life isn't such an emergency.
comments
this is awesome and gross, or awesomely gross.
Leah, I love your perspective on things! So funny and so true! When I was 8 candles had started to become very popular and my (then) 18yo sister had one in her room and of course I wanted one too... it wasn't one of those "safer" smelly jarred candles, it was a plain white candle on an old fashoned candle holder with the little loop that you would use to carry it around ... at any rate, I was laying in bed and threw a tissue past is to the trash - not thinking that it would ignite, or thinking about it at all... but when it did catch fire I picked it up (because I didnt want it to catch other stuff on fire - not thinking about my hands) and started screaming... my sister who was just about to get in the shower came running across the house naked and saved me and the house from burning... we now refer to that as "the naked firefighter event" neither of us realized she was naked until well after the fire was out... it was all about action! :-)
I am sorry you are puking! I hope that passes soon for you!