Motherhood_A Novel

by Sheila Heti

  What if I pursue being a bad woman and don’t breed—pursue failing biologically? Where is the realm of privacy? Only in failure. Only in our failures are we absolutely alone. Only in the pursuit of failure can a person really be free.

  Losers may be the avant-garde of the modern age.

  *

  In my dream last night, I was looking at my breasts in a mirror. They were hanging so low on my body—at the level of my belly button. I was crying, depressed about them hanging so low. I cried out, in tears, My breasts are too low! Then I looked at them closer, and saw there were five nails in each breast, and that my breasts were actually hoofs, and the reason they hung so low was so that I could use them to walk.

  Last night I saw Marissa, her hair and outfit immaculately arranged as if for a camera. We had met years ago when I wrote a profile about her for a magazine. She had just come from a day of shooting a series she had written and was starring in. I hadn’t seen her in ages. The last time, she had been married to an actor who at the time was less successful than she was, and who, upon her return from L.A., would move into her condo with her. I remember the feeling I got from her about him—that he was someone to help her in her work. Last night, over dinner, I learned they were getting divorced. Marissa is thirty-eight. She said that many of her girlfriends didn’t want to have children, were happy just to live with their partners. She said she wanted to have children, but it had never felt right with her husband. Her thoughts were always on a man in Italy—a film director who she says she truly loved. She says she loved him all throughout her marriage. When her marriage was over, she wrote him a letter about what her feelings were, and had been since he kissed her many years ago. But for the director, the email had come too late. He said he’d had—a long time ago—to let go the idea of being with her. Now he was with another woman, and although he did not love this woman, even if he wasn’t with her, it would still be too late.

  Now Marissa had neither man. Newly single, she couldn’t help but feel outside the mainstream of life, as though she had lost a certain status in the world, especially among women. She was just this floating thing, a potential threat. She felt bitter about her husband. The problem with him was that he had not worn the pants in the relationship, so she didn’t totally respect him. It’s not sexy, she said. She thought he had benefited greatly from their marriage, because he was now a success. But it had been awful to be with another actor—she never would be again. He had taken things she had said over dinner and would say them in interviews as though the ideas were his own. She kept trying to escape him to work on her screenplay—two months here, one month there—and would work well when they were apart. Then he would come and visit her, and she would lose the thread and tell him to go home.

  The director in Italy sounded like pure fantasy to me, but the way she saw it, they were constantly being brought together. She never wrote anything inspired by her husband, yet she wrote a whole script inspired by him. And wasn’t it fate that they were both in London at the same time? Yet, I pointed out, they didn’t get together in London, nor did they get together in Vancouver or Rome. She insisted that fate kept bringing them together, but the way I saw it was: every time they were brought together, they never actually got together, so maybe it was fate’s way of saying: You’re not meant to be together—just look! Every time I bring you close, nothing ever happens.

  When we left the restaurant, I walked behind her and noticed her ankle boots—very high heels—and that the heels had been rubbed away at a slight angle, each point pointing inward. To see her wobbling like a witch, I felt deeply moved. She seemed so poor and vulnerable from behind.

  When I was out with Marissa, she pointed out that men like to come in their partners. Although this should have been obvious, I had never thought about it before, and it remained stuck in my head for weeks. I decided to finally get an IUD.

  The insertion was the most painful thing. As the doctor was working it inside, I shouted in my head, Stop! Stop! but I let it be put in. Then I found myself hobbling off the table and out of the examination room, even as I tried to tell myself there was no reason for me to hobble.

  The entire time it was inside me, I felt like there was a sharp-toothed bear trap within. I could not walk properly, I tried not to move, I could not forget it was there. Everything Miles said made me upset, for I resented that I had this thing inside me—as I thought—for him. It made me feel plugged up and sad. And although I didn’t want to get pregnant, I found I liked even less the idea that I could not. It felt like my womb was made of cold hard plastic and metal coil, as though the innermost part of me was a torture device, although I did not know what part of me it was torturing. It was as if a sensitive, mushy, thumping animal inside—which I hadn’t even known about—had been captured and stilled.

  After ten days, I could stand it no longer, and I returned to have it taken out. Leaving the hospital, my love for Miles felt unleashed. I had to admit, sheepishly, that the slimmest possibility that I might get pregnant made me love him even more. Just the possibility worked some charm.

  *

  Last night, out with another writer friend, I told her about the IUD. She said, I could never get an IUD—I couldn’t do it, it wouldn’t be right for me. I felt excluded from some deeper knowledge she had. She was a private person, someone who seemed to know herself. I said, I bet you always consult your heart. She agreed that she did.

  I don’t think I have a heart—a heart I can consult. Instead, I have these coins.

  *

  Are the fantasies that visit us, of living other lives—like living with children if we don’t have them, or living without if we do—taboos?

  yes

  Are we supposed to build a conscious relationship with these taboos, so we might feel more at home in the world, on a macrocosmic level?

  yes

  How are we to do that? By challenging these taboos with our behavior?

  no

  By challenging them conceptually, in thought alone?

  no

  Instead of challenging them, should we be trying to bind the taboos with our lives, and so create a synthesis in our living?

  yes

  Do we do this by choosing, with great determination, the life we’re living now, with the conviction that we will never live the taboos that call out to us?

  no

  Jacob names his wrestling place Peniel. Is he naming a personal taboo, in doing this?

  yes

  I suppose for him the taboo was that man could stand face-to-face with God. That idea must have frightened him as much as to be a mother frightens me. Do we synthesize taboos with our lives by creating spiritual or religious practices around them, giving them a place, but a place that is safe?

  no

  Do we synthesize taboos by taking on a new name—as Jacob’s name became Israel?

  no

  Do we synthesize them by narrating them, by telling ourselves stories about our wrestling with them?

  yes

  Is the idea of being a mother a taboo for me, personally?

  yes

  Then must I synthesize this taboo with my life by telling a story about wrestling with it?

  yes

  But it takes a long time to tell a story, meaning that when we are done, we walk away hobbled—older—but hopefully more spiritually invigorated. Jacob named his story ‘Peniel,’ which means, Here is where I stood face-to-face with God. What am I standing face-to-face with? The prospect of motherhood?

  yes

  In the story of Jacob, the angel blesses him there. Yet wait—what does it mean to be blessed? That the thing we are wrestling with wishes us well?

  no

  That our wrestling will take care of us forever?

  yes.

  *

  My brother feels it was an unfair burden placed on him to have been forced to live without having been asked. I feel the opposite—that life is a beautiful and incredibly rare gift whose debt I will forever b
e in—and that I must spend my days paying back this debt.

  Where do I get this idea of my indebtedness from? And who am I paying it back to? And why must it be the only thing in my life—paying it back? Could having children be a way of repaying the debt? For some it must be, but it doesn’t feel that way to me. I know how hard it is to have a child, but for me it would feel like an indulgence—an escape. I don’t feel I deserve those pleasures. Having a child does not relate to the duties that feel bound to my life.

  *

  What is wrong with living your life for a mother, instead of a son or daughter? There can be nothing wrong in it. If my desire is to write, and for the writing to defend, and for the defence to really live—not for just one day, but a thousand days, or ten thousand days—that is no less viable a human aspiration than having a child with your mind set on eternity. Art is eternity backwards. Art is written for one’s ancestors, even if those ancestors are elected, like our literary mothers and fathers are. We write for them. Children are eternity forwards. My sense of eternity is backwards through time. The farther back in time I can go, the deeper into eternity I feel I can pierce.

  I always thought that if I could find the first boy I loved, and love him, I would love him and remain with him for the sake of eternity.

  And that is sort of what I did. Although we didn’t come together until I was thirty-two years old, Miles was the first boy I longed for after moving out of my parents’ house after high school ended. Everything grew quiet the first moment I saw him. He was standing and smoking in front of a repertory cinema, after the movie let out—lanky, with blacker than black hair, browner than brown eyes, and eyeliner. He was taller than anyone else in the crowd, and elegantly dressed, and was looking off with shy, intelligent eyes. Standing a short distance from him outside the theatre, I said to my boyfriend, There is the most beautiful person I have ever seen. Fifteen years later, it was still true.

  The feeling of tears was in me when I woke, but they weren’t in me last night, alone. I like being alone. It is hard to be around other people. Alone, one feels the whole universe, and none of one’s personality. Maybe it is the feeling of my personality that brings me to tears. Where there is no personality, there cannot be tears.

  This is the also same age as when your mother was miserable, and also constantly in tears. It could be a biological phase. Or it could be the choices you’ve made.

  Last night you said you’d forgive yourself if you made a mistake. If you made a mistake, you said you’d forgive yourself. I’m sorry—I forgive you—I apologize—I forgive you—I forgive you—I forgive you—I forgive you. You weren’t sure whether you had done something wrong, but you said you’d forgive yourself, although you were unsure.

  *

  Last night, I dreamed that Miles wanted to have a baby with me—really, really wanted to. There was such a sweet, serious longing in him that I started to think that maybe it would be a good idea to go ahead, just rush ahead with that feeling of excitement—it was like being pulled along—although secretly I felt I didn’t want to. So I said no to Miles in my dream. I felt that if I said yes, I would abandon my child. Still, there was something flattering or totally awesome in him wanting to have a baby with me. No one had ever asked that of me before.

  Waking up, I said to Miles, It might be nice to have a child. He said, I’m sure it’s also nice to get a lobotomy. All the work he’s done these years to build himself up into the sort of person he can respect—talking about throwing that out the window; how the hardest thing in life is to really make something of yourself. He said, Two people who can help hundreds of people—that they should put their energies into one half-person, each? This is a human life we’re talking about here! Why do people—as soon as things are good—suddenly want to change everything?

  *

  Teresa said that people are dominant in either thinking, or feeling, sensation or intuition, and that psychic health is using all of one’s faculties. In order to know my mind about children, I’ll have to use feeling more. I remember once reading that all philosophers are ugly: they have too big a nose, or too big a forehead, or ears that are too big, from all that thinking. I never understood it before, but I understand it now: the philosopher unbalances herself. The trick to life is having your nose, forehead, and ears be all the same size. Then are there other places I should be spending time, besides in my thoughts?

  yes

  In my body?

  yes

  In my senses?

  yes

  Should I try to sense more things?

  no

  Should I try to sense what I do sense, more consciously?

  yes

  What does that mean? With more discernment?

  no

  More love?

  yes

  Is consciousness love?

  no

  Does consciousness create love?

  yes

  In every case?

  yes.

  I received two soul of time–like messages in the fortune cookies last night.

  One said, Stop searching. Happiness will find you. The other said, Your future will be harmonious. These gave me the same feelings as the words the soul of time does—that maybe I don’t need to be doing as much as I have been doing, on the level of trying to push my life down one path or another. And maybe there are some areas of life in which one never knows. Or maybe part of me thinks that when it comes to something as profound as a human life existing or not, it would be wrong to take it too strongly in my hands, or decide too vigorously either way.

  After all, it’s not only my life we’re talking about. It’s Miles’s life, and the life of the child, and everyone that child will ever meet, and not meet, and whoever might come from them, and whatever they might do in the world. Who is it for me to bring all this unfolding into being? Maybe it’s no more for me to decide, than it is for Miles to decide, or my father to decide, or my country to decide. I am in the world, and whatever I do affects other lives. Then it should all be pretty loose, my fantasies for my future, for they each involve everyone else. Why should I strenuously make something come true for me, when that fate will manifest in other lives as well?

  I don’t know why I don’t do the obvious thing—instead of fantasizing about other lives, why not try to imagine what it’s be like to be me, and live the life I’m living now—fantasize into the life that’s actually mine? The first time I ever had this thought, it gave me such a deep thrill, almost a sexual thrill, as if I was having sex with myself. The feeling lasted only a second—a brief spark of power that came from inhabiting my actual life. Then why don’t I choose to do this all the time, since it is the truth? Maybe it felt like too much power—perhaps the power of binding the physical with the spiritual—if the spiritual is my imagination, and the physical is my actual life.

  Then erase the boundary and bring them closer.

  *

  Is this way of thinking connected to the soul of time?

  no

  Will I ever figure out what it means—the soul of time?

  yes

  Will I be able to express it in this book?

  yes

  Should I end this section and begin another one, with that aim in mind?

  yes.

  *

  When I was a teenager, my boyfriend and I lived in a rundown house where all the teenagers went. He and Miles were close friends, so Miles was always around. I respected and admired him, in his dignity, quietness, and his intelligence. At parties, he would lean against a wall, alone. He possessed something romantic that enchanted us all—the way he moved, smoked, dressed and talked.

  In the decade following, every time we were in the same city, Miles and I would hang out. When we were around twenty-five years old, he was living in Montreal, and I was just visiting. After seeing a movie, we took a long walk through the city together. At the end of our walk, we stopped by his apartment, and as he leaned against the window of a shop, he told me that he ha
d recently learned he was going to be a father.

  I was shocked. None of my friends had children yet. Yet I very quickly could see it. Miles had always seemed so in control of himself, but there was something not in control about him, too—something vulnerable, which could allow life to slip right through his hands. I thought, Of course it would be Miles—to accidentally knock a girl up. How many women has he slept with, anyway? And who could say no to a baby from him?

  How could I know that, years later, the daughter that he was telling me about, would be a bit my daughter, too?

  This afternoon, I went to the fertility clinic for the final of a series of three appointments, to check on the possibility of freezing my eggs. Over the past few weeks, they had done all sorts of tests. I sat on the thirteenth floor of an office tower, in an orange waiting room with some couples and women alone. One woman held a golden-haired toddler who played on the floor—and the other women gave her space. She sat alone on a connected embankment of chairs, while the rest of us gathered more in a clump—out of respect for her or resentment.

  Finally, I was called in. A woman sat behind a long glass table that was covered in a mess of papers, wearing a white coat that I couldn’t interpret: Was she a doctor? A nurse? A lab technician? How seriously was I to take her? She opened my file and said, Congratulations—it’s good news! She smiled warmly and said my ovaries were young, like fresh figs. I burst into tears. How could my body betray me in this way? Didn’t it know anything about us—about what I truly desired?

  Leaving the clinic, it was nearly dusk. The sky was bruised and purple, like a fresh fig. Then it began to rain.

  Walking home under construction scaffolding, I thought, No. You are not going to freeze your eggs. You should be able to figure out what you want and get it before the time runs out. The procedure would cost way more than I had, and I worried that the hormones would hurt me, or that it would hurt my relationship with Miles—make me too emotional to bear Miles, or be borne. Indecision has always been with me, but I didn’t want it to dominate my life more than it has already done. Getting my eggs frozen would have been like freezing my indecision. I couldn’t reveal my weakness to myself in such a tangible way.