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

Payback

I don't like babies. I did not get pregnant because I liked or wanted a baby, but rather because I wanted to someday have a teenage kid in my life, who would continue to grow up from there and become, hopefully, more and more interesting. When we were contemplating having a baby, I really just wanted another puppy, but I knew I'd have to invest in that future teenager and there appears to be no other way than to start small…literally.

So, getting pregnant became a goal and I am a goal-oriented person. In the first month that we didn't succeed, I was ticked off. Not because that put me one month further away from a baby, but because I had failed to achieve the goal.  In the second month that we didn't succeed, I was psychological: What if I'm too old? What if I can't? As soon as I imagined being told that I was incapable of reproducing, I of course wanted to even more…again, not because of a desire for a baby, but rather because I absolutely bristle at being told what I cannot do and then I go forth Braveheart style on a mission to do that very thing.  The third month was November and Sam was away so instead of worrying about the goal I hosted the annual Scorpio Party for all of my sassy Scorpio and Honorary Scorpio girlfriends. (I'm guessing you're not surprised to learn that I'm a Scorpio).

It was December when the goal was finally reached and I thought, "Oh shit! Now I'm pregnant!" 

It was on the night of the 30^th when I was waitressing at Egan's and I first started to sense it. I was serving chicken fingers to a bunch of obnoxious kids who were being ignored by their obnoxious parents who were busy sending me back and forth from the kitchen for one friggin' thing at a time. For years, waitressing had been great birth control. Why would I ever want to have kids after seeing kids who were allowed to behave badly in restaurants? My Scorpio and Honorary Scorpio girlfriends and I would sit around at Table 8 after hours drinking wine, talking about all those condescending people from New York and New Jersey and think, "Ha! Joke's on you, people! You and your obnoxious kids, schlepping all the way up here for a brief respite from your insane life, and we live here, in the mountains, without kids, playing every day instead of once a year!"  But that night, as I walked back and forth to the kitchen from the stupid booth that's built out of a car, that all those friggin' kids want to sit in, to fetch another fork, or a bit of ketchup, or some other thing that the kid or the parent was screaming for, I walked back and forth gripped by the growing realization that I was suddenly in danger of living that very same insane life…not to mention getting very fat, very soon.

Sam and I had friends visiting for New Year's Eve, so I waited until New Year's Day when everyone cleared out to go upstairs and take the test. The damned thing confirmed my worst fears: I had just cashed in my free & independent, healthy & fun life for fatness and chaos and servitude. I called my sister Amy before I told Sam. I was in a full-blown panic. And, as she had done when I wet my pants playing Hide & Seek in the fourth grade, she laughed at me, though admittedly with a bit of empathy this time. But she did laugh, and she laughed because she suspected that my panic would subside and I would eventually come around to the fact that I did, after all, enter into this project willingly.

This same issue of my own culpability came up when I went to my first doctor's appointment: "Congratulations," said the doctor. "How do you feel?"

"Horrified!" I told her, thinking this was a normal response. She looked puzzled.

"Is this a planned pregnancy?" she asked. When I said yes, she was really confused. And when I saw the little peanut-shaped creature on the ultrasound screen, and heard the heartbeat for the first time, so was I. My doctor sent me home with a handful of business cards for therapists she recommended.

I never called them because I had Amy. My sister gets me. And she knows how to help. She listens, she validates, she comforts. She doesn't judge, she doesn't get impatient, and she inherited from our mother the ability to give a very good pep talk. 

Someday I'll forgive her for making me stand up next to her
as her Maid when I was 4.5 months pregnant wearing a
moo-moo and she looked like this!

I'm pretty sure Amy knew all along that I would eventually fall completely in love with whatever offspring I managed to produce.  So, when I started leaving her voicemail messages to the effect of "Now, when I sneeze, I pee myself! Call me back," well, she called back, every time, and she helped me to laugh and to exhale and to get through my pregnancy one very long day at a time. Don't get me wrong; I had an easy pregnancy. The only thing that wasn't easy was me. I worry a lot, and have a hard time anticipating big changes. And, I don't like to share…at all. I don't like to share my chocolate, or the blanket, never mind my blood supply! 

Frankly, I probably never deserved to even have Quinn given this melodramatic explanation of her arrival. But, I did have her and of course I now understand what all my crazy mom-friends were trying to tell me all those years…it really is different when the baby is your own. But this entry isn't meant to be about Quinn; it's about Amy.

Amy is different than me in many ways, but she too is a Scorpio (albeit a kindler, gentler one), and she is also goal oriented. And even though she actually loves babies, all of them—babies in all shapes, sizes, colors and constitutions...

...she too gets worked up about simply achieving the goal. So, while she's trying to do that, I'm trying to remember all of the things she did for me to help me through the process. The trouble is that I'm not always a good listener. My way of "comforting" is often to offer unsolicited advice, and when my advice is not embraced, I tend to get impatient. (Yesterday, driving home from my dad's house in Massachusetts, Sam and I listened to an old cd of Men Are From Mars. Women Are From Venus. If that guy's information is accurate, I'm embarrassed to say that my outer Tom Boy isn't just on the outside and I'm not always a very good Venusian.) But here again, I know I have to rise to the challenge.

We are motherless women, Amy and I, and we have to stick together. Sure, our mother shows up in dreams now and then, but believe me—it's not the same as having her show up on the other end of the phone! So, I owe Amy, and I need to show up on the other end of the phone a bit more often.  And for the days that I don't, I hope she'll come back to this entry and know that I'm trying to be half the friend to her that she has been to me. 

And if no one else comes back to this blog ever again, now that I've revealed rather plainly some of my more abhorrent shortcomings, well, I won't blame you.  But if you do come back, I promise I'll reward you with some glass-is-half-full stuff, and a long entry about the broad Society of Women that I am deeply grateful for…it includes my sister, and my Scorpio and Honorary Scorpio friends, and my crazy and not-so-crazy mom friends who are all light years ahead of me in their maturity and their wisdom.

Good Thing I Like Pie

In the winter of 2007-2008, I planned a wedding, got married, and built a house. I wasn't alone in these projects, obviously, but I was fully involved. The following winter, I threw a lot of parties, hosted a lot of dinners, skied a lot of loops with friends and drank a lot of champagne. Last winter, I grew a baby.

She's here now. Her name is Quinn. And that makes me a mother. So now, in the winter of 2011, this is my project: figuring out how to be someone's mom.

In the beginning, when she first arrived, I practiced just saying the words. When we were alone, usually when I was changing her diaper and she was lying on the changing pad looking up at me, I would say, "Hello. I am your mom. I am your mother," stretching out the words to listen to the way they sounded as I said them. They sounded foreign. And I felt like a fake. I have often felt this way in my life…like someone pretending to be something, hoping the real people won't notice and discover my embarrassing secret: I am not really this person. I am really someone less than this person. This time around, it's the mother of all secrets…sorry for the pun, but what better use of it, right?

Once I started to feel a little more comfortable introducing myself to Quinn, the next phase was to see if she'd accept me…to see how comfortable she was having me be her mom. So I would slip around the corner into her room and look over the edge of her crib to meet her glance. As her eyes adjusted to the new object that was my face, I would ask her, "Are you my baby?" And then I'd wait nervously for her to decide.

I respected the fact that she would take her time, as if she was trying to weigh the pros and cons and make a wise choice. And I'm grateful that each time, after a relatively brief pause, she would answer with a full body muscle spasm—arms and legs reaching up and then slamming back down all at once—and a big squinty-eyed, open-mouthed smile. I took all that to be a yes.

So far, she hasn't rejected me. But, that's the phase I'm in now…wondering how to be the kind of mom she won't reject. I had a great role model for 21 years. I think my own mother was flawless—literally. I try hard to think of a weakness, just to prove she was human. I think back to the times we fought, or the times I thought I hated her, or the time I ran away for an afternoon. Each of those times, I was the idiot. I can't think of a single time she failed me, or let me down, or disappointed me. She was my idol and my best friend. And, as a teenage girl, that made me a bit weird, and I didn't even care.

But here's the problem: I'm worried that I can't possibly live up to her. The thing about role models is that they're on a different level. So here I am, in my "mom" shoes and sometimes I can't make them move. It's like I'm standing here in a vast open space and I'm looking down at a pair of yellow wingtips or something, marveling over how strange they look, and then looking around at how much ground I have to cover.

I actually wore yellow wingtips in high school. It was the eighties. And my mom let me. I think she even encouraged me to, but maybe that was because she secretly thought I looked hilarious. At the time, I thought they were very cool. Now, they are a source of great joy for my little sister Amy who loves telling people that I wore yellow wingtips. Amy was the kind of sister who would stand behind a locked screen door laughing when you had wet your corduroys at the neighbors' house playing hide-and-seek because you didn't want to lose, even though you were in the fourth grade.

I was stuck standing still then too…I had good intentions (or at least I thought I did): to win the game. I had an intense desire to win, I always do. I had the resolve. The patience to stick it out for the long haul. I just didn't have the bladder. And that's what I worry about. What weakness will surface in my efforts to be a good mom? What challenges will render me immobile, and ill-equipped?

Recently someone at work asked me how Quinn was doing with her babysitter. "Great," I said, "her babysitter is a much better mom than I'll ever be." The person I was speaking with knows the babysitter too; she teaches part-time at our school. She tried to reassure me, "She's just a different kind of mom." Yeah, I thought, the kind that says "Oooh! I hear some noise in your britches!" while I'm the kind of mom who says, "Man! Your butt stinks! Now I have to change your friggin diaper again!"

I'm almost certain my own mother died without ever dropping the F-bomb. And while I feel a little sorry that she didn't get to experience the joy, the humor, the power of that word, I am also humbled by her unfaltering class, her good judgment, and her restraint. She managed to express exuberance, and be funny, and wield unfathomable power over me without ever using that word…she was more intelligent and more creative. She had artistry as a mother.

I've got yellow wingtips, wet corduroys and a mouth like my Uncle Rey who really was a trucker. I'm screwed. Quinn is going to grow up with the smell of my fear! She is going to laugh at me from behind that locked door. It all comes rushing back…all the former awkwardness in my life, all the fear of failure and loss. It's all wrapped up into this one thing: "I am your mother. Are you my baby?"

Some day maybe I'll feel confident, or sentimental, and I'll write about the way Quinn's face relaxes and her eyes close when I stroke her forehead, the way my mom would do for me when I put my head in her lap. Of course, thinking back to that also makes me think of the times when I thought I needed to be comforted and my mom would smile at me lovingly and then let her hand drop onto my forehead with a thud and say, "Oh, honey! What's the matter?" and then she'd laugh at me…and in doing so she'd force me to laugh at myself.

So, here I am, trying to laugh at myself…That same little sister, who locked me out when I desperately needed to get in, also once told me, "You can't control what hasn't happened yet." This may be obvious to most people, but for anyone who has the kind of control issues I've had, you'll understand how this could be a revelation. Amy has always been wiser than I, despite being four years younger. And I think back to that bit of wisdom all the time, I can't control what hasn't happened yet. And this time, it's for real. Quinn will be the biggest test of my life. The marriage is holding together, getting a little better most days. The house works; it is warm and pretty and people always tell me they feel good when they're in it. And the baby I grew, well, she's amazing…she's healthy and beautiful and I could tell from the first day she showed up that she has the power to see right into my soul.

So now the only thing left to work on is me…everything else is done. And even though I'm trying not to control what hasn't happened yet, and I'm trying not to get so caught up in my desire to "win" this one that I end up embarrassing myself, I do wish my mom could be here to help me figure it all out…to convince me that my shoes will get me where I need to go…and that I don't look too weird wearing them.