Oregon Humanities Fall/Winter 2008

Cover of Oregon Humanities Fall/Winter 2008
Kathleen Holt
EDITOR
Raina Hassan
COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT
Jennifer Viviano
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Leigh van der Werff
COPY EDITOR
Editorial Advisory Board
Tom Booth
Brian Doyle
Debra Gwartney
Julia Heydon
Marianne Keddington-Lang
Guy Maynard
Win McCormack
Camela Raymond
Kate Sage
Rich Wandschneider
Curt Yehnert

Oregon Humanities, a journal of ideas and perspectives about the humanities, is published triannually by the Oregon Council for the Humanities, 813 SW Alder Street, Suite 702, Portland, Oregon 97205.

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The Bubble of Silence

Are some topics unfit for polite conversation?

By Tiffany Lee Brown

It's time for my writers group. Four or five of us meet every few months, some of us friends, some mere acquaintances. Writing is an isolating profession, so the real-life connection is nice.

"What are you working on?" Adrian* asks me. He's a writer by day, a filmmaker by night.

"Well, a bunch of things." I'm a writer and editor by day, an interdisciplinary artist and performer by night. "I just finished this really interesting play called House Bound."

"What was it about?"

"Mm," I reply, sipping my pinot noir. "My piece was about, uh, well, grief. The grief of being biologically childless."

Silence traps our table in its invisible bubble. Through its membrane I hear the dim chatter of hipsters schmoozing at the bar and a Tri-Met bus beeping near the curb. Adrian's pregnant wife Willow throws him a panicked look, while Casey stares at his feet, which is pretty hard to do in a booth. Though I told Casey weeks ago about my situation, about how I've been in hell and trying to write and perform my way out of it, he's a discreet, tasteful person and didn't pass the information on to the others. Now I've floated a proverbial lead balloon over our cheery group.

This moment, five seconds by a stopwatch, lasts five hours in the alternate space-time continuum of the social faux pas. If I'd announced that I was having a baby, the others would have heaped congratulations on me. If I'd brought out a photo of my lovely stepdaughter and told them of her soccer exploits, they would have chuckled and asked questions. Even if I'd softly admitted that I'd been having a hard time since my aunt passed away, they'd have offered condolences or a hug.

But childlessness is a pain experienced in silence. There is no place in civilized conversation for such discussion. No one really knows what to say, and there are no social rituals with which to mourn miscarriages or unsuccessful fertility treatments. Anonymous strangers will discuss it on the Internet, and occasionally close friends will commiserate over their shared grief. But the topic is usually avoided in everyday conversation, as if such grief is somehow too intimate to talk about.

In discussions with Internet strangers and with close friends going through similar struggles, I hear the same stories over and over. We feel awful about our intense feelings, which are hormonal and uncontrollable. We feel guilty for saddling our families and friends with our depression and sorrow. We feel lonely and left out of normal socializing but also left out of the natural world, the great cycle of life. Some express shame that their bodies--or God--won't allow them to become "real women." The grief of childlessness visits us for many reasons. Some are infertile. Others don't have a partner and don't want to be single parents. Some, like me, have medical conditions that would make raising a child even more difficult than it normally is. And some of us fell in love with men who already have children from previous relationships and don't wish to have more.

Even if we think we ought to be satisfied with full, rich lives beyond procreation, even if we have loving and healthy relationships with stepchildren or adopted children, some women have astonishingly powerful biological clocks. The deep need to procreate hits us with a staggering intensity, as primal and undeniable as the need for food, water, and sex. The enormous role of children and family in our cultural, community, religious, and political environments reminds us constantly of what we've lost--what we've never had in the first place. I've spoken with many women online who feel that they can't even tell their close family members about their struggles. Many of us feel ashamed to discuss childlessness in public for fear of undercutting the joy of parents and families. And when we do bring it up, we often hear clueless, insensitive, and sometimes cruel responses ranging from "You're being a selfish whiner--get over it and move on with your life" to "Why don't you just get a puppy?" So, most of the time, we keep the discussion safely shut away.

Back at the restaurant, I rescue our table from its awkward silence. "I was working with this amazing group of women," I say blithely, as though no shadow had passed over our chat. "Artists and writers. Over at Performance Works NorthWest." We are back on solid ground. Willow talks about her new screenplay. Adrian catches me up on the dating adventures of a mutual friend in San Francisco. Casey tells the tale of a recent backpacking trip in the Gorge. But then Adrian talks about how exciting it is to be an expectant father, and Willow describes the irritation of swollen feet and morning sickness. My stomach clenches and tears well up in my eyes. It is, at this stage of my grieving process, an uncontrollable response. I'm proud of myself for getting through the entire conversation, but when I get home, I cry for hours.

Weeks later, my doctor tells me I should avoid babies, young children, and pregnant women as much as possible. The trauma of my grief is similar to post-traumatic stress disorder: a baby's cry can trigger severe emotional reactions in me just as the sound of gunfire can trigger a soldier's shell shock. It turns out that this "selective avoidance" technique is quite commonly prescribed to infertile women and others who are in mourning over the children they do not have. My infertile friends have offered similar advice for such situations. "You shouldn't be there in the first place!" one woman insisted. "Touching babies or even hugging a pregnant woman sets off all those hormones. You don't need that." "Make sure you order lots of wine," another woman advised, "and eat sushi if possible."

I grow accustomed to the loneliness, though I miss my godson, and avoid barbecues, family picnics, and baby showers. When restaurant hosts attempt to seat me near little ones, I gather up all my gumption and ask to be seated elsewhere. I recently turned down a request to lead an art and writing workshop because many participants were to be young mothers with infants in tow. I shop for groceries late at night, when most moms are putting their toddlers to bed. At the checkout stand, I turn away from the dozens of celebrity magazines cooing over the "baby bump" of some actress or other. Ten years ago, I was a fearless third-wave feminist writer, publishing stories in various magazines and books about living a happy, fulfilled, child-free life. Now I am an embarrassing wreck who bursts into tears at the sight of Angelina Jolie.

I'd like to think I'm the sort of person who brings dark issues to light. I'd like to be a brave writer, a courageous performer, and a shamelessly confessional artist. When people like Sue Coe and Karen Finley created art about rape back in the 1980s, they helped open up a secret, silent issue--a discussion our culture needed to start. Whether or not one liked the work made no difference: It started conversations and asked tough questions. As an artist, I make videos starring characters like Log Baby and Poppy the Stop-motion Sperm. I collaborate with performers like Emily Stone, who danced in one of my videos when she was nine months pregnant and nursed her child onstage in House Bound. As a writer, I explore the social, personal, spiritual, and political aspects of childlessness. As a performance artist, I initiate rituals where people grieve and then let go of grief for a while.

Right now, I'm working on the Easter Island Project, a long-term series of artworks about creation based on my research into childlessness. The project involves appreciating the many non-biological ways people can be creative and nurturing, yet it also questions the human desire to constantly and mindlessly create. Audiences, including childless women, participate in making the project with me. Online or at live performances, they offer their own creations--sculptures, poems, music, the eggshell of a newly hatched bald eagle, a beautiful seed from a tree, and an original painting that an artist tattooed on my hip. Next summer, I will integrate these creations into a performance I'm doing on barren Easter Island in the South Pacific, in the shadow of the island's famous monolithic sculptures of giant heads. As a brave artist and writer, I make childlessness a part of the conversation.

But I'm not a brave artist and writer all the time: I'm just me. When my friends talk on the phone about the details of raising their babies, when I hear their little ones playing in the background, I don't tell them how painful it is for me. I don't tell them it breaks my heart when their toddler gets on the phone and greets me by name. I don't tell them how much I miss being able to hug their child and swing him around the room until he shrieks, delighted and dizzy. Instead, after the conversation is over, I cry, because I'm not that brave. At times like these, I think maybe there's a good reason for the bubble of silence: it keeps everyone separated from one another, safe and sound.

Months pass after that awkward writers group meeting. The other writers invite me to a reading, and a few hours beforehand, it occurs to me that Adrian and Willow might bring their new baby. I try to be brave, but I feel like a loser who can't be around babies, like someone who makes everyone uncomfortable. I call Adrian and leave him a message, casually asking, "What's going on tonight?" Willow, who has just brought a beautiful new human into the world, returns my call. I see her number on the caller ID and freeze.

Art opens up a delicate space where we can explore unspoken and uncivilized matters. Sometimes it coaxes silenced voices into everyday conversation--but not today. I let the phone ring and ring. Maybe tomorrow I can write a performance piece about my nonexistent baby, but for tonight I'm staying home in silence.

*Names and details have been changed.

Tiffany Lee Brown is a writer and interdisciplinary artist in Portland. Author of A Compendium of Miniatures, she is an editor of Plazm magazine and the director of 2GQ, a nonprofit project presenting book arts, literature, performance, and the blog at 2GQ.org.

© 2008 Oregon Council for the Humanities