N. is eight months pregnant with our first child and we have been living through the agonies and ecstasies of this new, amazing, and somewhat scary experience. So, of course, we were keen on seeing Away We Go, the new Sam Mendes movie written by Dave Eggers and his wife Vendala Veda based, one must assume, at least in part on their experiences with the same momentous occasion in their lives.
I watched the movie less as a film or work of fiction than as a touchstone for my own experience as an expecting dad.
As such, the movie raised two questions for me. First, if I recently replaced our cardboard window pane in our bedroom with a proper piece of glass, does that mean that we are ready to have a child? Second, is it common that men fret over terminal diseases when they are expecting their first child? I have been wondering whether the fact that I am bad with names - something of fairly long standing - means that I have a terminal brain tumor.
