Quinn Turns One

Stress happens when your expectations don't match your reality. I heard someone say that years ago and it was an epiphany. "Exactly," I thought, "that's exactly when I feel stressed!"

Despite understanding this rationally, I'm still prone to having unwieldy and unrealistic expectations around certain events. When I couple this with my chronic and often debilitating sentimentality, I become the emotional equivalent of a Perfect Storm.

I started planning for Quinn's first birthday a couple of months ago. I wanted to find the perfect gift for her. Not because she currently has any sense of what a birthday present is, but because later when she looks back at the photos and the video and the letter I wrote her in her book of letters, she'll think I did a good job and she'll have some fragment of an idea how much I love her. If you think this sounds a bit crazy, I'm sure Sam will tell you you're right. And if I hear you and Sam having that conversation, I'll have a few choice things to add, but for now I'll try to get on with this story.

Around the time that we took Quinn camping for the first (and to date only) time, we are pretty sure we had a bear come into our driveway. We think this because we had left a big stinkin' bag of garbage in the back of Sam's very tall truck when we went out for a few hours. When we came home, we followed a trail of garbage up our road, down our driveway and all the way back to the back of Sam's truck. Something or someone had pulled it out of the truck and dragged it down the road. Squirrels can't do that, I don't think skunks or raccoons can do that, and I know dogs wouldn't bother—they'd just tear it apart right in the truck bed and eat all the nasty stuff they wanted and then probably hop down and pretend they had no idea what you were so mad about. We're pretty sure a black bear is the only animal living in our midst that would bother to take the bounty with him.

These things: camping, neighbors that are bears, and one of my favorite books in Quinn's collection--Eric Carle's Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?…these things led me to Quinn's first birthday present. When I saw a sleeping bag with the Brown Bear on it, and the option to have her name embroidered on it, I knew I would buy it…even though she currently hates camping. I'm confident she'll someday like her first sleeping bag and she'll associate it with big adventures and then she'll want to have big adventures, all the time, with me. (Notice some of those stress factors starting to align themselves here. Maybe I don't have to point that out.) 

That was going to be her only present, until one day when I was in a kitchen store buying my friend Julie (who reads my blog and who is forty, even though I am only thirty-nine) a birthday present, and I saw a sweet cotton apron with owls on it. I have been wanting an apron—one of those around the neck tie behind the back ones—because I love baking and I'm always covering myself in goo and because secretly I love playing house and kind of imagine myself as Leave It to Beaver's mom, even though she is not sexy (I'm sorry Sam). Anyway, I also have a sentimental attachment to owls because the night my water broke I thought I peed myself. Bare with me here…It was 3:30 a.m. and I rolled over in my sleep and I woke up with wet pajamas. And in that moment I thought, "Oh great. Yet another indignity. Now I pee myself." But, when I got up to go to the bathroom and sort myself out, and I stepped out of the room where the fan was providing white noise to help me block out Darth Vader's sleeping sounds, I heard a barred owl in our backyard. And when I heard that owl calling, I thought, "Oh my. I did not just pee myself. That owl is calling to this baby and this baby is on her way." 


This too might sound crazy, but that owl, or maybe those owls were going to town out there in my woods and that baby was also making some very big moves. I woke Sam up and said, "if you hear me talking downstairs, it's because I'm going to call the doctor. I think my water just broke." Sam woke up right away. "Oh! Oh my god! Okay!" That's what he said. He was smiling and clearly excited. When I got off the phone, I went back upstairs to tell him what she said and he was sound asleep…I'll just let that speak for itself.

Anyway, what the doctor did when I told her is she asked me what I wanted to do. Because denial is a proud family tradition, I said, "I want to go back to bed." Not surprisingly, the doctor did too. So, she warned me that contractions usually start within an hour and she told me to come in to the hospital if I got uncomfortable or nervous, or  to come in by 8 a.m., whichever came first. Well, at exactly 4:30 a.m. I had my first contraction and it was no big deal. I'd met menstrual cramps that had more teeth than that—so, no problem, I thought. I stayed in bed until 5:30 a.m. when I could no longer breathe. At that point, I woke Sam up again and told him we should get ready. What that meant was that we needed to reinstall the shower doors on the newly caulked shower, then I should have a long shower because, well, who knew? Then I had to decide what to bring to the hospital because I hadn't done that yet. And then we should probably call Corey to ask him to come take care of the dogs because we hadn't done that yet either. And for the record, no, Quinn was not early…she arrived essentially on her due date. 

I'll spare you the rest of the "getting to the hospital" story, except this one visual: We are driving the hour-long drive to the hospital. I am so uncomfortable (this is a massive understatement) that I am kneeling on the back seat of Sam's Subaru, facing out the back window. My eyes are clenched shut because the light hurts so bad, and I'm gripping the head rest in a two-armed death squeeze. And I am groaning in pain with every contraction which seems to be all one long continuous contraction. And I am pleading (this word choice is also inaccurate) with Sam to please go a bit faster (now I'm just laughing because I for sure never said please) when suddenly I feel the car come to a stop. I am stunned, and desperate, so I open one eye and what I see is this: I see someone in a nice outfit sitting in his or her car right next to me and that person is looking at me with utter horror and confusion, and I realize we are stuck in commuter traffic and I am making one-eyed eye contact with a total stranger while my body tries to heave out a baby...Marlow's Heart of Darkness horror couldn't compare to mine in that moment (this time I'm using overstatement…but that's how I felt, I swear!). 

Anyway, fast forward a bit and I'm in a room. Some resident or medical newbie of some sort comes in and asks me if she can check to see if my cervix is dilated and I say yes, like I really have a choice. And this woman actually says to me, "Congratulations! You're at 6 cm." And in that moment I look away from her and I look at Sam and I say, "No f'ing way is this 6 cm, because if this is 6 cm that means I'm only a little more than halfway and if this is going to get twice as bad, I'm going to kill somebody." 

It was crazy math, especially considering I had no idea what 6 cm or any other centimeters was supposed to feel like. But, I've got good instincts about my body and so did Betsy, my nurse, thank god. She had a real doctor come in and check me again and that doctor said two things I very much wanted to hear: 1. "Wow! You're already at 9cm!" and 2. "Your epidural should kick in soon."

By 9:30 a.m. the epidural was in and the whole experience took on a much different feel. If you are reading this and you've had a baby too and you had a bad time, please skip the rest of this paragraph. Or, if you haven't had a baby and you (like me, before Quinn) don't understand why women insist on telling their birthing stories, please also feel free to skip ahead...Trust me. Last chance. Here goes: The rest of the morning was peaceful and relaxing. I napped. Sam read a magazine. We talked quietly. The overhead lights were out because it was the middle of a nice September day and we had a wall of glass to look out at our view north from Burlington. At 11:45 a.m. the nurse and doctor came in and woke me up. They asked me if I wanted to start pushing. I asked them, "do I have to?" They said that "she" had done all she could do on her own at that point. I told them they'd have to give us instructions because in keeping with the denial theme, Sam and I had not taken a birthing class and we had no idea what came next. Turns out, not too much. We watched for a contraction on the monitor, when it came I pushed, when it left I stopped and Sam and Betsy and our doctor, Rosa, and I resumed our quiet conversation. It all took less than an hour before "she" was there and Betsy asked us whether we'd picked out a name and Sam and I looked at each other to be sure and I said, "Quinn. Her name is Quinn."

The first word that always comes to mind when I describe the experience of Quinn's birth is blissful. I laugh at myself whenever I admit that because going into the birth I described how I felt as being something along the lines of knowing I was about to get into a car accident; what I didn't know was whether it was going to be a fender-bender or total devastation. Amazing. Magical. Blissful…these words were not even in the remotest possibilities in my mind. And I guess that's where it all began…all the things that have happened that I didn't expect to happen, and all the things that have changed (thankfully) that I didn't expect to change.

Anyway, I saw the owl apron and I had to have it so I carried it up to the register wishing I could put it on right then. Quinn's birthday was only a couple of weeks away and I was finding myself more and more sentimental about it all by the minute…sentimental about my pregnancy, about the owl calling to her in the backyard, about the birth and every single thing that has happened since. So, when the lady at the register said, "Oh, this is sweet. Did you see the little  owl aprons right behind you?" Well, then Quinn had two birthday presents that she can't yet use or appreciate. But, like the sleeping bag, I immediately envisioned Quinn and I in our owl aprons working side by side at our butcher block counter, mixing cookie batter or rolling out pie dough or sampling the churning ice cream. And I imagined that she would love wearing it and love being with me in the kitchen and we would have great talks and be great friends and she'd think I made The Best cookies and pie and ice cream ever made. (Here again we see evidence of my original theme, but again, maybe you noticed that already).

So, I bought the presents, baked a chocolate cake and put a giant Q on it (because I have no artistic ability and couldn't do any of that crazy frosting sculpture or painting that other moms (including my own) could do). 

And I made a batch of maple ice cream not because maple goes well with chocolate but because my baby is a Vermont baby and maple is the flavor of this state. And I made pesto from the basil in the garden, and gathered whatever tomatoes Boone had left on the vine for me, and I cleaned the house to get ready for the birthday party.

We wanted to share the day to make it feel more festive, so we invited Jerry who came to see Quinn in the hospital the day she was born and who brought her a star quilt from South Dakota and a piece of sage. He took this photo for us when Quinn was about five hours old:

And we invited Corey who took care of the dogs and was waiting for us when we brought her home the next day. He had hung pink balloons on the front porch and brought her a hat to keep her warm. He took this photo for us when she weighed only six and a half pounds:

And last but not least we invited Char who is more than words can say and who once shared the wisdom that "friends are the family we choose."

So, we assembled our chosen family so we could call it a party and also so Sam and I could say thank you to these three people whose friendship has, literally, gotten us through this first, wonderful-but-not-easy year. 

And we opened presents…

thanks for the photo Corey Hendrickson

thanks for the photo Corey Hendrickson

And we ate cake…

thanks for the photo Corey Hendrickson

thanks for the photo Corey Hendrickson

And after Quinn went to bed we had dinner and conversation and a lot of laughter. And eventually everyone had to go home because it was a Wednesday after all and because it was late. And after everyone went home, and the dishes were done, I laid down on the couch eager to see the footage of the whole event that Sam took because I asked him too. I couldn't wait to see her crawling back and forth next to Corey's present because she was, for some reason, afraid to open it (how did she know it was an Ugly Doll?). And I couldn't wait to see her sitting in her high chair rocking out with her head-bob and arm pumping routine when Jerry Garcia came through the speakers singing, "the way you do the things you do." Basically it was all so sweet and wonderful that I just didn't want it to be over and I wanted to see it all again…

But there was no footage. Well, there was audio, but no video. And I don't know why exactly and I can't even really think about it, but I can tell you that my expectations did not match my reality and what happened next was like a rogue wave. And when Sam insinuated that something was wrong with me to be so upset that there was no video footage, as if I was one of those crazy mothers, well then I got really crazy…and I went to bed heartbroken. Actually, I think devastated was the word I used.

So, wonderful evening, wonderful friends, wonderful year, wonderful memories…what's to be devastated about? It's a fair question. It's the question. And I've been asking it of myself ever since. And this is all that I've been able to come up with: Loving this kid is so much bigger than I ever thought it would be, than I ever thought anything would be, and while sometimes I feel very at ease with it all…like today when she was sinking her hands into the dirt in my garden and lifting it up and watching it rain down all over herself, and she was licking the muddy rocks she pulled out of the soil trying to decide whether she was going to eat them…in that moment, lying in the grass with both dogs lying next to me, looking up at Quinn kneeling next to the garden box with sun spots all around her…in that moment I was very at ease. But, in other moments, I am fighting off panic, terrified of all the horrible things that could happen to her, of all the ways I could lose her, of the fact that all of this perfectness could somehow just come to an end and vaporize. And in those moments I clutch onto every detail and start trying to record it all—every sight, sound, sensation, expression, gesture—everything. Because everything could turn into nothing and if that happened I too would turn into nothing…I would, I'm quite sure, cease to be.

Approaching Quinn's first birthday, I felt very celebratory and proud, like we had accomplished something really amazing. I grew her, she arrived, she is perfect, we survived. This is amazing, every time it happens, and I'm so grateful to have experienced it, to have been included in the unbelievable privilege of giving life. And because Quinn is the source of this divine experience for me, I wanted her birthday to be perfect. And when it wasn't perfect (i.e. we don't have the video footage to prove it), the collision of expectations and reality happened. And when that happened I was forced to look at my expectations and that's the part that has me feeling particularly frightened right now because I am always going to want things to be perfect for her, and happy, and fun, and safe, and on and on and on…and how terrifying that I can't actually ensure these things for her…How terrifying this particular kind of love is...

Five days old. September 2010

October 2010

November 2010

December 2010

January 2011

February 2011

March 2011

April 2011

May 2011

June 2011

July 2011

August 2011

One Year Old. September 2011

How terrifying and magical indeed.

(I love you Quinn. Happy Birthday.)

Irene

"It's good to have a friend with you when you're picking through the trees for your possessions."

That's what my friend Corey said as we worked our way through the debris and the mud along the river, searching for familiar items, the physical evidence of his life. We found a snow tire in a tree. A storage trunk under a tangle of branches. Inside the trunk, the Hendrickson Family Genealogy. We found prints of his photographs, barely visible under mud. A jacket. Some books. A table upside down 50 feet from the storage unit where it once lived.

Corey had just come home from a photo shoot in France. Those of us here in Vermont had been processing the statewide floods for four days already, but it was all new to him. On that first day he came home to see his life strewn about in open air, disassembled and exposed. Because it was new, it was raw and a bit hopeless. Each thing we found, he told me to leave. "It's done," he said, "it's ruined." But I'd been shoveling mud for a few days already. Hauling soggy cases of wine bottles out of the basement of Flatbread, and pulling tools out of the silt in the fields of Small Step Farm. I'd seen some of the unlikely transformations—objects cleaned off and looking relatively normal again. I made him keep some things. And I stashed some additional things in my truck that he had already said goodbye to. I've been brushing dried mud off of his photographs in my basement for days.

The foot-thick slab of cement that was the floor of his storage unit dropped out. The earth beneath it was scoured away and carried downstream. 

We stood in the mud and looked up at the few pieces of furniture that remained. At our feet, his books mingled with the books of the neighboring storage unit. While Corey climbed up into the building, ten feet or more above my head, I looked down. One book was open at my feet; it was open to Van Gogh's Starry Night painting, the name of the café where Sam and I had our first date. I thought about that: physical things ruined, swept away, but people—what's important—still in tact. I mourned the loss of Corey's possessions, but he had the right point of view: "nobody died." Some people did actually die, but fortunately none of our neighbors, no one from our small community. I'm sick for those who did lose someone.

Bushwhacking along the river, unimaginably far from where things were stored, we found things in unimaginable places. Abe Lincoln's face looked up at me from a book jacket. Rachel Carson from another one, leaning against a log with the Winooski River sliding along lazily behind her. "Such a placid thing," Corey said, "And yet, so angry." Abe Lincoln. Rachel Carson. What would they say? Abe would be proud of communities pulling together. Rachel might wag a finger at us; "We've been telling you this would happen," she might say, on behalf of scientists everywhere. So much of this weather the fault of our over-consumption, our waste, our bad habits.

Under some plywood, wedged in the silt, I found a handwritten letter, in beautiful script, addressed to "Dear Mom," that's as far as I could bear to read. Further downstream, near where Corey looked down and said, "Hey, there's a picture of me," I found Eric Carle's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear half buried in mud. Quinn's first birthday is this week. I bought her a Brown Bear sleeping bag, with her name embroidered on it. I'm waiting for it to arrive in the mail. I turned the pages and started to cry.

I had already been crying. Standing in the wreckage beneath Corey's storage space, an older man stopped on his way back to his car. "Have you been able to find much?" he asked. Corey told him most things were ruined, or gone. He told us about his own experience cleaning things out, trying to find things. "The other day my wife and I were getting ready to give up," he said. "I found this trash bag in the mud and held it up. My wife said she didn't know what it was. Told me I should just put it down. Then she said, 'Well, maybe we should just see what's in there.' So, I opened it up. We didn't recognize anything at first, but then I reached in and pulled something out. It was her wedding dress. Forty-three years of marriage and there was her wedding dress. Then, underneath it, we found her mother's wedding dress too."

I had to walk away as I burst into tears.

Corey made jokes because that's what he does, but I know it was hard for him. He thanked me a dozen times for helping him. Every time he did, I thought of what he said after I wrote my post about my ten-year anniversary with Sam. "I've known you longer," he said. And he has. Corey and I met when I was in grad school and he was still in college. We both rented condos at Bolton Valley Ski Resort, on top of a mountain, up against the Green Mountain ridge. Neither of us was a fully formed human at that time, but somehow we've remained friends. Really he's like a brother…he picks on me and I boss him around; it's a wonderful relationship.

After we salvaged all we could salvage, we drove into downtown Waterbury to see if the grocery store was open so we could buy a bottle of wine to bring home. Sam had picked up pizzas and was waiting for us, along with his mom, Alden, who had come up to help babysit Quinn while we taught classes and shoveled mud in any free time we could find. Corey and I were depressed when we left the storage unit, but we were stunned when we saw Main Street in Waterbury. At the end of every single driveway was a mountain of debris--piles and piles of wasted homes and lost memories. It looked like a war zone.

It did not look like the place where we live. Anyone who lives in Vermont will tell you that living here is a singularly wonderful experience. It is quiet. It is beautiful. Everyone in a small community is a neighbor. People pull you out of ditches. They return your wallet. They give you a hug when you eat in their restaurant…There are so many faces in this tragedy, faces we see every day.

American Flatbread at Lareau Farm

The Little League Fields

Small Step Farm

Behind Bridge Street

On Sunday, when Irene hit, I had just come home from Maine. My friend Julie turned forty and had a party. I spent 24 hours with my three best friends…they are all forty, and we are now (finally) all moms. We have been friends for twenty-two years, through deaths and marriages and births and all kinds of storms. Driving home I was eager to write about them…about how important they are to me, how incredible it is to have so much shared history. Driving into the hurricane with Kim, I was certain there was no one I'd rather be driving with…she brings out my adventurous spirit, my courage, my sense of humor in the face of absurdity and chaos. But once I got home, the storm was becoming real and all of my time in the week since has been spent dealing with its aftermath.

By Sunday afternoon when our bridge washed out, again, I thought our disaster was the disaster. We lost power and had no access to the internet. It wasn't until midday Monday when I drove into Waitsfield to get more milk for Quinn that I started to realize that things were much worse down below in the valley. That morning there was no way to get from one side of the Mad River to the other…the bridges were all impassable. Bridge Street, where the covered bridge is, was closed off. Mud and gravel left patterns of flowing water in fields and yards. Whole sections of roads were simply gone. I went to my neighbor's house to use her internet (Stephanie's is wind-powered), and it all started to sink in.

All week I've been struggling to concentrate on anything but the stories and the cleanup effort. I've been continuously scanning the online bulletin boards for updates, watching countless videos of the rivers rising, houses crumpling, roads disappearing. I watched one video of a man on horseback carefully traversing a river (on top of a road), to bring medical supplies to one of the many towns that was cut off on all sides. I've watched National Guard helicopters passing overhead at all hours of the day, and brought baby clothes and my own clothes to a Flood Drive for families that have lost everything…There are families that have lost everything. It is hard to feel that anything else is important…anything other than putting my boots back on and going back to shovel more mud.

And it will be hard in the years ahead not to associate the milestone of Quinn's first birthday with the Flood of 2011. It has been a perspective-changing experience, but some of it has been uplifting...people helping other people, new friendships formed working side-by-side in dire circumstances...the joy of dancing in the street last night with Quinn on my shoulders as everyone came together to share food and drink and music, and the experience of this challenging moment together.