Delirium by Laura Restrepo
Here is Colombia, in South America:
And here's your about the book:
In this remarkably nuanced novel, both a gripping detective story and a passionate, devastating tale of eros and insanity in Colombia, internationally acclaimed author Laura Restrepo delves into the minds of four characters. There’s Agustina, a beautiful woman from an upper-class family who is caught in the throes of madness; her husband Aguilar, a man passionately in love with his wife and determined to rescue her from insanity; Agustina’s former lover Midas, a drug-trafficker and money-launderer; and Nicolás, Agustina’s grandfather. Through the blend of these distinct voices, Restrepo creates a searing portrait of a society battered by war and corruption, as well as an intimate look at the daily lives of people struggling to stay sane in an unstable reality.
Reading through this description again, I would not say I was given a searing portrait of a society battered by war and corruption. Why do book descriptions always make it much more grandiose than it is? That's my slight gripe. But I really liked this book, and it was intriguing enough to make me forget about other stuff going on in my life. In fact, it got me through Memorial Weekend with the in-laws.
HERE BE SPOILERS PROBABLY
So the story really centers around Agustina and her just...going kinda crazy. Aguilar and Midas's parts of the story still revolve around Agustina, and Nicolas is her grandfather who was also crazy. There weren't chapters or anything, just snippets where one part of the story would be narrated by one or the other of them, and then the snippet would be up and another would begin. It did get a little frustrating at times because you could only get a bit of information at a time, but I guess maybe that kept it more exciting.
The whole time I was trying to figure out what was going on with Agustina and why she went a little insane; if there was a family history of mental problems or there was some traumatic event and she had a psychotic break. The grandfather did have some problems, and his kind of seemed like dementia, but hers were kind of inexplicable. It almost seemed like a skewed version of bipolar disorder, but from someone who doesn't know a whole lot about the disorder. So she snaps, gets belligerent, aggressive, and despondent at times...and then stops after a while. That's it. There's no explanation for why it began or why it ended. And maybe there are some disorders where this happens, but it just seemed like kind of an exaggerated or skewed version of a mental health issue.
Ok, it seems like I'm bitching about the book and didn't like it. I did, it was interesting and exciting even if I didn't get all the answers. And, like I said, it took me out of my world and put me in this crazy little mystery. Which I will always welcome.
Red Dust by Ma Jian
You probably know where China is. It's big. The US is mad at it.
Here's the summary from the book cover:
"In 1983 Ma Jian, a photographer, painter, poet, and writer, set out for the most remote and toughest parts of China. Dispirited and fearful, accused at work of having 'a sluggish mentality,' confronted with a failed marriage, an estranged young daughter, and a girlfriend involved with another man, he abandons Beijing and a life he can no longer endure. Red Dust is the account of his travels, a remarkably written and subtly moving journey toward understanding.
A dropout, a fugitive from the police, a Buddhist in search of enlightenment, Ma Jian embarks on a three-year trek that takes him from the deepest south to the western provinces and Tibet, journeying across deserts, over mountains, through icy rivers. And as he travels to increasingly remote areas, his circumstances become increasingly strained: he stays in filthy inns, sleeping four to a plank bed, learning to wait until his companions fall asleep and then lying on top of them. To support himself, he buys a pair of scissors and becomes a roadside barber, sells scouring powder as tooth whitener, lives by his wits posing as an enlightened religious man.
His sense of humor and sanity keep him intact-'Danger is not exciting,' he tells a friend, 'it's just proof of your incompetence.' The greatest hardship he faces is disappointment-or perhaps his own honesty. Tibet offers no enlightenment ('Is Buddha saving man or is man saving Buddha?' he asks); his own restlessness undermines his yearning for love. Ma Jian's portrait of his country provides no understanding of its enigmas, no neat generalizations, no sweeping predictions. It simply reminds us of China's scale, its shadows, and, ultimately, its otherness.
China is interesting. I know it's still communist, but I wonder if it's as rampant and obvious as it is in the book. Anyway, here are some tidbits I picked up from Ma Jian's account. So he decides he wants to run away and travel, because his job and the powers that be are, well, communist. But you can't really just go. Everywhere he stays he has to have like an invitation or a letter saying he's allowed to be there. So in going travelling, he's basically running away and it seems like he could have been put in jail for it. Or maybe the jail part would have been because he forged a bunch of the introduction documents. Anyway it's bananas that you had to go through all that to travel. I wonder if it's still like that. Also it seems like China is one big, gross smell, or it was in the 80s.
So even though he had to have these letters to go anywhere, people's hospitality was amazing. They would just let him stay in their homes and feed him and get him into culturally interesting spots. And they would give him names of family or friends in other cities to stay with and those people would be just as hospitable.
I thought this was a really interesting point: "I recount my thoughts after leaving the desert. 'Walking through the wilds freed me from worries and fears, but this is not real freedom. You need money to be free.'" And, at least in a city or "civilized" culture, that's true. This was another good one: "When man's spirit is in chains, he loses all respect for nature." Is that what's happening now?
One of the last accounts Ma Jian gives is of a sky burial, which kind of grossed me out. I just had to look up more information on it to see if people still do it. They do. So they take the dead body to the top of the mountain, and this one had some sort of contraption they set the body up on. Then they like cut up or bashed the body for vultures and wild animals. And they hang out there while the body is being eaten. I mean, I also think burial like we do in the US is super wasteful, so this is better and more environmentally friendly than that. But it's still so gruesome, and to sit there while your loved one gets ripped apart and devoured by vultures seems awful to go through.
This was a pretty cool book. It's awesome to read about people who are just like "fuck this, I need something new." But it also goes to show that you can't run from yourself. Eventually he grows tired of his nomadic lifestyle and decides to go back to Beijing and stability. End of page, end of story, gooooodbyyyye.
Death
A week or so before we set sail on our cruise, I started to feel a little different. To rule it out, I took a pregnancy test: negative. Cool, on with life. But the differentness didn't go away, and I started to get a little more panicky as vacation time got closer. So two days before we left, I got up and took another test. I don't think it took 30 seconds before the little plus sign showed up. I looked at it, said fuck, and sent a text to Soldier: "Well, guess what." Finally I got his response: "You're pregnant" (actually, he isn't great at and doesn't care about spelling and grammar so it actually said "your pergnant" which I laughed about later). I said, "Yup. I'm kind of freaking out." What he said next made me absolutely lose it. It was simply Me too. The thing is, Soldier doesn't freak out. He's one of the most even-keeled people on the planet; he barely ever even gets mad. So I called him, crying and hyperventilating. I was aware that this wasn't the response I should have to a positive pregnancy test, but there's a big difference in wanting a child and that becoming a reality. At least there was for me; it's a terrifying prospect being entrusted with another life.
We looked up false positives, I took another test to be sure, and we finally conceded that this was happening. I was able to cancel my drink package for the cruise, and we made sure our parents were the first to know. I've already written about the cruise, so I'll only say that not drinking wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Virgin mojitos were the ticket for poolside, and the boys really only got annoying later at night when they were pretty sauced.
We had the first OB appointment at 8 weeks. It was kind of surreal, and I asked if they routinely do a blood test just to make sure. The doctor seemed to think it was a weird question, but I really didn't feel pregnant. I mean, I was tired and hungry a lot, but no morning sickness or any of the bad parts. So I got home and took another test: still pregnant. We then told our siblings and started to tell friends as we talked to them.
Earlier this past week one of my sisters sent a onesie and another sent a journal to chart the baby's growth. On Thursday, we decided to do some yard work, which was a little more exertion than I'm used to (don't judge me). After we finished my back hurt, but I didn't think much of it; we'd been moving dirt that was wet and heavy. As I was filling out the growth journal, I started to feel some cramps, so I decided to take a nice soothing bath.
I'll warn you now: from here on out it's not pretty and it doesn't have a happy outcome. If you don't want the grisly details or are uncomfortable with the workings of the female body, get out now.
The bath felt great; I was reading a good book and the warmth took away the aches. I perched back on the couch to watch tv with Soldier, and the cramps came back a bit. A while later when I went to pee, I noticed blood in the toilet. It unnerved me a little bit but I tried not to overreact. Throughout the night, the cramps kept up and I kept seeing blood dripping when I peed. To make it scarier, the blood looked kind of like clots, but it wasn't free-flowing so I held on to some hope.
Early Friday morning I wasn't feeling any better and we considered going to the hospital. I took a shower and Soldier got in touch with Dr. Father in Law, who didn't seem overly concerned. He said we should just call the OB's office and see what they recommend. They also didn't seem to think it was too bad, and told me to just take some Tylenol to see if it helped. It seemed to temper the cramps a bit, but the blood was still coming. It seemed like a lot to me, but I have no idea so (again) I tried not to overreact. We talked to Dr. FiL again, and he said he didn't like that I was still having cramps, and that it probably wouldn't hurt to get an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay. Around midnight, we decided it might be time to go to the hospital. Soldier called to see if we might be able to just schedule an ultrasound, and we were shuffled around to different people, before being told we should talk to the OB's office and see if they could schedule one. So I called the on-call doctor and told him what was going on. He told me I would just have to wait until Monday and call the office; that they couldn't schedule it then and I just had to wait. He added that if it was a miscarriage they couldn't do anything anyway. I started crying while trying to say thank you. He quickly said "I'm sorry dear" and hung up. His callous reaction to my having gone through 36 hours of pain, terror, and confusion were more than I could handle. This asshole was what broke me. I threw the phone down and sobbed. I told Soldier I just wanted to go to sleep. That night, the bleeding seemed to have stopped, which I thought was good.
Saturday morning, I was still in pain, and Soldier took a stand and said we were going in. I agreed, hoping that we would have an ultrasound, see everything was fine, and maybe have some tips for the pain. At 10 weeks, the fetus would be about an inch long, so I figured I would know if it was expelled.
Blood and urine were taken, and we waited for the ultrasound. The tech came and I watched the screen as she took what felt like a thousand pictures. And there was...nothing. So she did an internal ultrasound (a wand that went up my hoo-ha), but she turned the screen so I couldn't see it. I had a feeling she knew, and I spent the whole time watching Soldier's face while he looked at the screen. He hadn't seen anything. At that point, I really knew. When I got up to pee a little later, there was a bit of a rush of blood and possibly tissue. The doctor finally came in and asked how I was feeling. I somehow still had a tiny shred of hope that things were okay; I wanted it so badly to be okay.
She didn't actually call it a miscarriage. She called it a probable miscarriage, as if there was a question. I really tried to be strong but I started crying, and I felt so bad for her having to give people that news.
Today I'm trying to process. The pain is pretty much gone. I'm crying a lot. And it almost seems stupid to be this sad; I didn't hold it, I didn't see it, I never even felt it move. It was only two and a half months, and it was over so quickly. To be honest the whole pregnancy almost feels like a fantasy I made up. It was too easy, maybe it was doomed from the start. And I keep wondering if I could have changed something. But I took my prenatal vitamins, I stopped drinking, I added more fruits and vegetables to my diet, I tried to get more exercise. It's hard not to think I did something with the yard work. (Before you start texting me, Mom, I do know that it's not my fault.) I know logically that it's random and common but, if I just had a reason, I could do something differently if I get pregnant again.
I have to get another blood test tomorrow to check the hcg levels and possibly get another ultrasound to make sure everything's out. I know it's necessary, but it almost feels like adding insult to injury. I know what the hcg levels are going to mean. I know an ultrasound is still going to be empty. I want to stop crying and I can't do that with it being shoved in my face. But I guess I keep crying anyway so it doesn't matter. Soldier's at work and I feel lonely and empty. I wish we had a pet. I'm dreading the bloodwork. I'm dreading having to tell people that the baby's gone.
The bright spot in all of this is Soldier. He's been so supportive and I think he's just been trying keep me from completely losing my shit. It doesn't seem like he's having a hard time with the loss, but of course I don't know all his inner thoughts and he's not overly communicative with emotions. I think he's mostly worried about me. I'm trying my best to hold it together for him...I know it's going to be okay. I know that lots of women go through this and go on to have healthy babies later. Hopefully I'll be one some day.
My last thoughts are for any healthcare providers that may be readers. Don't ever forget to have compassion. You may have seen something a million times and it's just routine, but that's not true for the patient. They're vulnerable, scared, hurting, confused, and they're entrusting their or their loved one's health to you. Feelings need just as much care as bodies. (I know, my inner bleeding heart social worker is showing). I guess that's a whole other rant.
I've run out of steam recounting it all. I suppose I may need to get more of the hurt and sad out at some point, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum. For anyone who's made it this far, thanks for reading. This was a terrible few days. But I do know it will get better.
