r/howling
I make that first winter a diamond in my memory, something adamantine and buried safe in the dark earth. How new motherhood feels on me, like an animal skin I wear. The language of instinct is blood-warm and gruesome. Like mothers of every kind, I learn to hunt, to make milk. We find each other in the hinterlands of the internet. On the subreddits of r/sleeptraining and r/breastfeeding, we are howling.
The mothers of Reddit use a lot of acronyms. PPA is for post-partum anxiety. That’s what they call it when a new mother senses too much danger, but I know it is the wilderness in me. An undomesticated and ancient clawing. Mostly safe from starvation or attack, our fears are evolved. I read articles on the air quality index, micro-plastics, endocrine disruptors, the EMF soup of our cities. I bare my teeth at the $4.6 trillion petroleum industry, at the invisible stalking of 5G.
Each dawn, I am remade in this image, a panting wolf-mother with a sleeping pup at breast. Our dog, whose body is giving out, seems to know I am more like her than before. She stays close. We are saying goodbye, even though we don’t know how. Her snores have become so dear to me that I have taken to stowing them away in little crannies, my coat pocket or the sock drawer. One day when she’s gone, I will hold them like warm kumquats in my palm and remember the little tuft of white fur in her otherwise strawberry coat. How it always reminded me of whipped cream.
With PPA, fear is never far away. Maybe mine would be less if I hadn’t almost died in labor. Septic shock—the leading cause of death in hospitals. I cannot forget how my body seized up like a protesting, clenched fist, the violent shaking, how focusing on my in-breath and out-breath was the only way I kept my consciousness in the room. In…2…3…4. I knew I needed to stay alive, at least long enough for them to get the baby out of my failing body. Out…2…3…4. I cannot unsee the pain and fear in my husband’s eyes at the sight of me. In..2…3…4. Cannot forget how I was too sick to look at, much less hold, our just-born son. Out…2…3…4. At r/beyondthebump, “Content Warning” is emblazoned at the top of birth stories like mine so pregnant women know to not read. That way, they can keep practicing their hypno-birthing techniques and write “low intervention” in their birth plans.
It rains every day now, and the roof and chimney are growing bright green moss. The constant rain would be unbearable if not for the moss, that harbinger of life. So, we let it be. Still in our first year in this house, our fireplace needs rebuilding before we can use it. But my husband’s slight smile, our bare skin touching under the covers is warmth enough. It is the first snow of the season. Because of the white earth, the night is glowing like a second daytime. We are exhausted, but his mouth still finds mine at midnight. At r/newparents, I search post-partum sex. I howl.
There is an ice advisory all week and there is no driving, no errands. The chimes my aunt sent as a wedding gift dance, making their incidental music. Our dog skates across the yard inspecting the glossed and glittering flesh of the garden. The hydrangea, the rose bush, the French lavender, all plant-kind have gone to sleep.
My newfound sense of death’s closeness compels me to sniff around too. I search Reddit for signs of danger. It’s the PPA typing, I know, but that doesn’t stop me from tracking death’s footprints. I search severe reactions to infant vaccines…post-partum hemorrhage…my baby died of SIDS…RSV hospitalization…how to sanitize house after norovirus…signs newborn is struggling to breathe…chorioamnionitis turns to septic shock…I almost died in labor… Getting straight to the heart of the matter, I even try ways a baby can die at r/newparents, but no one has posted under that title. Maybe if I just keep searching the caverns of Reddit, keep knocking past the content warnings and finding the saddest stories that no one should ever read, maybe I will see death coming next time. Maybe my howling will keep death away.
During midnight feeds—there will be a lot of these for at least another year—I plan our spring vegetable patch. I research composting, how to start plants in a sunny window, order heirloom tomato seeds. My favorite names for tomatoes are Early Girl, Lemon Boy, Beauty King, and Olga’s Round Yellow Chicken Egg. The doctor says the dog only has until spring, but I hope we can make it until at least June. Our best naps have always been under the spicy canopy of our tomato plants. At r/dogs, I search “transitional cell carcinoma.” I breathe in…2…3…4. We drive her to the salt-spray of the coast where we like to run in the cold and smell the evergreen forest mixing with the brine of the sea. Out…2…3…4.
Our dog’s last trip to the coast is the baby’s first because it is his first everything. Looking out at the rolling salt-stomach of the ocean, that most ancient mother, we can feel the quiet buoyance of our son’s wonder, and it is warmth enough. We listen as the ocean howls.
feature photo (wolf staredown) by Tom Pottiger on Unsplash
About the Author
Virginia Archer Peak is a native of Louisiana and graduated from Louisiana State University with a degree in anthropology, through which she discovered her passion for folklore and story. Both in her writing and non-profit career in human services, Virginia is interested in the space where religious folkways, mysticism, mental illness, and poverty intersect in rural America. She currently resides in Portland, Oregon with her husband, their son and golden retriever. Her writing has been featured in Deep South Magazine, 225 Magazine, Country Roads Magazine, They Call Us, and is forthcoming in Soul Lit and Minerva Press.
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