Body Issues

My senior year in high school, I took an AP Literature/Composition class. For those of you not familiar with these courses, it's a way for high school students to receive college credit without every having to leave the comfort of their surroundings. One of the assignments was to dissect a poem, analyzing the writers intention and the pattern.

At the tender age of 17 yrs, I picked Andrew Marvell's "A Dialogue Between the Soul and Body."

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE SOUL

AND BODY

By A. Marvell

Soul.                                                               Body.

O, WHO shall from this dungeon raise          O, who shall me deliver whole,

A soul enslaved so many ways?                     From bonds of this tyrannic soul?

With bolts of bones, that fettered stands         Which, stretched upright, impales me so

In feet, and manacled in hands;                       That mine own precipice I go;

Here blinded with an eye, and there                And warms and moves this needless frame,

Deaf with the drumming of an ear;                 (A fever could but do the same),

A soul hung up, as 'twere, in chains                And, wanting where its spite to try,

Of nerves, and arteries, and veins;                   Has made me live to let me die

Tortured, besides each other part,                    A body that could never rest,

In a vain head, and double heart?                     Since this ill spirit it possessed.

Soul.                                                               Body.

What magic could me thus confine                But Physic yet could never reach
Within another's grief to pine?                       The maladies thou me dost teach;

Where, whatsoever it complain,                     Whom first the cramp of hope does tear,
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain;                     And then the palsy shakes of fear;

And all my care itself employs,                      The pestilence of love does heat,

That to preserve which me destroys;              Or hatred's hidden ulcer eat;

Constrained not only to endure                       Joy's cheerful madness does perplex,

Diseases, but, what's worse, the cure;             Or sorrow's other madness vex;

And, ready oft the port to gain,                       Which knowledge forces me to know,

Am shipwrecked into health again.                 And memory will not forego;

                                                                         What but a soul could have the wit

                                                                          To build me up for sin so fit?

                                                                          So architects do square and hew

                                                                          Green trees that in the forest grew.

At the time, though the poem fascinated me, I didn't understand it. I misinterpreted it, trying to make it about something it wasn't. And for years, though I remembered it, I was at a loss for it's meaning.

After 2.5 yrs of living with infertility and living through two miscarriages, I think I'm finally beginning to understand Mr Marvell's message.

Lossing this pregnancy has broken me. It's left me in doubt and frightened to move forward. But most of all, I've found that I'm angry. Angry with many things. But mainly, angry with my body. I'm angry that it has let me down, let Grey down and is not doing what it was designed for. I'm angry that it failed my children, not providing the home they needed to be able to grow and come into the world.

The thing is, I know if I'm going to move forward I have to confront this anger. I have to learn to trust my body again. So, this past week has been spent with me trying to resolve these issues by having a dialogue with my own body.

So far, I haven't been successful.

Unlike other situations where I would have nursed my body back to health, I instead spent this time nursing my soul. My worked longer hours to distract myself, ignoring my body's request for water and food. I started running again, despite the cramps. And when I plead with my body for some relief from the bleeding, promising it relaxation and warmth, it hit back with uterine pain and more spotting.

The reality is, my body and I are currently in dangerous territory. If we could be physically separated, we'd be sleeping in separate rooms and talking with divorce lawyers. And I'm at a loss for how to fix this.

Because I want to be able to experience pregnancy, to bear Grey's child. I want the ability to be a vessel for life. But I think my body has other plans.