might allow you to have all the things you want?
Having a child, according to the workbook, was a matter of figuring out a certain set of logistics, and you would need to be very organized and begin the process a long time in advance of getting pregnant. But even if you had everything in place, down to the money set aside for cigarettes, it still seemed to me you did not necessarily have a reason to have a child. What was a good reason to have a child? What justification could there be for keeping one? Surely every couple would fail on some test of preparednessâbut should we all give up our babies, if we couldnât tick every box? And if some couple really was ready, should that alone entitle them to take my child? Nature certainly wasnât paying attention to anyoneâs readiness.
And it seemed to me that giving up a child would likely bring about issues I wasnât any more prepared to deal with than I was the logistics of parenthood. Why didnât my workbook ask: Was I really ready to lose a child?
I didnât fill out the answers. The answers were obvious. No, I wasnât ready. Yes, every single one of my dreams precluded having a child at twenty-three. The questions did their job. They forced me to look closely at a future I was in important ways not equipped for and scared me back. I went online at the computer lab and began requesting âDear Birth Motherâ letters from every agency I could find. As the profiles streamed in, in thick packages that arrived on my stoop, Jevn and I spent hours reviewing them, and I began to send envelopes full of letters to my sister in China to scan for potential candidates.
Â
SEVEN
The architecture building was buried in a hillside that sloped steeply from my favorite exit down to the street, and a signature landscape architect had put some signature ripples in the lawn on its way down. Only two floors peeped out from the top of the hill, but four stories were buried underground and opened like a geode into the interior of campus. The building had reputedly been constructed without a single 90-degree angle between any two planes; walls met floors and each other at various angles, some so closely approximating 90 degrees they didnât seem avant-garde at all, and some so acute they became dusty no-manâs-lands into which no furniture could be squeezed. Room numbers were out of sequence and nested, such that 6206 was hidden inside a hallway accessed by 6104. The building was clad in a synthetic material painted pink and baby blue; the window mullions were Frank Lloyd Wright red.
I drove past it many times when I was in the conservatory. I thought it was a derelict elementary school, swallowed over time by an insatiable university campus and slated for demolition. I would soon learn about deconstructivism and that the building had just had its forty-million-dollar ribbon cutting.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
âHey,â I said, greeting Jevn in the computer lab.
âHey,â he exhaled, leaning back in his chair, not looking up from the screen. I sat down at the computer beside him.
I didnât ask him about school, and he didnât ask about my internship, which had just started that week. It was the kind of architecture Iâd hoped to do when I signed up for architecture school. Free design work for people who needed it. But most of the projects were on hold awaiting funding, and I spent a lot of time gazing out the storefront windows. The only thing that really broke up the day was eating my afternoon egg, which I shut myself in the tiny bathroom at the back of the office to do. I became a vegan when I was twelve, so I hadnât eaten an egg in ten years. Iâd crack the shell on the sink and wrap the pieces in toilet paper. Then Iâd swallow it like a pill. Iâd face myself in the mirror, amid drawings stored along the side of the sink and behind the toilet, waiting for the fan to suck up the smell. I
Having a child, according to the workbook, was a matter of figuring out a certain set of logistics, and you would need to be very organized and begin the process a long time in advance of getting pregnant. But even if you had everything in place, down to the money set aside for cigarettes, it still seemed to me you did not necessarily have a reason to have a child. What was a good reason to have a child? What justification could there be for keeping one? Surely every couple would fail on some test of preparednessâbut should we all give up our babies, if we couldnât tick every box? And if some couple really was ready, should that alone entitle them to take my child? Nature certainly wasnât paying attention to anyoneâs readiness.
And it seemed to me that giving up a child would likely bring about issues I wasnât any more prepared to deal with than I was the logistics of parenthood. Why didnât my workbook ask: Was I really ready to lose a child?
I didnât fill out the answers. The answers were obvious. No, I wasnât ready. Yes, every single one of my dreams precluded having a child at twenty-three. The questions did their job. They forced me to look closely at a future I was in important ways not equipped for and scared me back. I went online at the computer lab and began requesting âDear Birth Motherâ letters from every agency I could find. As the profiles streamed in, in thick packages that arrived on my stoop, Jevn and I spent hours reviewing them, and I began to send envelopes full of letters to my sister in China to scan for potential candidates.
Â
SEVEN
The architecture building was buried in a hillside that sloped steeply from my favorite exit down to the street, and a signature landscape architect had put some signature ripples in the lawn on its way down. Only two floors peeped out from the top of the hill, but four stories were buried underground and opened like a geode into the interior of campus. The building had reputedly been constructed without a single 90-degree angle between any two planes; walls met floors and each other at various angles, some so closely approximating 90 degrees they didnât seem avant-garde at all, and some so acute they became dusty no-manâs-lands into which no furniture could be squeezed. Room numbers were out of sequence and nested, such that 6206 was hidden inside a hallway accessed by 6104. The building was clad in a synthetic material painted pink and baby blue; the window mullions were Frank Lloyd Wright red.
I drove past it many times when I was in the conservatory. I thought it was a derelict elementary school, swallowed over time by an insatiable university campus and slated for demolition. I would soon learn about deconstructivism and that the building had just had its forty-million-dollar ribbon cutting.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
âHey,â I said, greeting Jevn in the computer lab.
âHey,â he exhaled, leaning back in his chair, not looking up from the screen. I sat down at the computer beside him.
I didnât ask him about school, and he didnât ask about my internship, which had just started that week. It was the kind of architecture Iâd hoped to do when I signed up for architecture school. Free design work for people who needed it. But most of the projects were on hold awaiting funding, and I spent a lot of time gazing out the storefront windows. The only thing that really broke up the day was eating my afternoon egg, which I shut myself in the tiny bathroom at the back of the office to do. I became a vegan when I was twelve, so I hadnât eaten an egg in ten years. Iâd crack the shell on the sink and wrap the pieces in toilet paper. Then Iâd swallow it like a pill. Iâd face myself in the mirror, amid drawings stored along the side of the sink and behind the toilet, waiting for the fan to suck up the smell. I
Similar Books
