Class Essay

I've started my class. Our first assignment is to write an essay modeled after one we read in class. This essay is about a man going through his "junk drawer". Ya know, that one we all have full of useless crap. So we can write one about our junk drawer, or our attic, garage, etc. Here is mine:

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My nursery

My nursery is all ready for the baby, even before I am. I have taken so much time in putting it together, carefully researching and selecting each item. I can picture where everything is, so I can find it all in the dark. The bobby is there, right by the rocking chair, within easy reach for a late night feeding. From the rocking chair I can reach a clickable light, just in case. Dim, too, just in case.

Madison Avenue knows how to open our wallets. All that baby stuff is so cute. It’s tiny, so small, yet there is so much to fill. So many hopes, possibilities. Our nursery is filled with adorable onesies, sporting gender-neutral duckies and fuzzy dinosaurs. I feel the soft blankets, so soft that I want to wrap myself, or at least my shoulders, in them.

These onesies and blankets are safely stored in the cutest dresser. I scoured craigslist to find furniture and I hit the jackpot when I found two dressers and a crib for a hundred bucks. The dressers are white, with pale, lime green doors. One can be positioned just so, to be used as a changing table, also with its own clickable light. I am so clever with those clickable lights.

Everything is ready for the baby.

The nursery is stocked with all the consumer essentials. I researched extensively to find the perfect “diapering system”. BumGenius, it has a cute name and is a local company, too. Washable cloth diapers, which are great for the environment and our budget. All the diapers are washed and put back together. Clean and absorbent, just waiting to be pooped in.

There are bottles of goop and goo and every gloppy thing you could possibly smear on a baby’s sensitive skin. All natural diaper cream, lotion, shampoo. Stuff for me too, nursing supplies and ointments that I am not sure I really know what to do with.

I’ve read the books, the ones on how to be pregnant, how to give birth, how to care for a newborn. I picked out which ones I’d like to refer to later and which to pass onto friends. I can’t say that I remember everything from them, perhaps I read too quickly.

Many of our clothes are from what my neighbor terms “the baby black market”. Goods are exchanged when the last child has out-grown them, perhaps worn or used just a handful of times. I washed them all in gentle baby-safe detergent and sorted them for size. There is a bag that I didn’t wash yet, since I won’t need it until the baby is 12 months old.

My friends and neighbors decorated onesies at the baby shower. All of them precious expressions of love for the baby in my belly.

I stand, looking at all the baby gear. The furniture is stacked in my basement, the clothes and blankets sealed away in vacuum bags. The nursery itself is empty, except for a few items on a shelf: a crystal butterfly, a poem on a wallet card, pictures of my and my husband’s grandparents. Lastly, there is an urn, an urn that cradles the ashes of my daughter, who was born in silence. For that, I was not prepared.

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Well, of course I am not going to submit this one. I had to write it to get it out of my head so that I could write an essay that I could stand having "workshopped" in public and possibly have to read out loud. That one sucks, but is about cleaning out my desk at work (timely, wouldn't you say?)

But, I have to share this one with somebody! I read it to Triple S and started crying. Yeah, not ready for class, but here it is for you! Feel free to give me some literary critique (seriously). I trust you gals and guys with my heart.

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