Trapped

Sometimes the metaphors in life are just so obvious. Yesterday's proves too irresistible for me to pass over: I woke up to find that my driveway was partially washed out, my road was nearly impassable and the bridge at the bottom of our hill was completely gone—just a big round culvert sitting in the middle of a raging river. (Well, it's actually a brook, but that doesn't really evoke the kind of water that took out our bridge…so, I'm calling it a river.)

As if being married and having a new baby hasn't made me feel trapped enough at times, yesterday the isolation was physical and it was real. For months I've been describing my experience as a new parent as being much like house arrest, and yesterday we literally could not leave.

We live on a U-shaped road, our house is on the little stretch connecting the two primary roads. Here in Vermont, "primary" is still dirt, but it's dirt that is maintained by the town. From the end of our driveway, the road was washed out in both directions, and bridges in both directions were washed out as well. We called school and arranged for subs; we weren't going to make it in. We spent the day bonding with our other trapped neighbors, the two Richards who live on either side of the road down below. Other neighbors from the far side of the bridge came up to see it. They waved to us from their freedom, yelled friendly jokes about sending in supplies, and made real offers of help if we were in need.

I don't think stir-craziness is technically a need. At least not in its early stages. But, by the end of the day, when Sam and I were snapping at each other and I was making what felt like astute observations about the inevitable demise of our marriage if we remain incapable of carrying into our day-to-day lives the romance and relaxation of our vacation days, well, by then we were close to calling in the troops for a rescue.

It rained more last night, and more this morning. Sam was getting ready to leave for school and I didn't technically have to be there until midday, but as the rain kept coming and the notion of being trapped on our hill started to sink in—trapped in our muddy yard, in our small house with our ever-growing baby—I panicked, threw a bunch of stuff in bags and ran out with him. I didn't really have anywhere to go, but I knew I needed to get out. I didn't even really care if I could ever get back up again.

One day soon after we finished building our house, and not long after our wedding, I was home alone, sitting in the living room admiring all of the beautiful details. It was then that I first started thinking about writing again. I imagined a first chapter title for a memoir: "I Built My Own Beautiful Prison." Today I would add chapter two: "I Gave Birth to My Jailer."

I love the house, and the kid. But some days, I really miss my old life. I miss waking up when I wake up. I miss spending my first hour of being awake tending exclusively to my own needs: coffee, quiet, sunshine on the back deck, a long shower. I miss coming and going as I please. I miss being in the car alone. I miss being spontaneous about going for a run, walking the dogs, going out for a beer or a movie. I miss having energy. You get the idea…I miss my free and independent former self.

Lately, the switch that gets flipped in my brain is when Sam says something like, "I'm going to go out and start the tractor," or "I'm going to go take a shower." I get so angry with him for not asking me if it's okay to do these things, not because he should have to ask me, but because I feel like I have to ask him (one of us has to be with the kid, right?). And if I feel this constant nagging sense of responsibility, well, he should feel it too. And it's a sucky way to feel, so I'm definitely not going to be the only one feeling it, "you feel me?" (Have you watched The Wire on HBO? You must.)

Of course, yesterday, when he said he was going out to start the tractor, which I needed him to do so he could redirect some of the rushing water and prevent what remained of our driveway from washing into the woods…well, that wasn't really a good time to have the discussion with him about how the success or failure of this team effort largely depends on his choice of words. I wasn't the only one trapped on this hill after all. Sam has used the word "claustrophobic" more than once in the past twenty-four hours.

Today was a better day for that discussion. It was better because we weren't trapped here on the hill, so we felt a little tiny bit less trapped in our lives. I got mad at him for going to the dining hall to get lunch while I gave Quinn her bottle in my office. Not because going to get lunch is a bad thing, but because I wanted to be the one going to get lunch. And once I made that known, Sam happily took Quinn, propped her up to play with some rolled up ace bandages from his bag of lacrosse gear, and he freed me to go get my lunch.

Some hours later, after dropping Quinn off with her babysitter, teaching our classes, attending an all-school community meeting, meeting with our advisees, picking Quinn up from her babysitter and doing the grocery shopping, we made it home. The guy in the excavator was still working on the bridge. We drove over it and up the hill. More of the road had eroded, but there was still enough there that we could sneak alongside the chasm and make it to the house. The pile of snow under the roofline on the north side of our house was still there, but it was smaller than it had been this morning. The tips of the plants coming up in the garden looked just a little bit higher. I carried my school bag, Sam's school bag, Quinn's diaper bag, and Quinn's toy bag in the house. Sam carried Quinn and a bag of groceries. We got through the door, set things down and exhaled. Sam put his arm around my waist. "We made it through the day," he said and smiled. I did one of those laugh/cry things and made a point to say that if our marriage is going to succeed, it will likely do so because he manages to hold me together on the days I start to fall apart.

I hear all those voices in my head reassuring me, "It is SO worth it...Enjoy every minute because it goes by so fast"! Yadda yadda yadda…whatever people! It's a lot of work and somedays I look forward to time going by just a little bit faster.

In the meantime, I'll try to keep finding the humor in it as best as possible. On vacation last week, we took turns being under house arrest for the afternoon nap. One day I stayed at the house while Sam went to the beach, the next day we switched. On the day I stayed, Sam came back to check on me, and Quinn was being her stubborn self, refusing to fall asleep. He knew I was frustrated, stuck indoors on a beautiful day, the ocean within earshot. I insisted he go back to the beach, so at least one of us could enjoy it. An hour later, I gave up. As I picked up the canvas tote bag and prepared to fill it with all the requisite baby crap, I realized: I bet Quinn fits in this bag. Sure enough, she did. I sat her in the bag, pulled it up around her and fit the straps over my shoulder. I looked in to be sure she could breathe; she actually seemed content, curled up kind of cozily, examining her hands as if they were some new and wonderful object. I walked to the beach with her in the bag. I found Sam and he looked up. "Are we missing someone?" he asked. (I was impressed he noticed.)

"I got so fed up with her I just strapped her in her carseat and locked the door."

"Okay; I'll go get her," he said calmly. (His lack of alarm was a bit less impressive.)

When I leaned over so he could see in the bag, the look of surprise made my previous sense of imprisonment disappear. Sometimes I truly crack myself up. And thank god, because sometimes that's literally all I can do…on the good days that is, all I can do is laugh at the absurdity. That and hope the rain stops.

Count 'Em Up

When it's April and still snowing and the pile of snow on the north side of your house is still high enough that, if you stand on it, you can touch your roof, it's a good time to look around and try to find the blessings in your life. I thought of this the other day, as I drove to work in yet another snow squall, and I nearly drove off the road at the sight of snow geese in an open field at Simplicity Farm, the organic dairy farm just a few miles from my house.

Last year's corn stalks are poking through the shrinking snow pack and, in among them, I have seen for some days a flock of Canada geese. But the other day, white geese with black-tipped wings milled about in their company. Snow geese have made western Vermont one of their stopping points on their southbound journey each fall. In years past, another lifetime it seems, I made fall journeys over the Green Mountains, from my eastern side of the hills, to the Dead Creek Wildlife Refuge to welcome their arrival. They are a spectacular sight when they number in the hundreds or thousands. The other day, I saw only a handful which, in a way, seemed somehow more magical.

I don't know too much about snow geese, but I do know they mate for life. I know they spend their summers in the Arctic tundra. And, I know they are beautiful.

The snow geese at Simplicity Farm briefly expanded my sense of space to the bird's eye view and to migratory distances. I swirled around above all of the murky weather and mud for just a moment or two before landing back here in the Mad River Valley. I drove on thinking about this place where I live. The people who make it what it is. The reasons I've chosen to live here…

I thought about the early phase of committing to it all. Sam had just bought our little 5.8 acre lot and we were living as dorm parents in order to save money to build a house. We spent all of our free time up on the land, cutting trees, pushing the woods back to create a bit of space, excavating the old stone walls that surround us on three sides. We built a tent platform where we thought the house should be so we could try it out...see what the view was like, see how the sun hit at different times of day and different seasons. 

At the end of a work day, we'd sit on the edge of the platform and drink a beer, admire our progress. Suspended as it was in the trees, we could hang our legs over the edge. It felt good to be up in the air. Our house is now where the platform used to be. The trees that held it up are built into our timberframe, still holding us up. 

It was, and is, the right spot.

During that process, we also planned our wedding. That ritual was about our relationship, of course, but it was also about this place…our land, our town, our valley beyond. It was about building a life together, and about building that life here among the mountains and rivers we love, in the company of friends and neighbors we value.

So, when I heard that one of our neighbors on our hill was a justice of the peace, she seemed like the perfect person to marry us. I hadn't met her yet, but I knew where she lived. We'd pass her house a mile before reaching our land. She has the best view of Camel's Hump in the entire state. I started looking for her every time I drove by in hopes that I might meet her. One warm morning, she was sitting outside in front of her house. She was in her nightgown, eating a bowl of oatmeal, the gallon can of maple syrup on the table next to her…my kind of gal.

I might have driven a bit fast on our road, in those early days, always eager to get to our land and never fully appreciating the scenery on the way up. So, that morning when I saw Stephanie, I was almost past her when she came into view. I slammed on the breaks and kicked up a cloud of dirt from the road. I jumped out of the car, amazed to finally see her, in the flesh, after all those months of stalking her.

"Are you Stephanie?" I blurted out.

"Yes," she replied slowly, eyebrows bent in a "who the hell are you?" sort of way, seeming to suggest that I should, first of all, slow the hell down, and second, have a damned good reason for interrupting her early morning solitude.

"My name is Kerry and my partner and I are wondering if you'd marry us!" As if she knew our whole story. As if she cared. As if I hadn't just put dirt in her oatmeal. I don't remember her exact response, but I think it was essentially a "Yes…but let's get to know each other a bit first" kind of answer.

From then on, I drove by slowly and always made sure to wave as I passed—whether I could see her and her husband Louie or not. (Some time later, when I was visiting in their living room, they told me they always saw me wave and appreciated it. They also suggested I convince Sam to slow down.)

Stephanie eventually did marry us, but only after she came up to our half-built house on a warm fall day and sat with us on our back porch. She asked us a bunch of questions—about why we wanted to marry, about why we wanted to live here on this shared hill, about how the hell we planned to get up and down it in the winter! We talked with her about our families and our values and our goals and, when the talk was over, we had a better sense than we ever had before of why we were doing what we were doing.

Stephanie took that conversation and turned it into the most lovely wedding ceremony I could've imagined. I dreaded standing up in front of everyone to say our vows; I was nervous and embarrassed for some reason. But, in the end, the ceremony itself was my absolute favorite part of the whole event. We were surrounded by loved ones—a small group by most standards, only about sixty family members and just our oldest friends. We didn't have a fancy alter or arbor or anything like that. We didn't even have flowers up there. It was just me and Sam, our friend Jim and my sister Amy standing up with us, and Stephanie with her music stand to hold her prepared words. 

Sam and I wrote our own vows—you would expect that of two English teachers, I suppose. We wrote them separately, with no guidelines, and they turned out to express nearly the exact same sentiments—the same themes of respect for each other's independence, desire to share adventures together, devotion to one another and of course a promise to love one another through all the highs and lows. Stephanie's additions were about a sense of place, about our shared hill, about the community we were coming into and which we would help shape.

When I was growing up, my family moved twice, once when I was in third grade and again after ninth grade. I never felt rooted anywhere. I never felt that I had a real home, a sense of history or continuity. I always felt like the new kid, from somewhere else. My whole life I craved home. I have always wanted to belong and have been envious of those with real roots. 

Seeing the snow geese the other day, I was reminded: this is my arctic tundra. I have chosen this place to build my home, set down my roots. So now, as I wait for the snow to melt, and I take stock of my life, I take solace in the blessings I can count. Underneath two feet of snow, there are snow drops working their way toward the sun. My friend Tei gave me the bulbs. And there are tulips and daffodils from my friend Mike; they're on their way too. I have strawberries from Sam's mom and dad's garden, and rhubarb from our friends the Stetsons. I have perennials galore from Char and Jean and neighbors here on our hill. I have a crab apple tree given to me by my friend Bernie on my mother's birthday, to plant for my mom. I have a new stone wall, holding up a new curved garden bed, built by Sam late last summer, that's just waiting for me to decide what to plant…what roots to set. And I have neighbors who appreciate when I wave.

In these seemingly interminable late winter days, it is easy to think about the lingering darkness that is both real and metaphorical. It is easy to feel sad when I think about Japan, or anxious when I think of Tik, another recent student who just spent two weeks in a Syrian prison. It is easy to feel profoundly vulnerable when I think of my current students who have, in the past week, had seizures and been diagnosed with cancer. Even as I look forward to going on our first vacation with Quinn next week, I am reminded of the panicky phone call I received from my friend Mary years ago; she was about to get on a plane and she called to ask if I would take care of her daughter Claire if anything happened to her and her husband.

I have my own panicky thoughts now. I do not want my daughter to be motherless as I am, especially as young as she is. Sam and I spent yesterday afternoon filling out our application for life insurance. But, what value do you put on a life? Who will we ask to raise our daughter? Will our daughter grow to adulthood without having seizures, without cancer? All of this is an exercise in self control.

How does one make it through life with all these hazards to navigate? Is it even possible to navigate them? Believing so is magical thinking…as much as I plan and organize and arrange all the details, there is no controlling it all, there is no controlling what hasn't happened yet.  And, when you are me and control is important, some of these late winter days of darkness and cold are really dark and really cold.

And so, you do what you taught yourself to do years ago: you interrupt yourself even though interrupting is technically not polite; you do it because you have to. You interrupt the dark thoughts by counting up your blessings. You lift yourself up above it all and you look around from the bird's eye view and you see your neighbors' houses which are actually much closer than they feel when the road is blocked by snow, and you see your gardens starting to reveal themselves, and you imagine the taste of fresh strawberries and the feel of sun on your skin, and you feel lucky to have seen the snow geese because they may have been some crazy fluke here in this valley, and you were there to see them and you can tell your neighbors about it the next time you see them because this is where you live. You have a home, a place to set down roots, and so many people who have shared a bit of their world to help you create yours. And, you have Quinn, sleeping on the bed next to you, to hand it all over to someday.

Last spring on May 4th

Enough Said