The Pendulum

In the past month, I haven’t been able to write because, just as the joy sometimes seems too much to contain, so too does it leave the body, and the space it vacates sits empty for a time. And this, for me, can be debilitating. I am one of those people for whom everything is loaded. Every milestone, anniversary, birthday. Mostly I feel glad once they’ve passed.

Last week was our fifth wedding anniversary. We had a week off from school leading up to it. We got caught up on projects, tried to put school out of our minds, tried to relax. But too much time off, we’ve both decided, isn’t always good for us. I tend to stew. And, I think I’m contagious; either that or Sam also has a latent tendency to stew. Too much time off and we have a lot of time to look around and see all the things we have yet to accomplish. 

In the midst of last week’s normal kind of worries, I had a weird thing happen that required a doctor’s visit and will require a brain scan, and the exhaust system on my car all but fell off, and Sam’s beloved chainsaw kicked the bucket.  My dad spent a night in the hospital. A photograph of Boone showed up on television, in an Apple commercial, and for some reason that made me feel violated rather than proud. I was happy to see Corey’s photograph purchased by such a big fat trendy company, and at the same time a little weirded out that our shared memory of a beautiful summer afternoon with friends was now selling mini-iPads. Everything made me feel vulnerable. And exposed.

On the day of our wedding anniversary, Corey was kind enough to hang out with Quinn so Sam and I could go on a date. We went to a movie, then out to dinner. We saw the new James Bond film, and I loved it. I was desperate to love it--I needed something fun to lift me out of the funk. When we got to the restaurant afterward, Sam announced that he thought the movie was "okay." Just okay. I watched as the balloon deflated. By the end of dinner, we cycled back in conversation to Quinn, as we always do. She always lifts me up. 

Sam  got a big smile on his face. “I was thinking about Quinn when I saw those girls standing outside the movie theater on their own,” he said, “It’s hard to believe she’ll be doing that someday, but she will be!” He said it as if that would be so great. I burst into tears. “I can’t actually talk about that right now.” But he persisted, trying to tell me how great it will be. Vulnerable and exposed, I tried to explain it to him, “Parenting--it’s all a slow tearing away of the thing you most love. How am I supposed to be happy about that?”

Sometimes Sam and I are fundamentally unable to understand one another. His optimism, his excitement about Quinn’s future...I recognize those to be good, healthy things. And yet, I can’t always join him. Letting go is not my strong point. Neither is uncertainty, nor a lack of control. I’m very bad at goodbye.

And yet, time marches on and the unavoidable greets me, inevitably, at the beginning of each new day. Yesterday, I turned 41. Yesterday, the funk still firmly in place, I felt lonely. In the morning, trying to get Quinn ready to go off to school, she asked me to pick her up. She’s getting big, and sometimes my tiredness overwhelms my desire to hold her all the time. “What, are you a baby?” I asked without thinking. And then I heard what I had said. “Nevermind! You can be my baby as long as you want to be.” She pointed a finger to her chest. “I’m Quinnie!” she announced. It was the first time she’d ever done that, ever identified herself by her own name. It felt like a great birthday present--my daughter realizing her own identity, accepting the name we chose for her. But, it was bittersweet--I’m Quinnie also means I’m not a baby. I asked her to tell her dad what she had said, and she did it all over again, this time pointing a finger to the center of her forehead, “I’m Quinnie!” she said proudly. And I resolved never to say again, “don’t be a baby...be a big girl.” I’m done rushing her. 

The rest of the day I wandered around the house trying to clean and prep for Thanksgiving. I wanted to be doing something more fun, something celebratory, but I couldn’t think of anything. My car was in the shop, getting the exhaust system sutured back on, and Sam was outside continuing with the never ending clearing, stacking, and burning.

This morning, I got my 41 year old self up early and out the door for a haircut in Burlington--few things rival the ability of a haircut to improve my state of mind. After that, my first dermatology appointment, to have a patch of skin sliced off my face for a biopsy. Quinn has been picking at it for months; “Boo-boo, Mama?” she’ll ask and then kiss my cheek. Somehow this self-maintenance feels like a birthday celebration and so I work to prolong it. I showed up here at Barnes & Noble with a bandaid on my face, shameless now that I'm older. I got in the wrong end of the line for coffee. When I was finally pointed in the right direction, a preview to future experiences of disorientation, I reached the counter and asked for a cappuccino. “Would you like that wet or dry?” the counter guy asked me. What!? I confessed I had no idea what that meant, secretly thinking there really is only one correct answer to this question, isn’t there? I felt even older when he explained the issue of the foam-to-milk ratio, knowing somehow, in the 20 years since my college coffee shop days, I totally missed this.

Settled at a table, next to other women who are also on their computers with their earbuds in and their coffee getting cold, I enjoy slipping away into a relieved anonymity. I can’t take my eyes off the couple in front of me. They are even older. The man’s hand shakes as he lifts his paper coffee cup to his lips. The woman scans and rescans the room, holding, but not drinking her coffee. They don’t look at each other. They don’t talk. It’s as if they are strangers. It depresses me and I imagine telling Sam about it later. I know Sam would see it differently, “they are so familiar to one another,” he would think, “they don’t need to talk.” From my point of view, right now at 41, 5 years married, it makes me feel unspeakably sad. I project myself into her, resigned after all the inevitable years, to the silence.

An hour later and they are gone. And in their place, two women and a toddler.  A pot bellied little girl-baby with blond curls and an insatiable curiosity, she sneaks up to other tables and reaches her little toy car up to the table tops and then grins at strangers, waiting for them to discover her surprise, her accomplishment. She runs around a display out of sight and then pops back into the room, her arms spread in a wide ta-da! She is irresistible, younger than my Quinn, but evocative of her nonetheless.

And so it is, the balance of young and old. The dichotomy of this life. The boundless joys, the silent resignations. The company of strangers. The familiar love of familiar love.

One week after our wedding in 2007, I borrowed Sam’s truck to bring a load of firewood over to Char’s camp. Sam stayed home with the dogs. Char’s camp road is miles long, a single irregular dirt lane. That November, winter came early and stayed, both here in Vermont and across the lake in the Adirondacks. I drove slowly once I left the pavement. The corners are blind, and there were patches of ice, but it was a clear sunny day and I didn’t expect to see the other car. I touched the brakes lightly. The other driver did the same. And slowly, very very slowly, we slid inexorably toward one another and collided head on. 

It’s amazing how fragile a big heavy truck can be. The whole front end of my new husband’s old truck crumpled. 

The next day I drove home feeling a bit anxious about breaking the news to him. Not because he would be angry, because he doesn’t get angry, or judgmental about such things. He is kind in this way--accidents happen. I’ve had to learn this from him; somedays I respond the right way from the start, and somedays it takes me a few tries to get it right. Nevertheless, I worried about the inconvenience, about the bummer and the expense of it all. I parked the truck at the bottom of our hill, a quarter mile from the house, and walked up. The snow tires weren’t on yet and I knew I wouldn’t make it up, and this gave me a chance to explain it to him before he could see it. 

Sam, my new husband of one week, saw me walking up the driveway and met me halfway. The first thing out of his mouth was, “I have something to tell you.” 

“That’s good,” I said, “because I have something to tell you too.” 

I can’t remember exactly how he explained his story, but essentially it was this: “I lit the front porch on fire.”

“That’s okay," I told him, "I destroyed your truck.”

And so began our marriage--tested from both sides, simultaneously, each of us on equally shaky footing, both of us glad things hadn’t been worse, neither of us hurt, the still under construction house still standing, the truck still driveable. Both of us laughing.

Five years later and we’re still problem solving, still trying to make the dollars and sense line up, still working and worrying and trying to hold it, and ourselves, together. The corners are still blind, and sometimes there are patches of ice. Slowly, but not as slowly as I would like, we slide inexorably onward, conscious of how fragile this big life can be.

PS: There were many bright spots on my birthday...the early morning voicemail from my sister, always the first to call, my dad and Louise singing on the phone, another call from Jerry, a tired new dad who, amazingly, remembered. Cards in the mail from my cherished friend Jean, and my parents-in-law, a dear uncle, and an aunt. An email from my Aunt Nancy in Arizona who relayed a Thanksgiving memory of my mom, another email from my Uncle Du, also thinking of my mom and sending, from Heaven, my Auntie Francie’s birthday wishes to me. My crazy friend Julie who can make me laugh in any circumstance. An email from a much-missed fellow Scorpio, in England, or Copenhagen or Africa? Another email from a much-admired Scorpio friend in Montreal. The sound of my dear friend Kim’s voice on two voicemails--her determination to reach me so appreciated. A long email from my cousin Colette, which I still need to answer,  and one from my friend Rebecca who made it to the computer despite her exhaustion at the hands of her newborn Henry. Finally, a midday call from Char to wish me a happy birthday and let me know her flight to Ohio got so messed up she cancelled it. She called to ask if she could come to our house for Thanksgiving...I was so happy I cried. A feeling of loneliness is hard to maintain in the midst of so much love. Thank you all. I miss you.