was that I (I cannot, will not speak for her) was totally, utterly incapable of maintaining a functional relationship. She was, is, a reallylovely woman. She is kind and compassionate, empathic and funny, and she has a brilliant mind.
And then she fell pregnant. It was a long and clumsy and painful fall. Something cataclysmic seemed to have happened even though nothing tangible had changed and I started falling deeper and deeper into despair and panic at what was about to happen. My world was on an unstoppable collision course with forces unseen and magnificent in their strength as I scrabbled about pretending to be one person, knowing I was quite another. And hereâs probably a good time to pause for yet another moment.
TRACK EIGHT
Shostakovich, Piano Concerto No. 2, Second Movement
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Piano
In 1957 the titan of Russian music, Dmitri Shostakovich, wrote his second piano concerto for his sonâs birthday. Perhaps because of who it was written for, it proved something of a break from his usual sardonic, angry, oppressive style (listen to his fifth and greatest symphony for a definitive example of this).
Unlike almost all of his contemporaries, Shostakovich remained in Russia for his entire life, despite the turmoil and Stalinist madness that caused Prokofiev, Rachmaninov et al to leave. He stayed and fought through music, occasionally using his compositions to portray musical parodies of a fucked State.
He was driven, political, fearless and revolutionary, saying, rather beautifully, âA creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.â
This slow movement, with echoes of Beethovenâs âEmperorâ Concerto, remains one of his most romantic and beautiful compositions, all the more so given the horrors that were occurring all around him while he was writing it.
ANNOUNCING PREGNANCY IS AN ALMOST universal cause for celebration. Fatherhood has become a kind of sanitised paean to the miraculous. It comprises mental stock images of smiling fathers hoisting gurgling babies onto their shoulders and walking arm and arm with their wives through parks. We make light of the lack of sleep, the excruciating responsibility of creating life, the expense, mess, emotional strain of having children. Books are written with titles like âI fall asleep at red lights â the story of the man who had tripletsâ. There are countless guides to âeffective parentingâ whatever the fuck that means. The reality, for me at least, was something far more sinister.
My son was and is a miracle. There is nothing I will experience in my life that will ever match the incandescent atomic bomb of love that exploded in me when he was born. I did not understand the word âperfectionâ until I held him in my arms. Nor did I fully appreciate the concept of God. And if any fathers are reading this who claim not to believe in God then you are lying. Because I promise you, when youâre waiting in the hospital, wife in labour, doctors and nurses bustling around, the smell of ammonia seeping into your nostrils, there is only one thought going through your mind â âplease God let him be healthy. I donât care if heâs not that smart, athletic, handsome, talented. Just give him ten fingers and ten toesâ.
But for me there was a flip side to this. There had to be. Something that powerful has to have an equally intense opposite to counterbalance it. And for me it was terror. Pure, unadulterated, visceral terror. I had been handed the most precious thing in the world and in my core, I knew that I was fundamentally incapable of meeting that responsibility.
You can leave a marriage, quit a job, sell a home, justifiably walk away from your friends, family, exes, rehome a pet. But a child? A biological extension of your very soul? There is simply no escape from that.
Jack (a pseudonym, again at Janeâs request) was the most
And then she fell pregnant. It was a long and clumsy and painful fall. Something cataclysmic seemed to have happened even though nothing tangible had changed and I started falling deeper and deeper into despair and panic at what was about to happen. My world was on an unstoppable collision course with forces unseen and magnificent in their strength as I scrabbled about pretending to be one person, knowing I was quite another. And hereâs probably a good time to pause for yet another moment.
TRACK EIGHT
Shostakovich, Piano Concerto No. 2, Second Movement
Elisabeth Leonskaja, Piano
In 1957 the titan of Russian music, Dmitri Shostakovich, wrote his second piano concerto for his sonâs birthday. Perhaps because of who it was written for, it proved something of a break from his usual sardonic, angry, oppressive style (listen to his fifth and greatest symphony for a definitive example of this).
Unlike almost all of his contemporaries, Shostakovich remained in Russia for his entire life, despite the turmoil and Stalinist madness that caused Prokofiev, Rachmaninov et al to leave. He stayed and fought through music, occasionally using his compositions to portray musical parodies of a fucked State.
He was driven, political, fearless and revolutionary, saying, rather beautifully, âA creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.â
This slow movement, with echoes of Beethovenâs âEmperorâ Concerto, remains one of his most romantic and beautiful compositions, all the more so given the horrors that were occurring all around him while he was writing it.
ANNOUNCING PREGNANCY IS AN ALMOST universal cause for celebration. Fatherhood has become a kind of sanitised paean to the miraculous. It comprises mental stock images of smiling fathers hoisting gurgling babies onto their shoulders and walking arm and arm with their wives through parks. We make light of the lack of sleep, the excruciating responsibility of creating life, the expense, mess, emotional strain of having children. Books are written with titles like âI fall asleep at red lights â the story of the man who had tripletsâ. There are countless guides to âeffective parentingâ whatever the fuck that means. The reality, for me at least, was something far more sinister.
My son was and is a miracle. There is nothing I will experience in my life that will ever match the incandescent atomic bomb of love that exploded in me when he was born. I did not understand the word âperfectionâ until I held him in my arms. Nor did I fully appreciate the concept of God. And if any fathers are reading this who claim not to believe in God then you are lying. Because I promise you, when youâre waiting in the hospital, wife in labour, doctors and nurses bustling around, the smell of ammonia seeping into your nostrils, there is only one thought going through your mind â âplease God let him be healthy. I donât care if heâs not that smart, athletic, handsome, talented. Just give him ten fingers and ten toesâ.
But for me there was a flip side to this. There had to be. Something that powerful has to have an equally intense opposite to counterbalance it. And for me it was terror. Pure, unadulterated, visceral terror. I had been handed the most precious thing in the world and in my core, I knew that I was fundamentally incapable of meeting that responsibility.
You can leave a marriage, quit a job, sell a home, justifiably walk away from your friends, family, exes, rehome a pet. But a child? A biological extension of your very soul? There is simply no escape from that.
Jack (a pseudonym, again at Janeâs request) was the most
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