Don't read the ending to The Argonauts in bed

I’ve never woken up with the feeling of my eyes pushing against a current.

I’ve never woken up with the feeling of my eyes pushing against a current. But the pressure spread from my eyes, down the sides of my head, into my jaw, ears and neck. My head felt full of a foreign heat. 

How do I get it out? I ask, shaking my partner awake. Or rather, what is going on?

The night before, I was racing to the end of The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson. When I woke up, something else in my body woke up along with me. 

I take a shower, hoping that steam and water will dull the pressure in my head. I move my body slowly, gingerly. Grasping softly the shampoo and my limbs. Trying my best to be careful. Once I’m out of the shower, I can feel it again. 

The nausea, starting from the center of my body and spreading outwards like a diffuse light. I crouch before the toilet but nothing happens. My body stalls out of fear. I don’t want to vomit. That scary feeling of giving in. 

Then there’s no choice, no thinking about it. Before I can grab the trash can – just in time, my partner, with the plastic bag. The core of my body pushing upwards, pushing past gravity. Going out. Out! And in the middle of it, a brief euphoria, thinking that this must be the end. But right before my body can settle into relief, I am confronted with a newfound rage. 

We head to urgent care. I cannot open my eyes. The car goes fast. I keep the window down. The wind is loud. Like water, it drowns. But then the car stops, lets us out. I’m asked for the insurance. Where is the insurance? I stare at my screen, fumbling. Trying to find my password. The body begins urging. I run for the trash can, in secret horror of the used tissues stacked inside. 

Here, the nurse intercepts. Hands me a barf bag. I run outside. Knees against concrete. 

Much of The Argonauts is about bodies. Of growing a body, of wanting another body, of living with your own body. The ending of The Argonauts happens in parallel chasms between life and death. The birth of a child and the death of her partner’s mother. 

Again, the push. I tell my body that there’s nothing left, but a hand is on the lever pressing again and again. Everything is sore. In the second quiet, I think of my mother. My body curled in prayer. Hands on the ground. The concrete is cold. 

I didn’t know, however, very much about experiences that demand surrender, Maggie writes… with no safe word to stop it. After many paragraphs of pushing and pain, the baby comes out. As do all the other insides. 

Are you pregnant, or trying to be? The doctor asks when I enter the patient room. I shake my head. My mother and Maggie know doors that I don’t. The fear of labor is still fresh from reading The Argonauts last night. I don’t want to do labor. I want this nausea to end today and forever.

The doctor asks once more about pregnancy then gives up on that thread of reasoning. She settles on migraine. It is more or less certain. If not pregnancy, then yes, it’s that simple. She gives me zofran for the nausea and motrin for the headache. Zofran comes in a pill. They ask me to put it under my tongue. Immediately, my body wants to expel it. Again, the lever violently pressed. 

The nurse comes in with the motrin shot. Sees the barf bag full. Sighs and tells me I’ll need zofran as a shot to avoid vomiting again. The first shot goes in. The nurse gets the second ready. Meanwhile, she turns the light off for me. I close my eyes for more pure darkness. I feel like a child. Fifteen minutes pass. 

Are you better? I don’t think so but the pain is somehow deeper, farther inside my body. Are you better? I think I’ll sit outside. Are you better? I think we’ll call the uber. I think I won’t barf in the uber. 

Red lights shake my body. Each time, my insides feel soft and uneasy. But a few more reds later, I start to drift. I whisper to my partner who’s been here throughout. We get home. I crawl back to bed. I return to the beginning. Cold, shivering, asleep.

I love The Argonauts. I will reread it for a migraine anytime.