The Momoir Project

By Karen Bannister

I live my life like I write, on a whim, without an outline. Don’t get me wrong – I am a passionate organizer. I write grocery lists, chart family finances in a spreadsheet and have even made a living — received accolades — as an event planner.

But when it comes to major decisions, I move with the wind. When I enrolled in university, I let drama choose me and I studied to be an actor until I realized I couldn’t act. When I left university with a degree in theatre but no talent, I let arts management take over my life until I realized there was no heart in it. I went back to school, to study another subject, one that sounded exotic, until I realized I wasn’t much good at that.

And then I had a child. I chose one day to stop taking the pill and in the heat of the moment, convinced my husband we didn’t need an alternate contraceptive. Then, the way the wind blew that night, my son was conceived. Two years later, the wind blew again and my daughter was conceived.

Being a parent has taught me many things: how to dig into my soul for the right amount of patience, how to clean vomit from bed sheets, how to cover my breasts while attaching a baby to my nipple in a crowded room. It has taught me a great deal about myself: I am driven, I don’t know when to step back, to let go. I cannot relinquish control. I can cry really hard. I can stand the pain and I am stronger than I ever thought.

But I am lonely too. The parts of me that make me Karen are somehow lost in the quickness of my days and in the routine of being a caregiver: feed, diaper, clothe, shop, feed, giving from my cup that is seldom filled enough to cover the want. I never settled on what defined me, before I became a parent. I never really “found” myself the way I imagine others must have. And even if I had, maybe I wouldn’t know who that person was now anyway – so much of moving on with life is giving up what came before.

What I do know and what I think about deep into midnight when I can’t sleep, is that I, like the person I stand behind in the grocery line – the one who smiles quite knowingly as I try to tame my toddler – have stories and I long to tell them. I long to make sense of what is a confusion inside of me by just writing things down. Even it if it is painful, even if it lacks a thesis and a through-line, even if it means no one will read it, or someone will and judge me.

I have had the fortune in my life to work with and write about the concept of storytelling, especially as it touches people in the last decades of their life. Maybe that is what I am meant to do. Because I can see in working with people to tell their life through story, the truth of my own. It is all just stories. Maybe no one has a through line, a thesis, the foresight to plan their life around singular or multiple goals. Maybe this is my journey, to have a winding path, some obstacles, so that when I get to a rest stop I can say: Wow, that makes a great story.

By Karen Bannister

When I was in labour with my first child, during the first stretches of pain, the nurse leaned into me and asked if I wanted an epidural. I had prepared my answer in the last months of my pregnancy, weighing the pros and cons but ultimately deciding that in a choice between pain-filled and pain-free the answer was obvious – who wants pain?

And so I arched my back, held tight to my husband’s hands and prayed that the horrible stories about mistakes leading to paralysis were just urban legends, letting the doctor insert a terribly large needle into my spine.

I lay back in the bed and enjoyed the next 8 hours of labour blissfully unaware of the tug, pull and stretch my body was undergoing as my son descended the birth canal and squeezed from my body. He was born, with the doctor cheering me on, with the medical staff telling me when to push. I felt nothing.

I don’t really believe this. I am a rational person and I know there is no evidence in medical science that this can be true. Still I will say it, and have said it many times in my head: the numbness that took over my lower half crawled its way into my heart. I held my son for hours in the 365 days that followed and for 363 of them, I felt nothing. Looking at his face, curled to my breast or smiling in the arms of his father, I did not feel that pang of joy, the trickle of happiness or the crush of tears at the back of my eyes. Nothing - hollow.

I know an epidural did not give me Postpartum Depression, but I struggle to this day to dissociate the physical numbness of labour with the emotional numbness that followed.

So when my daughter was conceived, I silently resolved to forgo all medical intervention. I merely wanted a doctor there to catch her, a nurse to hold my legs, as I, with the sheer strength of my will and loins pushed her from my body.

When I first came to confess this, in the delivery room, my husband and mother at my side, my mother gasped. She had three natural births and did not wish the pain on me. I held tight to my resolution and even to my ridiculous reason for it.

Labour pain came in waves more excruciating than I could have imagined. At the precipice of each contraction, I contorted my body into startling positions, clawing the sides of the bed and pleading silently with God to make it stop. I experienced the burn of each movement in my uterus, the ecstasy of relief in between and finally the slip of my baby’s body down the birth canal. I yelled with amazement, “She is coming. She is coming.”

I was in love already – in love with the feeling of her falling, in love with the feeling of her coming out of me, in love with God and nature and my husband, that they should give me this awesome experience. I have thought about what drove this decision, to boldly declare I didn’t want drugs. It was not about taking my body to the limits of pain just so I could say I was there and came back again. It was not about ethics or comfort for my baby. It was, always, about externalizing the pain in hopes of setting my mind free.

by Karen Bannister

The line between us is an invisible cord that runs our voices across a vast stream, from one end of the country to another. I am in the East, tucked within the tan walls of my modern, suburban home. My son is running and yelling loudly around my feet while my husband prods him on with encouraging pokes and laughter. She is in the West, held within a home of stillness and order, surrounded by the beauty of open land and ocean air, my father’s breath beside her.

And yet, in spite of this distance we find togetherness in our daily talks. “I can hear him,” she says and I note the difficulty in her voice. I ponder regularly how the distance hurts her, as I nurse my own discomfort at being a family living apart. “Yes.” And I go on to describe to her what he is doing and how he is doing – growing and changing so greatly in the year that has now passed between her visits. I send her pictures regularly and occasionally, we try to convene in front of the computer, me holding my wiggling son still so she can catch at least a glimpse of him before he is off to play. When I ask my son, now two years old, where Grandma and Grandpa are, he points to the phone. This reality, his reality, breaks my heart.

Just yesterday, I spoke to my mother and father for the last time in what will be a two week bout of silence between us. They are in between homes on Vancouver Island and in the interim are jumping in the car to make the long-trek to my home in Ontario. They will arrive in advance of the impending birth of my daughter, their fourth grandchild and my second child. As before, my mother will hold my hand and calm my fears in the delivery room. And she will be there in the aftermath to share her wisdom born of raising three now-grown children. I look forward to this guidance, to the support before and after the birth, but most of all, I look forward to the time I know they will relish in the sweet aura of my son’s world.

My husband’s family lives close by. I know he sympathizes with the loss I encounter daily in having my family so far away from me. I also know he doesn’t quite understand the depths of this loneliness. It can be felt mostly acutely in the moments we do share together – my parents, brothers and I – when we realize there is a joy we miss daily. It can be felt in triumphant moments like birth, when a new presence shows us the beauty of life and the importance of family.

I am having a baby girl in just a few short weeks and before I even lay eyes on her, I feel a sting in my heart. More than raising a boy, I feel this sting because I long to grow as close to her as I am to my own mother, to have her nurture me and love me in the way I love my own mother. I know I will never want her away from me, and I want her to call me for my grandmother’s bun recipe and to help heal her open wounds.

Writing Start: ROOTS

by Karen Bannister        

So far, she is nameless - a tiny mass of human form thought to measure approximately one pound - without a face I can hold within the contours of my hands. And yet, I feel her and love her with a deep passion that is often all-consuming.

I want to know her name. I want to twist it in my mind, let the syllables cascade over my tongue. I want to whisper it into the soft recesses of morning when I lie on my side and cradle her through my flesh. I want to strip her of her anonymity, to expose her to the light if only to count each tiny toe and to rest my mind of worries that her heart beats just fine, that her lungs are capable of rise and fall.

I want to know her name so I can laugh with her father about the drama of her movement - the limb that pushes my belly button from within or extends to tickle my rib.

And yet, this tiny space of silence in which she exists is also strangely comforting. To wonder at the inevitable possibilities of her existence - which begins with the small matter of what we call her - is exciting. In our quiet intimate moments, I wonder if she will have a business card and what it will read. I picture her seated behind a deep walnut desk churning papers or pacing a linoleum highway in search of urgency. I see her twisting her hair or letting it fall to her shoulders as she makes up her face in a bedroom she has painted herself. I picture her in the embrace of a loved one, whom she has chosen, or on a gurney stretching life from her limbs in the slow exaltation of labour. In this silence that fills our days, there is a mountain of possibility.

I smile brightly at the chance to spend these next few months locked in this fleeting dance of privilege: the only one to feel her, the only one to comfort and feed her, and if I do know her name, the only one to whisper it into the night sky.

By Karen Bannister

There is a joy in being pregnant that is unparalleled by any other experience on this earth. The tiny movements deep inside my womb that tickle my ribs and stretch the skin around my belly are a private shelter of love - they bring a smile to my lips even when no one is around to hear me exclaim, “She just moved!” Sometimes, it feels as though I am locked inside my own silent joke - I am the only one to understand, and to laugh through the punch line.

But being pregnant has also been really difficult. The subtle nuances that characterize my body’s state - peeing when I sneeze, feeling light headed when I stand too quickly, ravenously eating every morsel in my cupboard - often leave me feeling exasperated. And the fatigue - that unnatural way your body feels heavy like you are drowning in wet clothing, where lifting just your ankle can send you to the nearest chair to rest - it is all-consuming at times. But pee and hunger aside, the hardest part for me is the ways in which my mind goes a little off-kilter with the drugging effects of pregnancy hormones. I am not just talking about crying because I forgot the milk at the store, but disastrous anxiety because my son won’t stop screaming that he wants some milk, and the feeling of self-hatred as I watch the scale climb in numbers, and my agitation overall dislike of most people, including - at times, my husband. I am talking about not wanting to get out of bed in the morning because the drugs I take to stabilize my moods make me tired. I am talking about greeting the end of the day with such an immense amount of exhaustion I can scarcely recall my name.

I suffer badly when it comes to child-bearing and I joke, without the laughter, that my mind just isn’t wired for having babies. Not only did I suffer from Postpartum Depression with my son’s birth, but I have what most people don’t even assume is possible - antenatal depression. It sucks. And yet I’ve chosen to do it again because my will is stubborn and because there really is so much joy in being pregnant that I train myself to bear the bad. It is remarkable to me, when I force myself to stop and think about it, how truly momentous these nine months are. My body is growing a life! There is a tiny heartbeat inside of me. She will grow to be a strong, willful human being with hobbies and interests and a unique perspective. She will laugh; she will cry; she will contribute to society. Dance! Sing!

It is for those infinite possibilities that I carry on, through the good and the bad, the exhaustion, the hunger and the anxiety. It is for the hope of one day setting eyes on her, of feeling love wash over me in a moment shared by the presence of my loved ones - her loved ones - a feeling I was robbed of when birthing my son. It is in the ever-demanding quest to have what I feel I have lost in all the moments I spent and spend bent in my own private agonies. For the fairytale, and for the moments of reality when it is really splendid, I carry on.

By Karen Bannister

The Big Boy Bed

I lie down beside my son, my large belly protruding toward the bend of his knees. We barely fit together anymore, the crest of my back digging crisply into the side of his blue race car bed. He smiles over at me - my body still a novelty for him, though it wasn’t too long ago that his mouth was at my breast and I was praying he would fall asleep. One year later, as I lie crammed into a crevice, I pray again for his slumber, but in a way that is quite different. I am more relaxed, less anxious, less untrusting and unknowing. With the confidence of one year, I can reach out a hand to caress the contours of his face and smile back with a loving heart.

He sleeps in a “big boy bed” now. The life inside my expanding belly will occupy the white crib my husband has lovingly assembled in the nursery filled with images of childhood fantasy. And he, our big boy, has moved on and out, next door into a car-oasis perfectly pitched to appeal to his new fascinations. But he is still my baby and I feel unable to tear myself from his side when the hour of his bedtime draws near.

Maybe it is the guilt of being away from him all day while he rides the wave and rhythm of daycare. Or maybe it is the sentiment settling in my hormone-mad brain or my sadness over his advancing age. But when he pats the bed beside him and motions for me to lie beside him, I can’t help but oblige even if I don’t fit. Even if caution screams in my mind - the pages of parenting self-help books that litter our bookshelves scream, “No!” because he must fall asleep on his own (if ever he is to grow into an independent adult). Even though I know I am setting a precedent I may actually not be able to follow through on, I  continue to lie beside him and enjoy the soft turn of his mouth and the dance in his eyes that my presence brings. It is an act of selfishness for me - I want his tiny body beside me. I want to whisper goodnight to the soft close of his lids. I want to peel my body from the crevice just as he meets slumber so he may not know the want of me. It is an act of selfishness because in this moment, I feel truly connected and at peace with the tiny life I grew from an idea inside my mind into a whole person with eyes that twinkle and a mouth that jabbers.

Lying together as night falls, we can find a place of respite together - there are no tantrums or unfulfilled expectations. Just the sheer joy of closeness. I am a confident mother here.

I know there will come a day when he won’t want me in his room, never mind in his bed. I know there will come a day – soon - when I won’t have the time or will to lay down with him. So I savour these moments, like links in my armour. I relish the smile, the way he turns over to stare at the ceiling and ultimately, the way he acknowledges my eventual departure with a kiss blown into the night air.

Writing Start: The Big Boy (or Girl) Bed

By Karen Bannister

I am trapped inside an immense amount of guilt. It seeps into the consciousness of my everyday and stands like an ever-present apparition in the corner of my eye. It is an overpowering feeling and one I can not easily give myself over to. I am a guilty mother.

My guilt is tied primarily to the time I spend away from my son - the decision I have made to work outside the home and the tiny choices that go along with that. A yoga class after works sends me reeling with it. Coffee with a girlfriend on the weekend? Guilt is the third party.

I can rationalize my life situation and this helps to silence the screams of guilt, if only somewhat. I work so we have enough money to live. Although if I am truly honest - and I am brutally so with myself - we could probably live in a cheaper house and give up one car.

I take naps to care for my unborn child - but if I forgo television watching at night or the constant losing of myself in literature, I might need less of this. The truth is I do these things to feel better about myself. I do these things to bring the grace of balance to my life.

A book I am reading suggests “mother guilt” is a product of all that mommy-hating going on out there in the world. It is celebrity moms who boast of the joys of parenthood who make us feel inadequate when we bark at our kids. It is the playground talk of peaceful nights spent entwined in the embrace of our offspring that makes us feel monstrous when we can’t wait for our children to go to bed.

But I can’t entirely blame society and those other moms. I am sure I would be this neurotically obsessed with my own shortcomings even without their sugar-coated fantasies. Because motherhood to me is a rubber-band-ball of messy emotions that sends me reeling to extremes - euphoric bliss when I glance into his eyes to downright disgust as he claws at me, his face crimson and twisted in a tantrum. I miss each moment I am away from him but sometimes pray for the end of a moment when he is near. And in all this - the admittance of this terrible truth - there is that obsessive guilt that may never loosen its hold on my heart

Writing Start: Guilt

by Karen Bannister

It happens in three blinks of an eye. One: my son, the errant explorer, is playfully moving around my bedroom stopping at the empty wooden cabinet – emptied of its contents thanks to his prying hands – and casually opening its door. Two: he is tugging on it, my eyes grow wide in surprise, my toothbrush jammed inside my mouth, my feet firmly planted just metres away from him. Three: my heart skips a beat, the entire cabinet shifts, the old, heavy television on top slides off, my son’s pristine head the target it is aiming for.

I scream his name. He looks up at me in surprise, but it is too late. In three blinks of an eye, we go from happy play-time, with me catching up on some personal hygiene, to a frightening incident as the television comes crashing to the floor, narrowly missing the entire surface of my son’s head, catching him only briefly by its corner. I remember thinking, “Okay, that wasn’t that bad.” But when I see the fold of my son’s face, the tears streaming from his eyes and the blood trickling from a wound on his head, my chest catches, tight with fear. I remember repeating to my son, (or was it to myself?) “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

I set about in a flurry of panic, trying to locate a phone book, log onto the internet and find the nearest walk-in clinic in the community I had just moved to. I did not permit myself to cry or to stop and think about what was happening. Thankfully, my son’s tears and screams had stopped, and he looked oblivious to my anxiety.

It took mere minutes to get him to the car and strap him into the car seat. I raced into the car with angst and dread – I was already picturing the conversation. A kind-faced doctor would walk into the room, gently gazing upon me and my son as though we were the picture of good care and love. And then I would confess, “A television fell on my son’s head.”

The unsuspecting doctor’s face would crumple. His eyes would narrow in disgust; he would scarcely be able to hide the thoughts in his head – terrible mother. Where was she when this was happening? Why was the cabinet not secure? Why was the television there in the first place? Hasn’t she baby proofed?

The truth is I have combed my house in search of unlikely dangers. I thought I was pretty clever in this department. But I severely underestimated the strength of my son – at one-year-old – and the swift speed by which dangerous things can happen.

I do make it to the walk-in clinic and we are seen by a doctor, kind and gentle. He smiles slightly when I tell him what has happened – I am not sure why, perhaps he has heard it before, perhaps he thinks I am crazy – but he tells me my son looks well. It is only a surface wound. Still, I tuck my tail between my legs and walk quickly from the office.

In an effort to suspend my guilt, or perhaps to prolong it, I tell every mother I know what has happened. They all look back at me in shock, but then proceed to tell their own tales of a similar mishap. My mother has a litany. I feel slightly redeemed; it seems mishaps like this one are a fact of parenthood.

For now, for everyone’s sake, the television and its cabinet have been relegated to the basement. And my son’s swift recovery – and prompt dismissal of the event – does lessen the sharp edges of regret. I may be one television away from mother of the year, but I guess that’s better than nothing.

Writing Start: Accidents

By Karen Bannister

There is a clean white page before me, blinking, a silent taunt inviting the flow of my words. The embrace of my cold kitchen, with the overhead light offsetting the seeping darkness outside the windows, is slowly warming me like the sweatshirt I haphazardly threw across my shoulders upon stumbling from bed moments earlier. I have woken early and my antidote to morning grogginess is a promise and a hope - that somewhere in this day, I will carve out time to just sit and think and write. 

My routine is a necessity born of the urgent realization that I have lost control over my life. I feel crammed into the demands of the day like a circus performer locked into a contortion. I move from one obligation to the next - whether it is dressing my son for the day and scrambling off to work where I sit behind a desk and fulfill the needs of others, or whether I it is scrambling home at the end of the day and frantically serving bread and cheese for dinner. Time is not mine to hold and embrace. There is not time to be idle, no time for self-indulgent reverie.

At night, when my son tires and finally lays his head down to sleep, there I am cleaning the kitchen, putting away the laundry, or worse – completing the work I didn’t get done during the day, stealing the quiet of evening for forms, plans, budgets.

I am not complaining. In the small corners of my house, there are the joyous giggles of my son. And in the burgeoning swell of my belly, I know I have a blessed and enjoyable life. Time, for me, is a commodity of my youth, but increasingly, it feels like an emerging necessity. It is the fuel needed to power the rest of my life and before this morning, before I folded myself in front of this blinking screen and churned out these words, I was motivated by the fumes of my empty tank.

Time is something people tell you to say goodbye to as soon as that baby releases its tiny body from your womb. On many days, it runs elusively through my fingers so that I am struck dumb at the end of the day when the clock blinks ten o’clock and my energy is depleted. Gone are the extra moments to steal a kiss and a hug with my husband, to read folded into the soft linens of my bed or even to write gibberish or coarsely strung words on a blinking white screen.

But I am not going gently into the night. I am forcing back the dawn in order to carve out my tiny moments of self-fulfillment. And so this morning, and I hope the next, I sit before my computer at my cold kitchen table - pots piled in the kitchen sink from last night’s dinner, toys strewn about the floor, Christmas cards toppling in my periphery. It is a far cry from the comforts of a writing desk folded into a quiet, clean room. But I will take these moments gratefully, even though they are already coming undone – my son is stirring in his crib upstairs and I can already feel his frantic energy seeping into this still peace.

Writing Start: My Own Time