I am a planner and, normally, most of my energy is put to future thinking. I have to work to stay in the moment, and yet for the past year that’s all I’ve been able to do. Be here, now. In the here and now of this long Covid year, being in the moment has been a protection against hopes and expectations that might not be fulfilled for a still-unknowable amount of time. It has also been a daily taking stock of what we were doing, or planning, in the before times, and what has been lost since. I feel guilty even writing this, since we haven’t, technically, lost much. One in three Americans, according to the Times yesterday, has lost someone to the disease. We have not. We have not lost loved ones, or our jobs, or our homes. We have not lost the freedom to move about freely in our beautiful state, provided that we’re masked. We have not lost the privilege of visiting with friends, as long as we’re outside, and masked, and spread apart. This is all incredibly good fortune considering that 29.6 million people in this country have contracted the disease, and nearly 540,000 Americans have died.
Driving home from school one day last week, a day of teaching and attending meetings on Zoom all day, I noticed black smoke curling out of the windows of a house close to the road in the center of Waitsfield Village. It was an old house, tucked into the hillside sitting close between its two neighbors, with a pile of firewood always sitting in the front yard. I’ve seen an old man come and go from that house, walking his old dog. On this day, as I drove toward it, I saw people running toward the house from different directions. There were no fire trucks yet. I slowed down to pass. I glanced as I drove by. The inside of the house was filled with fire, every inch a frenzy of flame, and standing, just outside, staring at it all, was the old man, his arms by his side, immobile and helpless, his chin tipped up, watching as his house was consumed.
This scene overwhelmed me; shock gave way to tears as I drove toward home. Thank god he made it out, I thought, but how crippling to watch your life go up in flames. Quinn called me from Sam’s phone. They had been skiing when Quinn spotted the black smoke from the chairlift. A black ribbon climbing skyward in an otherwise white landscape of hills and valleys. They would take a different route home; no doubt the road would be closed. The old man, I later learned, is 81 years old. His name is George and he lives alone. A clothes drive was organized right away, and community members worked to secure housing for him. I got online and contributed to a fundraiser for him. Last I checked, over $11k had been donated, which seemed meaningful until I learned that George didn’t have home insurance. He walked out of that mess with the clothes on his back. His cat has not been seen. No one has mentioned a dog; perhaps the dog was lost before the fire.
Somehow I experienced driving by that scene like the gradual, and then sudden slip of clasped hands—my composed self losing her grip against the pull of gravity. The fire was a visible reminder of what life has been feeling like for so many months: vulnerable, with incomprehensible threats always lurking nearby, the chance for something awful to happen at any moment. And as much as I do what I’m supposed to—keep my mask on and my spirits up, reassuring myself and others—inside I know we could all be George, standing there watching our lives go up in flames, our arms hanging useless at our sides.
This morning one of my colleagues called my cell phone and left a message—it was early, and it is Sunday, and I didn’t hear the call. I listened to her voicemail and heard her voice give way to tears as she told me she has to cancel a meeting with me tomorrow morning because Roy, her husband, and everybody’s favorite vet, is in the hospital. They spent the day in the ER yesterday as his body grew weaker and weaker. Twenty-four hours later, he can no longer support his own weight; he is immobile in a hospital bed and Amy can no longer visit him. He’s been diagnosed with Guillain Barre syndrome and while hopefully he will recover, “it is a long road.” Some people can walk again in six months to a year. It’s a fluke illness, and Roy seems like an unlikely target—he is as strong as an ox.
Another metaphor. Anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Yesterday Quinn’s ski club friend Addy had a race. Her neighborhood friend Cedar went skiing with her dad. No one was around for her to play with. Most weekends she’s angry that she can’t have friends inside the house to play, and that she can’t go in their houses either. Two weeks ago she had an accident in her snow pants because she was too embarrassed to ask to use Cedar’s bathroom, or the phone, in the middle of her rare opportunity to play. And yet yesterday, she would have been fine playing outside—no complaints—she was just desperate to see a friend and do something fun. When no one was available, her mood wavered between making the best of things and feeling sorry for herself. She agreed to go for a ski with us and the dogs. We staged the cars strategically to minimize the work and maximize the fun. I put chocolate in my pocket for when she would need it. She started up the trail happy for about a minute before she started to groan. It fell apart quickly from there, slow shuffling steps, groans giving way to tears.
Quinn’s stress becomes ours. I hadn’t had exercise all week. Sam, stuck at home with Quinn and no vehicle (because I’d backed my car into his and it was in the shop) hadn’t had space all week. We needed that ski. Quinn convinced herself she did not. We encouraged her up to the top of the hill, where the trail turns right and the skiing gets fun. We assumed she’d pull it together, but she didn’t right away and I threw in the towel before she could. One of us should go ahead with the dogs, I determined, and the other should take her home and go out later. Sam took her home; I skied on without them. Exercise and fresh air helped me return to the house ready to talk and move on. “I’m not mad,” I told her as she put her book down, curled into a ball, and started to cry. “I’m sorry Mom,” she said.
The regret and shame she feels after these moments is sincere, and terrible. And then, a few hours, or a few days later, we find ourselves in it all over again—another moment, another meltdown.
Watching Quinn’s anxiety become increasingly debilitating for her in the past year or so has been a little bit like watching the house burn down. At first we realized the chimney was blocked, pretty soon the flames started to build, and then they spilled out along the roof. Some days we are standing there, helpless, wondering what we could’ve done to prevent it.
The worst times are always the transitions, like returning to school after time away—school vacations are terrible. Leading up to the first day back after the new year, Quinn started to worry days in advance. Meanwhile Sam and I kept thinking how great it would be for her to reconnect with her school friends. We are on opposite sides of a chasm, trying to communicate from a distance, each of us unheard by the other. Monday morning she refused to go; it was confusing to us at the time, but it is less so now. The bad days always look the same: she says she doesn’t want to go, she is slow to get out of bed, she barely eats breakfast and then she can’t move beyond it. When she is finally hustled back upstairs to get dressed, while we pack lunch, assemble what’s needed in the backpack, do our best to keep the mood light, she bides her time. We find her, later, still in her pajamas. We know she panics if she’s late, and with the clock ticking, our own stress starts to spike. Eventually the confrontation happens—when we insist and she refuses. She stomps and screams, while we try not to. We don’t always succeed, but we do so more often than we used to. We’re either figuring things out, or accepting defeat. It’s hard to know.
That Monday night in January, after not being in school all day, we try again to build momentum in the direction of reentry. She tries again too. We get to bed a little earlier. We lie down with her to help her settle. We love her and, anxiously, hope. On Tuesday morning she manages to get herself out the door. It’s fragile, she is fragile, but she goes.
We listen to music in the car, as I try to make her laugh and keep things upbeat. Partway to school I ask her, “What happened yesterday?” I’m not judging her, just trying to understand, and she tells me, “I had a nightmare the night before and I was too scared to go.” In her nightmare, it is the first day back to school. She forgets her mask and enters the building without it. The adults yell at her. The kids laugh at her. She has a sign on her back that says “kick me.” It is too much.
She tells me this story from the back seat. We are on Main Street, headed toward her school. We are early. All is well. Until it is not. Sitting in the car, at the front of the drop-off circle, with ten minutes to go before “the ladies” come out to open car doors for kids, she panics. “Do we have my sneakers?!?” We do not have her sneakers. It is her nightmare come true. Still, I try to keep it light, as she starts to cry, “I’m not going! I’m not going!” She is completely gone already, as I call Sam and, as calmly as possible, tell him “I need you to get Quinn’s sneakers and bring them to school, okay? I need you to do this right now.”
“He’ll be here in ten minutes,” I tell her, trying to smile gently, “it will be okay.” But Quinn is not okay. She is absolutely freaking out.
When the art teacher opens her door, Quinn pushes herself back to the far side of the back seat. She is shaking her head; tears are streaming down her face. “No! No! Please, Mom! I’m not going.” But I can’t let her miss a second day of school—I’m afraid if I do she’ll never go back. I am reminded of the time my childhood dog cornered a raccoon. His face and ears were shredded when all was said and done, and I know in this moment she is prepared to fight for her life. Mrs. Monley peers into the car. “Come on, Quinn, you need to get out of the car.” The other cars are waiting for us to move, I’m trying to tell her it will be okay, and the flames are climbing the walls.
I step out to try to explain, scanning the road for Sam’s truck. The principal comes over. “What’s up?” she wonders, and I shrug, wondering where to begin. With the sneakers? With Covid? With that time she dug her nails into my hand and refused to go into the room where the acapella group was singing Christmas carols a year ago? Or the time we got all the way to her school for a Valentine's Day event in the gym, in the first or second grade, and she got all the way to that door, heard the crowd inside and refused to go in? Or when she was just three days old and the woman at the hospital watched Quinn refusing to nurse, and said to me, “Oh…She’s stubborn!”
Mrs. Goodnow, Quinn’s principal, with her blue and yellow pom pom in one hand and her walkie-talkie in the other, opened the back door and lowered herself in. As she closed the door behind her, I pictured the back seat—half of it folded down, all our skis and poles and random refuse piled up, Quinn in tears, her giant backpack with everything in it—everything except her fucking sneakers. Pandemic be damned, a masked Mrs. Goodnow was in there in that tight space for five minutes, the cars backed up around the circle and down the road. Eventually she climbed back out. She closed the door behind her and turned her back to the car. “Wow,” she said, “she’s really stuck!” Yeah, I nodded, my arms hanging useless by my sides. “I have one more idea,” she told me as she held the walkie-talkie to her masked face. “Send Camille out to the circle.”
Quinn’s pregnant fourth grade teacher was next. She too climbed into the backseat. Mrs. Goodnow returned to her work of greeting people. Cars started to slowly pull out around us. The art teacher circled back. “You know,” she told me, “I don’t have class the first two periods. Quinn could come hang out with me if she wants!” I thanked her, and waited, my daughter completely in the hands of others. Eventually the door opened. Mrs. Anderson gave me a hopeful look. Quinn emerged behind her—grey hat down over her eyebrows, tears still leaking down her cheeks. “Say goodbye to your mom,” I heard her teacher say, but Quinn walked by me like I was a stranger. And perhaps, in that moment when she felt abandoned, I was.
As soon as the school door closed behind her, my own tears poured out. Mrs. Goodnow showed up again at my side. I was crying and shaking my head, and she was nodding—a gesture of understanding—as Sam’s truck came screaming into the lot. He rushed toward us with the sneakers held high, trying to make sense of the scene. “You have no idea,” Mrs. Goodnow told us, “how many kids are struggling right now. Quinn is not alone.”
I drove to school that morning thinking of my own students—how many of them are not functioning well. I have students who are regularly paralyzed, unable to respond as their teachers’ emails stream in, reminding them of all the things they are supposed to be doing. I’ve thought of Mrs. Goodnow every day since that morning in January. Every day I tell myself that I will get in the backseat with kids if I have to, and I do. I tell the teary parents I don’t have solutions for them, but I tell them I understand, and I do. I tell them how many kids are struggling right now. I tell them their kid is not alone.
And yet, I can’t help notice how alone I feel as I continue to process what Quinn is dealing with. Sam is here, of course, and he is in this with me too. We take turns being the calm one, and take turns helping her out the door. But sometimes when he doesn’t understand her, I get angry at him. And sometimes when he is frustrated with her, the mother lion in me goes into overdrive. But I don’t have it all figured out either. Sometimes it is me who gets frustrated.
Watching Quinn wrestle with the ski club this winter has been incredibly hard. I have said, all along, that I don’t care whether she ski races or not, and in many ways I have hoped it would work itself out of her system before she reaches seventh grade. At the same time, there is no denying it has been good for her. So to watch her worries and self-doubt take over has been heartbreaking. On multiple occasions she’s said yes to going, done all the work to get dressed, ready, and delivered, only to freeze up and refuse once she finally gets to the mountain. We have had this happen while dropping her off, and we have dropped her off and been called back to pick her up.
What we’ve had the hardest time figuring out is if this recent increase in her anxiety, and the club’s necessary Covid restrictions have expedited a decision that would have been natural for her eventually, or if her current anxiety and/or Covid is responsible for her change of heart. I know she misses being part of a pack, she misses goofing off in the clubhouse, riding the t-bar with friends, ripping around in the woods, and the adventure of navigating the lodge at lunch time, among other things. The timing of these Covid related changes, with the transition this year to new coaches, new equipment, and the increased focus on training vs fun has proven too much for her.
When I look back at writing I did two winters ago, her first winter of ski club, I see a kid who only missed two days all winter in order to go to birthday parties. I see a kid who went to club when she had a cold, when the weather sucked, and when we offered her days off. Every time I offered a day off, she said "No way! I want to go to club!" This same kid, this winter, has been one who makes excuses, worries days in advance, panics, and ultimately refuses to go.
She is also a kid who, after the panic subsides, can articulate clearly and often eloquently how she is feeling. “When I start to worry,” she told me one day, “it’s like I’m on a carousel, and every time I go around the circle, my worries multiply, by three…they just keep growing and growing.” What she is able to express, and understand, is amazing to me. She has skills that so many adults do not. She is sensitive, intuitive, and the most powerful person I know. Seeing all of the work she does, every day, makes me both proud of her and sad for her—I wish she didn’t have to work so hard. And seeing the shame she feels, in the moments when she loses control, is devastating.
Sam and I are not sure if we have screwed this ski club decision up for her. Has she outgrown her love of skiing and the club, and we're making it a bigger deal than it is? Or has her anxiety gotten the better of her, and we’ve failed to help her through that? When I asked her, a couple of weekends ago, after she had been away from the club for a couple of weeks, whether she missed it or felt relieved, she told me she felt relief. But I don’t know if that is relief that she doesn’t have to go to ski club anymore, or relief that she doesn’t have to wrestle with her worries about it anymore.
If she was happy, it would be easy. We could easily hang up the race skis for good. But she’s not visibly happy about it. Ski club was the first thing that Quinn seemed to want for herself. It gave her a sense of belonging, a community of friends and coaches, it gave her freedom. Quinn has spent her whole life in the constant presence of GMVS, and even though she is only ten, she seems acutely aware that the decisions she makes now, during this insane time, will impact her options in the future. How messed up that she has to carry that weight too. The night that I asked her whether she missed it or felt relief, the answer came easily, but the thing that was hard was this: “I’m just having a hard time telling myself I’m not a ‘club' kid anymore.” She buried her face in Buddy’s fur, and then in my arms, to cry.
Here, at the one year anniversary of when this whole thing took hold, I feel like we are all in mourning. Mourning the loss of who we were before, of the plans we had that never happened, of the lives we were used to living that now seem lost. Certainly we are mourning the time we can’t get back with our loved ones—the holidays and vacations and dinner parties and birthdays. And as soon as we feel sorrow, we feel guilt, because it also feels like we have no right to complain.
In five days my dad and Louise will get their first shots. Char has had her first one. Sam and I will probably sign up for vaccine appointments this week. We are hearing about a third stimulus check from the federal government sometime soon. Winter’s end is near. And yet, I feel so pared down a lot of the time, so on the edge of panic myself, that I can’t really imagine my old life. The notion of having a house full of people, or being in a loud bar, or in close proximity to others seems so foreign. I'm losing interest in casual get togethers with some friends because, well, what is there to talk about? I don't want to complain. So in my free time, my time away from work, I am often alone by choice, dumbstruck at the ongoing realities of life right now—the smoke pouring out the windows, curling up toward the sky. Somedays it’s hard to see the future. And while I used to feel bad, in the before times, for not being better at living in the moment, there are days now when I don’t know how to escape it and look ahead.
It's not all bad. We have so much to be grateful for. It's all kind of hard to explain.
