Face As Identity: Distortion in Postpartum and Self Portraiture

After giving birth to my son, I did not anticipate the “disappearance” of my face. I didn’t look in a mirror once during my long labor, emergency cesarean, or the day post-surgery. The first time I saw myself now as a mother was after limping slowly to the hospital bathroom for my first shower in days. My previous visits to the bathroom had been so laborious, hunched over my incision, that looking in the mirror was the very last of my priorities. This visit I felt well enough to pause and look in the mirror. I remember the moment distinctly—what I saw was not someone I knew. Yet I wasn’t afraid or sad or angry. I simply didn’t care. My face was no longer my own and it wasn’t important anymore. I spent more time gingerly washing and exploring my cesarean incision than looking at my face. I registered every staple, tape, and dried blood drip in my memory. 

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Safe When You're With Me

The weight of love is immense and heavy. We are most reminded of this when those we love are at risk of harm or we are at risk of losing them. With gun violence rampant in this country and threatening our children daily—in schools, at grocery stores, at parties, in homes—that weight feels unbearable and exhausting.

The death of loved ones is familiar territory for me. So when my son was born, nightmares of losing him followed almost immediately. Vivid dreams of losing him in crowded places, devastating fires in our home, car crashes, and bizarre accidents I couldn’t even recall when I bolted awake. What I could recall was that in each of them, I had no control over the situation or I wasn’t with him. I know so many parents and caregivers who also feel this lack of control… and not just in their dreams. Clinging to your child’s tiny body in a tight embrace, afraid to let go at the door of their classroom. When your teen’s high school alerts you of another active shooter drill. Or worse, of a potential threat. Knowing that they’ll be walking to band practice like they do every day… but will today be different? We worry about our children constantly, especially when they are not with us. My own fears are often fueled by the question, if my son is not with me, how can I keep him safe? Spaces in our community that are designed to be and should be safe, like schools, no longer feel so. And the rhetoric of, “What’s the likelihood of it happening to you?” is rapidly losing its potency for calming our (valid) nerves.

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