Charlene Diehl - Out of Grief, Singing

Charlene Diehl is a writer, editor, performer, and the director of thin air, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival. She did her graduate work at the University of Manitoba, receiving a PhD in 1992 under the supervision of Robert Kroetsch. After a post-doc at McGill, and seven years as a professor in the English Department at the University of Waterloo, she returned to Winnipeg in 2000. She has published essays, poetry, non-fiction, reviews, and interviews in journals across Canada, and has to her credit a scholarly book on Fred Wah as well as a collection of poetry, lamentations , and two chapbooks, mm and The Lovers Handbook . Excerpts from Out of Grief, Singing , which appeared in Prairie Fire , won a Western Magazine Gold Award. She was the featured poet in the fall 2007 issue of CV2 . When shes not chasing literary language (or her two speedy pre-teens), she edits dig! magazine , Winnipegs bi-monthly jazz publication.

These are the scars

that empty us

into our lives.

Robert Kroetsch

although winter may be everywhere
with such a silence and such a darkness

e.e. cummings

Grief is love, I suppose. Love as a
backwards glance.

Helen Humphreys

Tuesday, November 21, afternoon

Im perched on the table in my obstetricians examining room, waiting for him to come in. Traces of the November drizzle still lodge in my hair, and the paper sheet crackles as I search for a comfortable position.

Im here for a routine twenty-eight-week check-up. My regular appointment has been delayed by a few days, but Im into my third trimester so waiting a few days hasnt worried me. I havent been worried about anything, actually. Its not that Im nave, but I have the special innocence of an expectant mother. Im in the thrall of pregnancy, swept along on a trajectory that wont be hurried and wont be slowed. Im simply filled up with wonder.

Because Im in my thirties, Im in the category of older mothers, but I dont feel older Im in great physical health, and pregnancy suits me. I feel robust and powerful, as if Ive been placed at the very centre of the turning world. It piques me to think of myself as older, but I understand too. My husband Bill and I spent our twenties living on scholarships and teaching assistantships we had set our sights on academic goals rather than jobs and families. With fresh PhDs in hand, mine in literature, his in cell biology, were just now heading into these larger life narratives. We have moved ourselves to the rolling green landscapes of southern Ontario. Ive settled into an academic position teaching Canadian literature at a college on the University of Waterloo campus. I thrive on the challenge, and am inspired by the students. Bill followed me here, and has taken over a dynamic research program at a university laboratory. Against the odds, were an academic couple who have survived graduate school and found work that satisfies us both. Now is our time: we have a home we love, a sprawling network of friends and family, and the promise of a new baby.

I check my watch again, and my eyes flick toward the door it remains resolutely closed. Ive been relaxed about this pregnancy, but at the moment, Im starting to feel insecure: Ive just offered my arm three times for the standard blood pressure tests, and my readings have been high each time. Bill stands off to the side of the room and I, in my ripe-plum bewilderment, prop myself on the table.

I actually met this doctor for the first time less than a year ago, a bitter January day. He was the doctor on call when I was admitted to the emergency ward, suddenly bleeding twelve weeks into my first pregnancy. I was doing my best to convince myself that I was experiencing one of those normal challenges of early pregnancy, but I knew it was wishful thinking: the bleeding was heavy. We hadnt spoken openly about this pregnancy to our friends, but my body had been invested, and my heart too. I was sick, there in that hive of medical demands, and I was dismayed. Dr Halmo stepped into my anguish. He was gentle and direct, and he laid his hand on me as he spoke to us of this hard thing. I felt him there like an anchor.

Of course, many women miscarry in the early weeks and months of this year, several of my friends have surprised me with their own experiences with this private misery. About a million miracles go into creating a new human, and when one or two of them dont quite come together according to plan, the maternal body responds. Mine had. Follow-up tests showed no reason for ongoing concern; we should certainly try again.

I admit that trepidation trailed me like a shadow during the first weeks of this pregnancy too, warning against expectation. But when I sailed past the twelve-week mark without incident, I left the fear zone and felt buoyant, expansive a literalized metaphor. Pregnancy is an adventure, a hijacking of sorts, and though innumerable books litter the floor at my side of the bed, I know I cant read and think my way to where this is taking me. I am along for the ride, a willing passenger.