Mailer

Norman Mailer died this week. I know it’s kind of random to talk about the death of an author on a blog about our baby, but I had to acknowledge it. As someone who always wanted to be a writer, Mailer is way up there as a rock star among writers. Earlier this year, I had a chance to see Mailer read from his latest book, The Castle in the Forest, at a local bookstore in my city. But, sadly, I missed it. Had I known it was to be my last chance, I might have made more of an effort. A couple years ago at the same bookstore, I got to hear Joan Didion read from her book, The Year of Magical Thinking. It was truly amazing to hear such a literary legend read her writing, sitting in a folding chair in a small space between stacks of books. She was much older than I imagined and very small. But, in her books, she has this huge voice. I even got up the nerve to ask her a question. It was a very cool experience. Imagine having that chance with Norman Mailer! The guy who actually got into brawls, fistfights with other writers! Not that I’m condoning that sort of thing, but he had quite a life. Plus, Mailer lived in Provincetown, a place Matthew and I visit on vacation almost every year. I love going past the Mailer house on the East End of Commercial Street. Each time, I get to hear about how cool it was for Matthew to meet Mailer and his wife when Matthew lived on Cape Cod many years ago. Now, I can't remember exactly why I missed the Mailer reading. It was just about eight months ago. Maybe I had a conflict or maybe it's because I was just a few weeks pregnant and totally exhausted all the time. Early on in my pregnancy, I barely made it home before I had to hit the hay. Lately, now in my last trimester, I'm feeling a similar sort of exhaustion. I want to do all sorts of cool and fun things, but it's so hard to do anything but drag myself to work and back, eat dinner and go to bed, even though I hardly sleep through the night anymore because I'm so very, very pregnant. But, I still kind of regret that I didn't go to the book reading. I've had to miss a few outings and social plans over the last eight months. I suppose it's good practice for later when the baby is born and I'll be missing all sorts of things. But, I probably won't mind since our baby will provide plenty of entertainment. Ah, baby gazing. Way better than a big screen TV. For now, I’m still pregnant, with mildly exhausted and carrying around a giant belly, preventing me from doing some things I’d like to do. I know, though, that later, when we take our baby to the Cape in the summers, as the baby grows, he or she will hear about Norman Mailer, how he lived in Provincetown, which house was his, how his dad met him and photographed him once and waited on Mailer's wife in a camera store. Our baby will hear about how much his or her mom admired Mailer and other writers of his time and how she was pregnant when he came to our city to read the last book he wrote and when he died. ~ Nicole