Salt Air Solace
or how I'm learning to swim
This is the second summer in a row where I am suffocated by the heat. We did this to ourselves. I used to be driven by this intensity. Is it getting even hotter? Sometimes it feels like the desert is changing, as am I. Last year, my body retaliated with rashes. This time, I decided to do something about it. We escaped to Santa Barbara.
Around 3 months postpartum, right as July started, I noticed something happening within my body. Racing thoughts, inability to tolerate heat, inability to sleep. My hands shook. I felt like my brain was numb, more akin to sitting beside me on the couch than inside of my head. Disassociation for survival. I knew I was at a higher risk of developing hormonal issues post-pregnancy from pre-existing conditions but wasn’t expecting them to hit me well into postpartum after thinking I was in the clear. I’m in a state of hyperthyroidism where my body is in overdrive, running faster than my tired mind can keep up with.
I was already hospitalized for postpartum preeclampsia a week after Hayes’s birth, a condition that can be fatal, so another postpartum issue terrified me. In both instances, with issues affecting my cardiovascular system, I lay awake at night feeling every heart beat and wondering if I am going to die, if we have enough milk stored in the freezer. I thought pregnancy brought me closer to life and death. Postpartum took me physically closer than I was ready for, and the fear of my own body while caring for a newborn sent my mind into a heated, muggy haze. My days are spent inside in the AC, usually in dark rooms. I am not moving my body as I’d like to. My energy goes to keeping my child alive. An overheated body in a desert is wont to drive one mad.
So we drove up north to cooler temperatures and the open sea for some relief. The oppression lifted as we arrived at Loon Point Beach with my dear friend Nuria, where the ocean air replaced my hot breath with something of magic. I was anxious for the excursion of taking a baby to the beach and re-engaging with nature, though different than the one at home which was stifling me. To think 4 years ago we moved to the desert to experience vastness and leave the city that was hugging us a little too tight. Now, in this new phase, I am yet again seeking something different to ease my body and mind.
Nuria, Matt and I stripped down and ran into the ocean. Our three heads bobbed in the cool water and I felt held. By the water and by two of my tethers. I looked back at my baby with his grandmother on the beach. I let the water carry me away from him for some brief, wet moments. I needed to be carried this time. I felt light and soft.
Each time I returned back into the water that day, I’d wade out past the break and into the waves. I watched them roll in, so textured and at points angry and loud. I timed whether I’d dive under, let them carry me, or let them hit me hard. They kept coming, and coming, never ceasing. Each wave was a new one to judge. Assess. React to.
At one point, while looking back at the beach and cliffs, I was hit with the largest one of the day from behind. It took me by surprise and pulled me under. As I was jostled around, I thought for a second I might not return to the surface. I let tension and the need to fight leave my body. I trusted the buoyancy of my body and my ability to hold my breath. I felt calm under the water. I patiently waited until I felt reoriented. I came up for air with a smile on my face.
Despite growing up in a landlocked city, the ocean reminds me of being a little girl and swimming with my father. Whether swimming with wild dolphins or learning to scuba dive, the ocean taught me how to conquer fears young. It always teaches me. The ocean, like my son, is a mirror. I am awash with clarity at the sea.
Before leaving Santa Barbara, we read tarot cards as all of my emotions from the past weeks remained bubbled up at my surface. I am not surprised with what came up - cup after cup after cup. The suit of intuition, the element of water. The water is healing me, protecting me, challenging me, showing me a new way to be in this phase of my life. As a Pisces, the water brings me back to myself.
And what about judgement? In tarot, judgement is a reckoning. A rebirth. Absolution. Stepping into a new version. I am facing this wave of postpartum head-on.
Years before I got pregnant, I spoke with an astrologer about my future with children. I have our session recorded, and upon a re-listen, the statements are haunting. She cautioned potential issues with my physical body and wellbeing. Planets around my moon, my womb, had been in conflict. Pregnancy would drastically impact my mood and disrupt my hormones - and while I only saw this as impacting conception or pregnancy itself, I realize now it was the aftermath. I would be able to see it through, based on some other planetary placements, but it would be something I’d have to live with. The waves will keep coming.
When I was pregnant, I regularly woke up at 4am to eat cereal in my kitchen. I would check in on a girl who was documenting her solitary row across the Atlantic ocean on Instagram. She mesmerized me. She rocked, alone, through storms. Through the night. While stalked by a marlin. I looked forward to her updates - a woman alone at sea.
Now, when I wake up at 4am to feed my baby, I keep a sound machine on. I play the sounds of a calm ocean while we sleep. When it’s dark, or only a red light glows, the sound of waves holds us both like a womb. We are comforted in this darkness in between the sacredness of sleep. We are in the sea together.
Despite what the astrologer said, I proceeded with this adventure and into the depths. I am proceeding. I stepped into the water and into a newness I can not only handle, but embrace. I am getting stronger every day. My motherhood is the ocean. I am learning how to swim in these waters.
Love,
Lily
‘the fourth trimester’—keep sharing 💕
Thank you for sharing this real and raw experience. We don’t talk about this aspect of motherhood enough and it’s so needed.