Womb-Spoke by Virginia Archer-Peak

Photo by Nicole Herrero via Unsplash

Queen of Swords:

A man I once loved explained to me in my 20’s that I didn’t want children. I never said this, but his evidence was that we didn’t have any. Back then, I went for men who said things like this, who liked explaining things to women. He went on to remarry and have three children with his good looks, while I read the Bhagavad-Gita and discovered the red canyons and turquoise of the Southwest, the fir-mixed-with-salt smell of the Pacific, while I learned how to grow gardenias and cook with herbs and discuss politics over strong cups of tea with econ professors and philosophy major dropouts.

But wasn’t I a kind of dropout too? Wasn’t marriage and the swift leap into the rigors of motherhood a country I had left behind, an expatriate with a scandalous amount of freedom? What will I do with this freedom? is the second most important question a woman will answer in her life. Right after Will I be free? Only she can say. And she must say.

What a childless woman learns quickly is that she is no less a mother in this world. Everywhere one looks are those that need her care, the warmth of her hands and home. The bright light of her mind. Like the stray beagle-mix, a bolter at the shelter that no one would adopt. The homeless man who foretold the future and spoke incessantly of George W. Bush and the twelve tribes of Israel. The sweetheart from Texas who knew how to spot and kill water moccasins with a stick but stayed too late at the bar. And children, all kinds. Bright, home-schooled kids of artists who would go on one day to be stage managers or music editors at independent magazines. Shy kids with stern fathers, rich kids with absent parents, refugee kids who’d seen the world’s ugliness up close, who struggled to read English and might get a job in the neighborhood grocery store if they were lucky. And kid after kid in juvenile, Black young men caught up in society’s broken pieces, who cops in the Deep South still like to arrest by setting dogs loose to do their worst. 

I learned that motherhood is big as the sky, that there’s no woman not mothering in her way. Now, I’ve come back to the salt-air of the Pacific with a man who knows how to grow tomatoes and cayenne peppers and wakes me up in the mornings with coffee, who doesn’t explain things to women. I wake in the middle of the night because our son is growing in the waxing moon of my stomach, and I’m waiting for the Doug Fir in our backyard, another kind of mother, to tell me his name. 

VIII Strength:

When you share about your pregnancy, other women will tell you a great many things about theirs. About how to let your body rest while it still can. How to survive the summer heat with long, flowy dresses and kiddie pools in the lawn. How they wanted more sex with their husbands. How they wanted less sex with their husbands. About how they woke at midnight craving fresh citrus or ex-lovers or one more conversation with their mother who died too young. They’ll tell you what they dreamed, what they ate, about the children they lost. They’ll tell you about how your body will become like a ripe fruit tree, heavy and twisted with promise. They’ll tell you they wanted girls but got sons, or wanted sons and got girls, or how they’re not sure they ever truly wanted children at all. You will love them all the more for saying this. And you’ll dream too. Sometimes of your unborn son, still nameless, the details of his life veiled. You’ll dream that he has your eyes. Sometimes you’ll dream of the migrant mothers with children who, desperate and hiding, have no place to go. Their specters will crawl into bed with you, cradling their young. You’ll whisper You’re not supposed to be here, but you won’t send them away. You’ll sense the great tide of suffering at the southern border, how so many are snatched up by the clawing hand of extortion. You’ll dream of their silence, how they can’t go to the police, for help. You’ll dream of our country’s indifference. You’ll wonder how the border mothers do it, live through so much, lose so much. You’ll pray to keep your own loss away. You’ll pray that in the end you get to see his eyes that are your eyes. You’ll worry that this is a selfish prayer. 

You haven’t learned yet that a prayer for one mother is a prayer for all.

Ten of Cups:

One day you will be grown and our long, late-summer days in the garden will feel like a distant dream. 

The soft rose petals and fuzzy lavender we gave you for crying spells, dandelion wishes sailing through the afternoon sun, hummingbird chatter in the apple blossom, citrusy jasmine on the porch so New Orleans was never so far away. Blackberry, grape, plum, pear, tomato. Vine to mouth. Sun to son. Our mother and father hearts ripe as the cherry tree, dripping-rich and love-heavy. Overtaken by the sheer newness of you, by your astonishment as the wind chimes show you there is such a thing as music. 

How even without language you seem to declare your place in the cornucopia of things. Among the carrot flower, monarch, honeybees, thyme, peppermint and sage. The patient spider. The illusive rabbit. The maple, oak, and dogwood. Amid the plenty of our lives. 

Your ocean-blue eyes, full of perfect wonder, absorbing, observing, delighting in this new thing called life. Your very own. Our love circling you, growing new legs, covering more ground each new day like the overgrown strawberry vine. 

Naturally, you won’t recall that first summer but some day when you hear the crickets come out at dusk, you won’t be able to explain it quite, but they will feel like home.

Virginia Archer-Peak is a native of Louisiana, where she picked up a love for cooking, wild places, and folklore. She currently resides in Portland, Oregon with her green-thumbed husband and their toddling son. Her writing has been featured in journals such as Minerva Press, Arkansas Review and Mutha Magazine.