The Weekly Croissant: Dispatch From the NICU

Despair, Hope, Panties, and Kitchens

Hello Friends,

Apologies for my absence last week. I meant to write something but everything I could think of was too sad for a croissant. It was like one of those bready croissants that pretends to be a pastry but is actually just a dinner roll… or those croissants with fake butter that have to be made in a curved shape in France to indicate their inferiority, or a perfectly amazing croissant that got shoved into an oven and burnt to a crisp.

Anyway, amid a very intense surgery and stressful recovery for Odelle (she is OK!) I did have a moment of levity this week that I felt compelled to share with you all.

I’ve been spending most of my days at the hospital, and sleeping over here frequently, so I have been in the habit of bringing my running clothes and shoes with me. That way I can step out for a jog around the park to get some fresh air. Sleepover rooms are only available from 5 PM to 9 AM, but luckily tour has prepared me well for this lifestyle, van call at 9, soundcheck at 3, hotel shower and change at 5...

So I returned to the hospital one afternoon, sweaty and smelly, and went into Odelle’s room to grab a change of clothes. I headed to the bathrooms to clean myself up a bit and change, when I noticed I hadn’t brought a spare pair of underwear. Shoot, I thought, must have left it in my bag. So I get changed, sans underwear and start tracing my steps back down the winding hallways of the NICU (this place is huge, currently 130 babies in here)

As I turn down the hallway towards Odelle’s pod, which is lined with nurses, doctors and other parents (many of whom are of the Amish or Mennonite communities and not even showing their hair), what do I see lying in the middle of the floor but my own panties, on display for all to see.

In other NICU news, I have been enjoying the show “For The Love of Kitchens” while waiting for Odelle to wake up from her 4-day long medically-induced recovery nap. This show involves British people building and designing kitchens and then talking about how beautiful they are. There is no plot and nothing ever goes wrong. It’s about as low stim as you can get. If I can’t be paralyzed along with Odelle, this is a great plan B.

I also want to share this essay in The New Yorker, from one of my favs, Hanif Abdurraqib, called “In Defense of Dispair”. I think this is something along the lines of what I wanted to write last week, but could never have achieved with such brilliance and eloquence.

Some of my favorite parts:

“…I am trying to use this same failing machinery [language] to communicate how, for the sake of my own fragile heart, and sometimes fragile brain, I remain more committed to honesty than I do to optimism.”

“I want them [my students] to consider the responsibilities of the heart, responsibilities that the world will attempt to detach them from in the name of individualism, or the ever-growing realities of isolationist attitudes and power’s contempt for community. I am asking them, as I am continually asking myself, to imagine a heart that feels a connection to the hearts of others, even others you do not know. I would like to think that this is what nudges me forward, more than some mythological concept of ‘hope.’”

Yours in bad croissants,

Rachel