All Fours

by Miranda July

I stood holding the note with that funny little abandoned feeling one gets a million times a day in a domestic setting. I could have cried, but why? It’s not like I need to dish with my husband about every little thing; that’s what friends are for. Harris and I are more formal, like two diplomats who aren’t sure if the other one has poisoned our drink. Forever thirsty but forever wanting the other one to take the first sip.

Without a child I could dance across the sexism of my era, whereas becoming a mother shoved my face right down into it. A latent bias, internalized by both of us, suddenly leapt forth in parenthood. It was now obvious that Harris was openly rewarded for each thing he did while I was quietly shamed for the same things. There was no way to fight back against this, no one to point a finger at, because it came from everywhere. Even walking around

With a baby one could no longer be cute and coy about capitalism—money was time, time was everything.

Before my grandma Esther jumped, she emptied all her pill bottles out the window, right onto Park Avenue. The doorman later described them to us as “raining down.” We had to keep returning to this building because Aunt Ruthie, her daughter, inherited the apartment, so there were many opportunities to go over the details with the doorman. Mrs. Migdal tipped him big that day, he recalled. Then, after dumping the pills, she put herself in a trash bag, a black plastic garbage bag, so that, you know, it wouldn’t be a mess for whoever had to clean it up. I’m not quite sure how she got herself out the window while still in the bag, but it reminds me of the way girls know how to take off a shirt or change their clothes inside a sweater, without ever being indiscreet. She managed.

You should always be emerging from a shell if possible.