It happened again.
Hearing my son’s voice on the radio.
I was having a bit of a cranky morning before that, I have to say.
Not everything is pancakes and sun puddles over here all the time, but things turned around swiftly.
He played “Place to Be,” for me, and if you don’t think that will drive me straight to my computer to write to you …
So today, I want to tell you a story about motherhood and music.
And because I miss mixed tapes and sunscreen summers and new-old cars, I’m making us a playlist too. ⬇️ 💿
All Golden and Warm
I remember the first time I felt my first baby kick.
(And I mean, for-sure kick, because sometimes it just feels a little like bubbles, right?)
But this was a good ol’ buy this babe a tiny tire now kind of feeling.
I was driving down an old country road on my way home from work, and I was listening to music.
If we could make time-lapse videos out of memories, that one would look like me driving, belly swelling, leaves changing, windows open, everything glowing a little bit gold, so deliriously grateful.
I told people once that being pregnant with Owen was like waking up every morning and realizing it was Christmas.
I had two very different pregnancies, so I know now how that sounds to some of you. I’ve seen the world from both sides now, and I’ve lived through a fearful pregnancy, and so I know. And I’m sorry.
But back then - 2003 into 2004, I was young and naive and I thought I knew how lucky I was.
Meant-To-Be Magic
As fall turned to winter, I listened to the Serendipity soundtrack on repeat.
Serendipity is a winter movie. Some might call it a Christmas movie, but that’s not how I think of it. I think of gentle snow and cashmere gloves and frozen hot chocolate and a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera, and just a little bit of meant-to-be magic.
I will tell you, that if, during an early snowfall, anytime after 4 p.m., you go outside and turn on the song “Moonlight Kiss,” by Bap Kennedy, you will feel what I mean about the magic …
Floating
The morning drive was for NPR, so I could show up to the newsroom with some idea of what was happening in the world.
But the evening drive home was for music that I played for my baby and me.
I’d burn CDs - remember that?
I’d play songs I loved and I’d wonder if through the maternity coat and maternity sweater and the skin and belly what it sounded like to my babe, floating in his or her own little hot tub.
I liked to think that this mini person knew my voice, knew his daddy’s voice, recognized the hushed way we talked about him late at night and early in the morning, when it was just the two and a half of us.
Just Do and Be
Of course we knew everything was about to change, and we worried about our dog, and how he would adjust when we brought home a new human.
Here’s what’s funny now - there was nothing for him to adjust to.
In a way, he knew our baby better than we did - the packaging just changed.
It’s like if you wrap a bone for a Christmas present - that’s not really fooling your dog. He knows what’s in there, and he isn’t shocked when he sees it.
And so, it was OK - becoming parents.
I mean, it was way better than that.
First babies are unique because you don’t have to explain what’s going on to a toddler or a 12-year-old - you just do and be, and your baby is there with you.
Babymoon
The Red Sox broke the curse in 2004, and I’m not going to lie, it felt a teeny bit like it was just for us, this new little family.
We made Owen a tiny Red Sox jersey using a baby undershirt and Sharpies.
(Way back then we had to practice creative problem solving because to get free shipping on Amazon, you had to spend 25 whole dollars!)
We watched the World Series and my husband and I lost our minds, and the dog was happy and the baby had started smiling by then, and it felt like this is how parenthood could be - all of us on the couch - not so different really - singing “Sweet Caroline,” and toasting with Dr Pepper.
Chocolate Chunks and Unemployment
Of course everything was entirely different.
I can’t tell you how much.
I had gotten laid off from my job when I was 9 months pregnant to the day.
I remember waddling into the unemployment office and the people there laughing.
I remember calling my in-laws from the parking lot, because I was a reporter and I understood how news travels and I had to get ahead on this story.
I knew the minute one of them heard what happened, their family phone tree would spring into action, and I just wanted one chance to tell the truth, which was that the company got bought out, and the new one didn’t offer maternity leave to “new” employees.
(If my baby could wait 6 months to be born, that would work, but also he’d be overcooked by 5 months.)
And so the two men from the new company asked me - with so much tenderness - Do you want us to lay you off? And then you can come back eventually?
“You know, when you’re … ‘ready,’” one them said, gesturing toward my belly.
Sure, I said.
This way you’ll get unemployment, they said - case closed.
(I mentioned before that I was young and naive, right? And exactly 9 months pregnant?)
And so sure - that sounded good.
I went home to a freezer packed with Ben and Jerry’s because my only pregnancy “issue” was heartburn.
My midwife had prescribed Cherry Garcia and Chunky Monkey.
Who was I to argue - an unemployed, pregnant 26-year-old who had just traded in her young person car for a used Ford Focus?
MacGyver and Money Management
I figured it was going to be OK. My baby kicked me awake each day, and we got into a routine of waking up at 4 a.m. and watching an episode of MacGyver.
I tried to figure out how Unemployment worked, not the not-working part, but like the legal and technical part.
Was I actively pursuing employment?
While 9+ months pregnant?
In a town with one newspaper?
With my Journalism degree?
So I got wise and decided I didn’t need their money.
I HAD money.
I cashed out my 401K.
Elvis to my Pelvis
You REALLY aren’t supposed to do that.
I kind of knew, but I also didn’t care - I had a baby on the way and plot twist: He was upside-down!
That’s right - two weeks from his due date, I visited my sweet midwife and she felt my tummy and said:
Well …
And it was my first real moment of worry about this baby. (I know, I was so lucky.)
And I said “Well what?”
And she said:
Well … Your baby is breech right now.
I had read a lot of books, so I knew what that meant:
If he stayed that way, she may not be able to deliver him, and we might require a Cesarean birth.
All the books had me worried about this (I had a cesarean birth later! It’s maybe not ideal, but worked out!) and so I asked what I could do.
She said that I could try some yoga-like moves that “encourage” babies to flip.
And …
I could try playing music …
And so I went home and pulled out a portable CD player, and started playing music toward … the area.
Downtown.
Down … South.
Oh you know! Don’t make me say anything else.
- Collective Pause -
OK.
“Some babies really respond to music,” she had said, gently and serenely, which I took as sort of a wink - like she knew it would work.
It didn’t.
Not for the first few days.
I didn’t know it didn’t, through, because inside your body, it’s hard to determine knees from elbows without a professional.
But then, eventually, it worked!
I knew because it was extremely uncomfortable when it happened.
It felt like …
Like …
Like if a small person, were to flip upside-down, inside of you.
I had played Elvis to my Pelvis and Owen had resituated himself.
My midwife confirmed this a few days later. Which was good, because I was about to go into labor almost a week and half before my due date …
But not to worry - that part lasted for four days.
And then, at just after 4:30 a.m. on a Thursday, I finally met my son.
He was born sunny-side up, with his eyes wide open.
My midwife encouraged me to reach down and finish delivering him and I did, and then I put him on my chest, and they covered us in a blanket and I looked into his gray eyes and thought, there you are.
Music in His Soul
Years later, my son would send me a text at the start of his day.
It was a Spotify link, and he wrote: “This might be the most perfect song I’ve ever heard.”
My son was born with music in his heart.
From a tiny age, he revolted against most “kids’ music,” and preferred what we naturally listened to.
He’d been conditioned in the womb, and would not abide sing-songy child voices or this boat-rowing nonsense.
He was, however, comforted by our music, even my off-key singing.
He became so drawn to music that when he was 5, we would rent a truck to transport a 1,200-lb piano (made partially of cast iron) to our home.
He learned to play it right away - first Linus and Lucy, then Bach.
Eventually he taught himself guitar and bass and drums, and now, he isn’t him if he isn’t making music.
I recently wrote about why we need Wholeheartedness …
This is Owen. He becomes exhausted by life, if he doesn’t have space for music - it all feels like too much, and he craves time until his soul pounds and kicks, until he must play his guitar, or his heart burns in a way that Ben and Jerry cannot fix.
He went through a time like that recently, and so I told him what I had read about wholeheartedness, and I sent a song called “Revelator,” which includes the lyrics:
It’s only survival
Only not dead upon arrival
Only ahead of every rival that we find
When life feels like that, I said, it isn’t because of too much.
It’s because something is missing.
Place to Be
Owen and I have fallen into a habit of sending songs back and forth to one another.
It’s so strange having your baby live in another city, but it helps when that baby is 20.
He’s in college, and making music, and a few times a week, he does a live shift on the college radio station.
It was last year when he sent me that ‘perfect song’ link, and I started to play it …
And I knew it. I knew the song.
I don’t know a lot of music.
For a few years, music helped on long car rides, commuting to college and then to work. But then I became a mother and music sometimes felt like too much.
I have plenty of feelings without a score - and there have been long stretches when it was just too hard to listen to anything because of how it made me feel, and by that I mean not how it made me feel, but how it made me feel.
So you can imagine when I clicked on the link, and I heard Nick Drake.
I knew the song instantly - it’s on the Serendipity soundtrack - and a track I listened to constantly that winter I was pregnant, in my car, just me and my baby.
The song is called “Northern Sky,” and I think Owen is right.
I think it is pretty much perfect.
Owen got me listening to more of Nick Drake - I fell in love with “Place to Be” and “Pink Moon,” and then I did the worst thing - I looked up Nick Drake, wondering where he is now.
He died in 1974 - not just before Owen was born, but before I was born.
He’s gone.
But also, he’s not.
More
I don’t know how to tell you to stay connected to your child, when they grow up, and move away, and start buying groceries and their own toothpaste.
I will say that it’s all really hard.
It is. I wish I could tell you that it isn’t.
But finally now, almost two years in, sometimes it doesn’t feel so bad, because I know he’s becoming more him.
And I love him.
Of course I’m in favor of more.
Glowing a Little Bit Gold
I started listening to music again regularly a few years ago, after a big surgery that made it impossible for me to ever give birth again.
It all happened really quickly, and I didn’t have time to think too much about it.
But then after - I had to be in bed for weeks and weeks.
I read a lot, and “Tuesday Mooney Talks To Ghosts,” made me think of Spotify, and the algorithm that learns what you like and then gives you more of it.
I started building playlists - happy songs, and then comforting songs (hat tip to Matt Haig and his “The Comfort Book”), and songs that ultimately, helped me to move on.
I am still a mother.
I have two amazing kids.
I have so much.
If we could make time-lapse videos out of memories, the motherhood one would look like me trying, sometimes misstepping, changing, heart so open, everything glowing a little bit gold and so deliriously grateful.
The Revelator!!!
Reading this made my Monday morning. And you gave us a mixtape?! Thank you!
My youngest turned breech. At 33 weeks during 2020. I had a week to quite literally hang upside down to make her flip. She refused. When the doc grabbed her foot and got her out a week later she was a grumpy kitten. She still has very big opinions.