The Empathy Suit

For some reason, walking through a maternity ward in a 35 pound "empathy suit" that simulates pregnancy makes my truly pregnant wife a little uneasy.

Me? I had a fun experience last night at baby class, when I donned the suit for 45 minutes as we toured the maternity ward. It provided the tiniest sliver of insight as to what my wife is going through.

Without assuming what my wife is going through I noticed the following:

It is difficult to stand in one position for more than 20 or 30 seconds. I was constantly shifting my feet or leaning against walls, furniture or doorways.

Once one sits down, one does not so easily stand back up.

It is odd to look down and find breasts where one has never found breasts before.

For entirely different reasons, I understand a bit of the self-consciousness pregnant women experience; they are truly not in their own bodies. Nor was I, the bearded man with breasts and a pregnant belly in a denim smock as I walked the halls of the maternity ward.

The other men in our baby class seemed a bit uncomfortable around me. The other expecting mothers were more open to asking me questions and asking how I felt (and letting me know they wanted to see their husbands in the suit) than their husbands. Don't get me wrong, these are all good guys, but there was something about a bearded man with breasts and a pregnant belly in a denim smock that took them a while to warm up to. Towards the end of the tour they were joking with me and asking me questions. I am curious to see if any of them don the suit next week.

There's something about your bearded husband with breasts and a pregnant belly in a denim smock that makes a wife uncomfortable.

A five pound weight on one's bladder, even an empty bladder, is an uncomfortable position to be in.

Special thanks to my wife for being a good sport!

Letter Never Sent

Sometimes the mails provide the strangest things.

My friend Troy spent the last year living in Amsterdam. We stayed in touch through a mix of late hour phone calls, emails and well-timed care packages.

Earlier this year he told me he was going to the Anne Frank House. He asked if I wanted any souvenirs, to which I replied just a postcard.

Though Troy told me all about the trip, he never sent the postcard because soon he moved back to the states, where we got to hang out over several weekends as he visited family in Colorado. One of the first things he gave me was the postcard, complete with a filled out address and "Nederland" postage. Only the message side of the card remained blank.

The card displays a 1954 photo of the movable bookcase used to hide the Frank family and the others who went into hiding with them. I think Troy picked the bookcase because he knows I am a bibliophile who appreciates the subversive nature of books.

I displayed the card on my desk for several weeks, and somewhere along the way I employed it as a bookmark. I hate to admit, but I hadn't noticed its absence.

Yesterday afternoon, after walking home from a productive but tiring Monday at work, I checked the mail before hitting the elevator to finally carry me home.

There was the post card.

Though a bit roughed up, its original stamp was now accompanied by American postage, as well as the following message written in a careful script:

THIS CARD -
FOUND - 8-9-06- DENVER -
INSIDE A LOVE SUPREME - THE
BOOK;
BY A PERSONAL FRIEND OF SR. JOHN COLTRANE;
WHO HAS-TOO VISITED
AMSTERDAM A.F. HAUS c. 1969
THIS CARD: FWD: AS A PEACE MISSIVE -ON-
EARTH

Only after reading the card did I recall that I had last seen it while reading a library book on John Coltrane. I've always said that in a library nothing is ever truly lost, just misplaced sometimes.

The Hitlist:
Holland 1945 – Neutral Milk Hotel
Acknowledgement – John Coltrane
Bureai Of Yards And Docks – Everything Absent or Distorted
Fiction – The Lucksmiths (Oh why would I lie to you?)