I will spare everyone the hellhole whipped up by my hormonal grandmother furies — the snatches of disaster that light across the ceaselessly channel-surfing screen at the front of my brain as I ponder that frail neck, that pulsing vein. That utter helplessness and dependency. Contrary to what every therapist will tell you, sometimes the only way to deal with anxieties is to slam that cellar door shut. Too dark down there.
But — climate change! I lay in bed, the first night of being a grandmother, and do the math: When Baby Boy is my age, worrying about his own grandchildren, Miami Beach co uld be advertising scuba tours through its skyscrapers; Amtrak to Boston could be running on elevated tracks that skim over the Atlantic Ocean; the Long Island Expressway may no longer be a parking lot — it will no longer be anything at all; New York City will be the Venice of America, with gondolas bobbing over the David Koch Plaza in front of the Met as the gondoliers (descended from the men who once pedaled bicycle taxis — Ha! that low-carbon alternative didn't do much to help, did it now?) rest from the intense labor of navigating the tidal sluices of Fifth Avenue.
And still climate change deniers will claim, "Nothing happening here!"
No wonder grandmothers make great activists.
I start making lists of ways in which I will be everything as a grandmother that I was not as a mother: entirely selfless, eternally patient, endlessly entertaining, excruciatingly upbeat. But I am realistic: I am not going to vow to be entirely nonjudgmental, mainly because I have worked very hard for that right, and have tirelessly refined the standards by which I judge — but that's another story. Of course, everything Baby Boy does will be perfect. I can say this from a place of true discernment.
In reality, th ings generally go right. In hormonal floods, nothing goes right. They are the nuisance tides of life: The day is sunny and bright, but suddenly you are up to your knees in filthy, contaminated sloshing water, all because you refused to understand that a superheated heart will inevitably cause emotional tidal surges that bubble up from underground. I must get this stuff under control.
Tripping in the train of anxieties come profound, insatiable yearnings. My attachment to Baby Boy was so instantaneous that I could feel a tingling in anticipation of nursing, decades after I last nursed a child. Where the heck does grandmother letdown come from?
My body also went into sympathetic insomnia, so that at 3 a.m. I was startled by dreams of the baby cries of 30 years ago. Only an "Orphan Black" binge could drown them out. However, I am pleased to report that I gained only 15 pounds during my daughter-in-law's pregnancy.
Every day that I visited the new parents in the hospital, whenever I wanted to leave the maternity wing, the nurses thoroughly checked my bags before unlocking the doors. The T.S.A. could learn something from our R.N. authorities. And they were absolutely right to make sure I was not smuggling out a wee creature.
My inner crone wanted, desperately, to keep Baby Boy in my arms forever. A frightful loop played in my deranged brain: yes, yes, yes, I want him, every moment of him, every adorable sneeze and snort. Hormones are like that: They create an alternate reality. Of course, I know his parents will do a far better job with him than I ever did with mine; that's the beauty of new generations. They are smarter about everything. They can also stay up all night. I cannot.
And then comes the leave-taking. Why do we not live in those villages everyone always claims it takes to raise a child? We s hould admit that raising a child depends a lot on the kindness of strangers. It is rare that extended families live in the same state, much less the same city. I sit in the hospital and ponder the Amtrak website, the American Airlines website, and I cannot bring myself to buy a ticket home. Because what is home if it is not with Baby Boy?
There's nothing like a hormonal storm to light up the skies, especially those night skies, at any time of life. I know I'm going to get all this under control. But right now I plan to let myself ride this Queen Tide of Love out into the wild blue yonder, no matter where it takes me, relishing one of life's final big gifts: At any age, we are capable of crazy-mad, head-over-heels falling in love, even with its attendant crazy-mad brain dysfunction.
Speaking on behalf of hormonal grandmothers the world over, I want to say, simply, to our beloved children, in law and in love, who bear us grandchildren: Thank you. We are eternally grateful.
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