WEBCASTING MADE POSSIBLE BY:
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1998
*Performance starts promptly at 5:00pm PST
*Admission: $6 for adults, $4 for students (with ID). Senior citizens and
children under 12 get in for free.
*Webcast from 5:00pm - finish:
MORE About This Event
M.A.M.A. is a newly formed collaborative group of women artists ( Lisa Mann, Deborah Oliver, Lisa Schoyer, Athena Kanaris,and Karen Schwenkmeyer) that deconstructs what it means to be a mother and active artist.
*PERFORMANCE STARTS HERE*
At the beginning my breasts hardened and milk was dripping and squirting and
running down in rivers. The bed, the clothes, the babies breath and shit,
everything was soaked in milk, smelled of sweet milk and everything stunk of
soured stale milk. There were drips and crusty white puddles of dried-up milk
on the floors and furniture.
Theres a little sting when he sucks, and searches for the other one to pinch
it between a thumb and finger, milk drips, eyes roll up. I am swung by my
breasts. air brushes my cheek in darkness, half darkness, of watery trembling
eyelids. eyes roll up. Like a peice of paper, that's blank, pinned only by
two marks and floating.
I never remember my dreams anymore, and anyway I've never seen you there,
except once, as a shadow, or a little fish,hanging close to my body. In what
shape would I look for you?
A few days after giving birth I notice that I'm seeing baby everywhere. I mean
that in all kinds of objects I notice babyish curves and creases, or curled
hands, but most of all mouths sucking. Some fruit have a kind of dimple like
a mouth. Even the plughole of the sink is sucking up the water like a mouth.
ooofff. I write in my diary that my stomach with the belly button looks like
baby to me. I see the baby as a round form with a mouth in the center .That diagram is also the diagram of a breast.There is a strange congruence between
what I see and what he sees.
I recognise baby in strange places. A changing pad, pink plastic, with wings
on it, looked like a baby with arms outstreched- so naked. Thinking about this
makes my hands go weak, squeemish, and sometimes my breasts drip with milk.
Pomegranates with their pursed up mouth, a wooden spoon. I see the telephone
receiver resting on the base a little curled, exactly as if it were a baby
sleeping on its mother's breast.
You couldn't move to a more comfortable position, you
couldn't swat away a menacing fly, you couldn't move an inch away from a
threatening dog. I did everything for you. Your seemingly endless cries sent
me searching for the cause of your unexplained discomfort. I was constantly
vigilant. Constantly, all the time, ready and available to remove the blanket that was warming you too much, shade the light from your eyes, hold you close so that we wouldn't be
separated.
"Kalle, stay near." You laughed gleefully when you could drag yourself away
from me, across the floor to reach the bookshelves. You were so proud when you
could stand without support. The responsibility changes. You can swat the flies away
now but I have to keep you from sorting through the garbage pail.
He cries for me and his hands reach straight for the buttons of my blouse. He
can't figure out how to unfasten them. I help him. "just a minute, bun bun".
He'll continue to fuss until my nipple is in his mouth. Then all is at peace.
He, slowly sucking, rolling his eyes back into their sockets in ecstasy,
exploring the contours of my face with his hand.. Only I can satisfy him.
I'm terrified of making a stupid mistake, of doing something irreversible in
one thoughtless moment: forgetting to close a door, having my eyes drift away from
him, not fastening him securely enough. [Kalle! Careful! Dangerous!] You
might tumble down the stairs, sizzle from the electrical outlets, burn in scalding
bath water, drown in your kiddy pool, all in an instant, an instant. "Kalle ,
stay close" I'm afraid of losing him, and even worse, being the cause of his
demise. He wasn't supposed to happen at all. His life is a miracle. There were
two years of shots, blood tests, getting up early every morning to see the
doctor before work, having sex in a specific window of time, no matter how we
were feeling. Pokes and prods and transporting my husband's sperm to the
doctor in a plastic cup. And then hopes careening into disappointments as the
desolate color appeared on the urine stick.... As soon as I received the news
that I was pregnant, the fear of his loss began.
I filled vial after daily vial with blood to make him. Years of doctors
gauging fertility through blood counts. A blood test revealed his existence
and his growth was charted watching the counts double and go up. It was my blood that
coursed through his shrimp-like body before he had his own. Then one day I
bled all over the bathroom floor. A huge puddle with a liver looking clot in the
shape of my uterus. I thought that I'd lost him. I collected up the clot and
took it to the doctors in a jar the next day. Miraculously the ultrasound
revealed a twinkling light, the embryo's heart beating continuously and
unfailingly. After that, confined to my bed, I carefully incubated him. A hen
sitting on her eggs, sitting tight. Last week his blood was spilled all over
the playground, and soaked into a cloth. I saw his lip split wide open, his teeth
marks on his chin. He sobbed loudly for five minutes, then stopped, finished
with his suffering. After all that we'd been through I was hoping, impossibly,
that I would never have to see his blood, even from the smallest scrape.
Although the bruises, cuts, and blood were all his, the pain was mine.
O - Oh! I smell something poopie....Do you have a poopie in your your diapie
Let mummy have a look... O-Oh stinkie ..pooh...We'd better go and change that
Come on - just a little shower nice warm water. Now lets take off the
shorts... and the dipie O-Oh! Big One! well done No don't touch please- dirty
- stop it. Here let me clean it- there don't step on it please.
Nowadays I can't talk to anyone but my child,
Everything mysteriously turns to milk, collects and drops like rain.
I still eat , drink, breathe, look...
And whatever I take in mixes with everything I've collected,
one or two misquotes, the first sentence of a history essay I memorised for
the exam, the soft polluted light around the freeway,
the thousand frequencies of sound vibrating the car, even the dirt, the waste,
I wanted to keep your milk clean..
everything turns to milk
And I'm always so thirsty, so dry,
my waters dribbling from his chin and souring the necks of his shirts.
And with the thirst there's a kind of ache like nostalgia,
but without any object.
Come on sweetheart.. come and wee in the potty for mama..here you are... sit
back a bit thats it pshshshsh twinkle twinkle little star etc....ade are you
finished o.k. well done... alot...bravo ere. Now leave the pee pee alone.
Lets go and pour it in the toilet.
I have a child who wouldn't breastfeed or feed at all. Quin lost three
pounds while ALL measures were tried. Finally the most invasive method was
required: a g-tube, a direct hole into the stomach wall to feed him.The best
choice for nutrition was still my milk, enhanced with
Nutramigen: sort of a breastmilk shake.
Expressing. Expression. Ritual. From a person who before this shunned
ritual. Coping, alone. Alonetime. Some pleasurable sensations, but not able
to act on them. Enough pleasure, watching the nipples get manipulated by the
suction: tug, release, tug, release.
Pump it out, get the most, the more I pump, the more my body makes. Set up
the next pumping session: Label the bottles, four at a time. Use
scotch tape. Bend over a tab. Write the date and time. Stick them on
the bottles. Attach clean "horns" to two of the bottles. Write in the
journal: when, amount. Now manually manipulate all four quadrants on each
side. Help the pump. Get it out. The right one makes more than the left.
Work harder on the left one. Does it show? Am I lopsided? Sometimes as much
as two ounces difference.
Watch out, don't let it overflow!
Cap the bottles. Refrigerate them. When there are enough in the
refrigerator, transfer: shake & pour into liter container. Peel oldest &
newest date stickers, put on liter container. Put container to back of
row of frozen containers, in freezer. Thaw oldest container, the one in
the front. Measure and add Nutramigen to raise the caloric count. We'll pump
it straight into your stomach until you drink it yourself --
whenever that'll be. Patience. Pump and pour and cool and freeze and thaw
and mix and pump. Put the glass bottles into the dishwasher, twelve at a
time. Wash all the pump parts. Carefully. My milk is so fatty,the fat
collects in the nooks.
Sometimes, like on weekends, I'd sleep in late and pump one less time per day.
Several times I pumped thirteen and a half ounces in one sitting.
The most I pumped in a day was 30 and a quarter ounces, on Sunday, May 26,
1996.
Quin, you're in the other room, with someone else trying to console you.
This time that I invest in pumping for you, it's also my time, my own,
time to be alone.
I hate ritual. I'm allergic to planning. Now I've got such a tight
regimen, a requirement to ensure we're doing our best for you. I can do
this. This I can control.
"It's not your fault. You've got perfect breastfeeding nipples, your
flow is good, maybe too good. I think your letdown comes in such a gush it's
close to drowning him. You are abundant."
If I were more efficient, Iid have more time. What can I do to be more
efficient? More. More.
The pleasure is in the habit. Maybe. Sure. More than the need for
Quin. Gastroenterologist says we could go to straight formula anytime.
So why do I continue? Because no one knows about Quin's disorder.
Because Mother's Milk Is Best. Because it's mine to give. Something I
can control. Rule out allergy to my milk. It isn't exacerbating Quin's
problems, is it? What am I eating? No citrus, no broccoli. Plenty of
garlic. So little to be able to control.
The doctors don't know anything, they tell me so, over and over again.
Life expectancy? Maybe to two, maybe longer, hard to say. If he makes
it to two, he'll have a better chance of reaching ten. So many doctors,
so many doctors' visits, beg the insurance company to give me more
nursing hours, guard my sleep time, pump my milk, vain attempts to
console, keep enough data to be able to sort this out later. Take
pleasure in commuting 65 miles each way to teach, twice a week.
There is no intimacy. Pleasure is several degrees away from
masturbation. No one is able to offer empathy; the Mommy & Me support group
gives me blank stares as they go on to the next mom, successfully suckling her
child in front of them. Mary Ann isn't interested in answering my pumping
questions. To hell with them. Ritual as consoling, self-consoling effort.
Lee got me a chair, supposed to be comfortable. But it's hard to pump in it,
too deep. Canit pump in a reclining position. Have to lean forward.Use my
thighs to hold the bottles. Sit on the edge. So uncomfortable.My back. I'll
have to get rid of this one day. In Laws visit, must close door. Tough on
Rosie. Canit kick the ball for you today.
"Have you tried putting Quin to your breast recently? He may have
changed..." So many well-intentioned people who don't have a clue.
Imagine a screaming face, open mouth passing back and forth across your
breast, refusing, absolutely refusing, saliva covering the breast.
Each time Quin went to the hospital, I'd collect more glass bottles.
More to label, more to fill, more to empty.
My odds for a child with Down Syndrome are about one in 500. There are about
100 cases worldwide with Quin's probable disorder. So let's say ... there are
about 6 billion people in the world. That would mean Quin's syndrome occurs
once for every 60 million people. Is it underdiagnosed? Maybe.
"Ugh! I smell poop. Let's go change your diaper. Poopie pie, poopie pie, poopie pie, poopie pie poo, poopie pie poo, poopie
pie poo. Poopie pie, poopie pie, poopie pie, poopie pie poo, poopie pie poo,
poopie pie poo."
I 'm a host body, a punching bag, an all-night restaurant. The bathtub is
our favorite nursing station: an all-you-can-eat smorgasborg! While
nursing, he gropes and pokes and smacks and kicks my body. We assume the usual
position: a churning, fleshy, mess of legs, arms and bellies, mouths, fingers
and nipples; When I take his diaper off, he finds his penis, he pulls and
squeezes it, with much pleasure. Sometimes, he makes sure that I'm watching
and pretends to bite down on my nipple just to elicit my usual reaction "No
biting! Hurts Mommy." Other times, he puts his fingers in my mouth and,
naturally; I suck them like delicious morsels. He is delectable.He sucks on me
and I suck on him; It just feels like the right thing to do.I must be careful
not to get too carried away with my affection; one lingering kiss might cause
a hickie on his tender flesh. No way to explain that! I'm sure Social Services
wouldn't understand. When he is eating in his high chair, he likes to offer me
his food. I always take a little nibble. If there is anything left on his tray
when he finishes, then I eat it; I want to eat everything that he does. If
something falls on the floor, as it often does, then I pick it up, blow off
any dirt, and put it back on his tray, or I eat it myself. If he eats off the
floor, than so do I.
"More Mim-mim? But, I just gave you boobie!" His craving for mommy milk
is uncontrollable. Its like a bad habit. "Are you a milkaholic?" He just
drinks more and more and more until my breasts
are slack and empty and drooping -but already beginning to refill. It's a
vicious circle of supply and demand. His addiction is wearing me out. I
can't take any more of these nights with 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock, 3 am, and 5
am 20-minutefeedings. I feel like I've become a human pacifier, for godsake!
The doctor told me that "Breastfed babies don't get attached to pacifiers or
an old blanket or stuffed animal; instead they get attached to their mother's
body." Great! But guess who's starting to feel like an old, chewed-on blanket?
I just never imagined this kind of intense, draining, dependence on my body.
I'm a wreck! During the rare occasions that I refuse to give him my breast,
the idea being that he will learn to fall asleep without it, his cry is
shrill, hysterical to the point of hyperventillation. It is the cry of an
addict with a serious Jones.
"Do you have something in your mouth? What did you put in your mouth,
sweetpea? Open up. Oh, it's a rock. We don't eat rocks, baby boy. Ugh! OK, now
give it to Mommy. Thank you."
It reminds me of when I was in college - that intensity of infatuation, that feeling of being all sucked in and wrung out, hungry, satiated, exhausted by your emotions - when any little thing can make you cry. When I'm away from him I dream of his plump Michelin man legs, his silky skin, the way he stretches out his hand while his whole body expresses elation. I want to smother his sticky cheeks with kisses.
Since he was born he cried a lot, and he was inconsolable. We still don't know the reason. Everyone tells me that newborn babies don't cry with tears, but Quin did. I tried to collect them as they trickled down his cheeks, with an eyedropper. Something I could keep. I didn't think about the bacteria. The tears I collected got moldy and smelly.
He's asleep.Through the plastic window in the hood of the stroller his mouth
and eyes are blurred in the way that children are mysterious to their parents.
Legs stick out from under it - not a baby's legs. Hes almost 3 feet tall
already, furry , covered with down almost like a man, brown already, long
already, stoopshouldered, bignosed , small round headed, darkeyed, with fine
pale skin on his torso, thick legged, big footed and handed, still soft like a
peach. Already almost 3 feet tall, and my milk still runs down for him.
He grabs my nipples and touchs them gently, unlike anything else that he
touches, he cups his hands over them to imitate their shape and pats them and
speaks to them with words that I don't understand. I walk through the room
undressed to tease him, and he laughs and points to them when he sees them
hanging down and moving. If I bend over him he likes to catch hold of them
from below like a lamb and pull them. At night he rolls me from side to side
to drink from one and then the other- a kind of greed.
From the beginning milk travelled between us, whispering. What's the secret?
Not his pleasure, that's all on the surface, but mine, not his bliss but mine.
Not only the sentimental fantasies of a brain full of hormones, but the
consummation, the bribe, the endorphins released into the bloodstream by the
soft mouth tugging on the nipple. When he was very little, the smell of his
hair reminded me of lovers. But you know so many millions of words written
about the thrills and spills of romantic love - sex, something that looks so
trivial from here, almost nothing, a game - compared to the immensity of the
feeling , the effort, the attention, that's required to keep the infant alive
day after day and night after night. And theres no sperate word for this
drive, this love. He touches the breasts gently with the flat of his hand-
saying "mama big ones big big" Its better not to talk about it since everyones
so obsessed with sex, since there are no words for it. Its better not to talk
about it.