That Oh Shit moment

I remember the moment when I realized the end result of being pregnant. Not havin a baby, but giving birth to a baby. I had that feeling again this weekend, staring at the eight bags of pears on my kitchen table. What had seemed exciting and possible while Beth's son, easily a foot taller than us, shook the tree branches while we stood beneath gathering fruit, now seemed an unsurmountable task.

So I copied pages of Anna Karenina as a way to procrasitinate the job of sorting, washing and cooking the fruit into pear butter, which I would have to ladle into sterilized jars, boil in a water bath and let cool until the lids vacuum-sealed with that telltale POP. After that I would have to label the jars and find a place to store them for the winter.

Instead I write out another three pages, putting my total so far at fourteen. Only 786 to go. But one week ago, I had not even begun. Sophie Speaks was still in my head, an idea that kept nagging for my attention. One week ago, I sat down at a table with my 21-year-old niece who was helping me set up the blog site.

"What should we do first?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," she said.

"Well, how long can you work with me today?"

"However long it takes."

We sat there, upgrading my operating system, looking up tech support, until we knew what to do. And by the end of the day, I had made my first blog post.

This is on my mind today as I write, whenever I feel my mind slipping into that Oh Shit What Was I Thinking place, realizing how long this will take, worrying that no one will even care. But sometimes, for just a few minutes, I am paying close attention to my handwriting, the smoothness with which my hand moves through the word, the way a b hooks and swings upward into an r. A moment later I am wondering if Darya Alexandrovna will forgive her husband or go to stay with her mother. I hear the carriage door slam and pull away with her husband inside. I am lost in another world; time moves slowly. I hear my daughter calling me as if I am in the bathtub with my head underwater, but then I hear my husband answer, tell her that her mom is working, ask if he can help with anything, and I know I am still here, still above the surface, the table before me laden with pears.

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