Anaemia Illuminates

What happens when you can't think? Plus what I'm reading and eating in May.

Hey friend,

I stood on the smooth red granite, listening to the water running over rock and my sons’ yells of delight. With the cool shift in the weather, my husband and I had abandoned the Sunday Afternoon Beach Rhythm in favour of (very low-key) bush walks in the hills. I packed a basket with a picnic blanket, thermos of hot tea, mugs, homemade banana bread, and mini-thermoses of hot chocolate. I pressed my feet into the rock, warm tea in hand, listening to the rustle of dark eucalyptuses framed against pink clouds. 

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

I was 29 weeks pregnant with our third son. I still had ten weeks left of pregnancy left to go. I wanted to curl up into a ball for a week. I felt time and gravity pulling at me. There was still so much to do before this baby arrived, and I was dragging around cast iron limbs and throbbing hips by sheer force of will. I was breathless, careening through commitments on a slick of buttery exuberance. 

It was like my mind had forsaken me. I could not think properly. Trying to think with anaemia was like pulling wispy thoughts out of wet concrete. That thinking, that million miles an hour, restless, freight-train-brain has always been my hallmark. Sure, my mind was chaotic while strapped to the train, but I had gotten used to it. I made it my identity.

I built a career around it.

It was how I always did so much.

I was proud of it, and then it was gone. 

I’ve never been an outdoorsy person. My school reports for sport said things like, “Bec is very enthusiastic, but has not mastered the required skills.” I want to be a woman who loves running, but it only makes me angry. I tried climbing the Stirling Ranges when my husband and I were dating, but kept getting overtaken by old people. 

When I started dating Zac, I noticed that he and his parents had a knack for pointing out and explaining the world around me. Like, “See here, this is a spider orchid,” or “Look, this is an igneous rock.”

This might be because both of his parents are teachers or because Zac grew up on a farm where he spent a lot of time playing outside. At the farm, my oldest son can ride in a straight line for as long as he likes and make cubbies in the bush. He is never happier than when he is doing this. 

It is not the same in the suburbs. Being in nature requires intentionality. 

Once a fortnight, I trade seats in the therapy room and talk with my supervisor, Greg, about my cases and anything I’m finding tricky. It’s a requirement of my registrar program as a Clinical Psychologist. This particular week, I flipped pages, complained about my exhaustion, whined about not being able to think and how bereft I felt without it. 

Greg paused, then commented, “It’s ironic that God seems to allow us to hurt in areas where we are most tempted to be proud.” 

I wondered, Who am I without my freight-train-brain? Who am I if I can’t think?

Wednesday is an early finish at my son’s school. Sometimes we go straight to the library when I get an email that my reservations are ready to pick up. This particular Wednesday, we scrounged through the kids section and left with our bags full of Dog Man comics and Julia Donaldson picture books. Then we pushed open the heavy glass doors, walked down the concrete steps, and crossed a quiet road. We passed the plastic park and settled in on the bank of the creek. 

I could hear civilization–a car horn, the quiet hum of cars–but also rustling leaves, birds cawing and cheeping. Henry squelched past me, his Blundstone boots filled with water. He tried to climb a scrawny tree over the tiny, eddying creek, but he put his trust in a stray branch and ended up in the water. After the initial shock, he slithered around the stream, stick in hand, poking at things in the water. George squatted on the bank, also armed with a stick, splashing away. 

The golden evening light suffused the space with a nostalgic hue. It felt like we had escaped the daily grind for a moment, like a pause in a piece of music. It was not the great outdoors, that’s for sure, but it was not bad for 4.30pm on a Wednesday. 

Perched on a little stump, I pulled out drawing materials from my burgeoning bag and set to work sketching the tree on the other bank. I felt ridiculous there with my pencils, pretending to be an artist, but anaemia made it hard to think. I couldn’t read, because reading required thought. I couldn’t write, because writing required thought. I was in Kmart recently, getting the kids drawing supplies, and impulsively threw a visual art diary and watercolour pencils for me in my trolley. I figured sketching would be less demanding on my mind. 

While I was drawing, memories came back from primary school, spending my time staring out the window and drawing. I remembered that I quit high-school art in Year 11 because I told myself I was not good enough to be there, even though I loved it. Looking at this tree, I realised I had never actually sketched a real tree. My renderings always had ramrod straight branches, nothing to impede their progress towards the sky. 

I was surprised to see the branches on this tree were not straight. They curved, deviated, and took new paths. Branches even broke off at points. It made me think of Mary Oliver, “All the questions that the spider’s curious life made me ask, I know I can find answered in some book of knowledge, of which there are many. But the palace of knowledge is different from the palace of discovery, in which I am, truly, a Copernicus. The world is not what I thought, but different, and more! I have seen it with my own eyes!”¹

I’ve always wanted to learn the best way of doing anything. Learn more, learn the right way. But I find myself strangely, uncharacteristically incurious about the benefits of being outside. The benefits of drawing. The benefits of art. The impact of natural light on mental health. The impact of nature on children. The impact of open ended play on children. 

Beauty is more than the sum of its parts. I don’t need research to tell me it’s better to look at a tree than a screen. I don’t need a podcast to teach me that taking pencils to the creek is more pleasant than tapping at my phone. I don’t have to mountain bike or hike to enjoy simply being outside. It’s not just good for my kids to be in nature, it is good for me. It does not have to be perfect for it to work.

I was too tired to clamber over the rocks, but I stood on the river-worn granite, swaying from side to side, watching my husband as he helped our boys cross the wide part of the stream to explore on the other side. I grasped the warmth of a chipped op shop mug as the day fled with an electric pink sky. I thought about Mary Oliver, “Knowledge has entertained me and it has shaped me and it has failed me. Something in me still starves.”²

These rocks and this stream had seen this sky a thousand times before I was born. They will continue to do it after I die. I felt small. Not humiliated, but just a sense of perspective. I am so small that even one small imbalance in the minerals in my body sent me spiralling. If this is so beautiful and yet a small grain of sand in his creation, how big must he be?

George came running back to tell me about his adventures with Daddy and Henry. 

I still could not think, nothing in my life had changed, but beauty has made me grateful. 

I’m Loving

Instructions for Travelling West, Life of the Party, and Peace of Wild Things. May 👏 was 👏 poetry 👏

My last deep-dive books before postpartum: You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly M. Kapic and The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (not as depressing as it sounds, it’s solution focused!) Seriously, friends, please read these so we can discuss!

We don’t want to inconvenience people, and we may tell ourselves it’s because we love them, but I wonder if it’s because we have a hard time believing in our own belovedness. And so we deprive ourselves of the things we need most, at least I do. Confronted with my inability to save my own life, my own desperate need for care and tenderness, my first thought is to tell no one. To spare them the inconvenience. 🔥🔥🔥

Krista Steele

I immediately text this to my women’s bible study.

Stacey Fourie sent me this Zucchini and Bacon slice recipe. I ate it out of the pan.

And The Kick Pregnancy Podcast is glorious if you’re pregnant and trying to not be overwhelmed by the internet.

In case you missed it

I’ve been reading

Coffee + Crumbs

forever, so I died when they published my poem on their Instagram.

coffeeandcrumbs

A post shared by @coffeeandcrumbs

The Tortured Poets Department

Issue 12

Tell me in the comments:

1. What is something you were tempted to be proud of and God took away?

2. Do you have any low-key hacks for getting outdoors with kids?

3. An easy, make-ahead recipe for something healthy I can snack on one-handed during postpartum.

1. Mary Oliver, Swoon, in Upstream, p. 125

2. Mary Oliver, Winter Hours in Upstream, p. 153