To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

They set themselves down in my sitting room and commenced to telling me every dull and horrifying consideration of child bearing and child rearing, as if they did me favor to counter my vast inexperience. Oh, I wish I possessed more gratitude and patience. I know they are well intentioned, but I detest being told that I will surely feel this way or that I must always or never do such-and-such or suffer the consequences. It makes me very contrary, so that I want to say, “Well, I don’t think I will use diapers at all. Instead my baby will crawl naked in the yard” or “Water! I never drink water, but only whiskey and coffee.”

Even Mr Audubon’s beautiful paintings that I have long admired—all were done in death. He would shoot the birds down, then re-create their beautiful details. I was foolish to not realize it sooner. Why, in our efforts to understand and observe life, must we so often snuff it out?

I despise my own propriety. It keeps me to this bed, docile and quiet, hair brushed and pinned, bed clothes smoothed neatly over my lap. I mark the days. I eat. I breathe. I say thank you and please and feign sleep. Yet it is all a lie. In my heart I am something else altogether. I am burning with grief. I should be out in the rain, barefooted and wild. I should roar and claw at the sky. I should rip open my gown and bare my breasts and bare my pain and plead and rage.

It is remarkable how we go on. All that we come to know and witness and endure, yet our hearts keep beating, our faith persists.

When asked if she was ever afraid she would drown in a river or be eaten by a bear, she laughs and waves off the question. “I have only ever been truly frightened of boredom and loneliness,” she says.