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

Very Much Wow

Some years ago, for some reason, I had my eleventh grade American Literature students write haikus. It was springtime and I think we were all feeling celebratory, and claustrophobic. So we wrote haikus in our classroom and then ran down the hill from one building to another. Attached to the second floor dining hall is a large porch that looks out over our small campus and the Green Mountains just beyond. It's a beautiful spot. The class gathered around in the green grass below the porch, each person finding his and her own piece of earth. One at a time, the students climbed the stairs up to that high perch, came forward to the railing and, at the top of their lungs, belted out their beautiful haikus to the sunny day, to the mountains, to the smiling faces of friends below.

Masaru, if I remember correctly, went last. As he bounded up the stairs, the class was already wild, cheering, arms in the air, unable to stand still. He stepped forward. "This is an original Japanese haiku!" he yelled proudly. His haiku, as it should've been, was delivered in Japanese. We had absolutely no idea what he was saying but…and I think I'm speaking for the whole class when I say this…we loved it. It was as if Masaru shared with us some sort of blessing directly from the Haiku Gods. It was an honor and a moment of pure springtime-poetry-friends-all-around joy.

This is Masaru, at home in Japan:

Masaru translated his poem for us in a second reading. Sadly, I don't remember what it was about, but I'll never forget that brief wonderful experience of the "Original Japanese Haiku" so graciously and proudly shared.

The next spring, Masaru graduated. In his graduation speech, he said, "…and Kerry's class was very much wow!" He might have meant anything: wow, what a waste of time, or wow, that was boring! I don't really know, but I've always taken it as a compliment because, well, compliments are nice. And I still think of that phrase whenever I think of Masaru.

And very much wow is just about all I can think of now each day when I see the latest news from Japan.  I am thinking of Masaru all the time, and I know he's one of the lucky ones; his home is not near the coast and he's sent word to us at school through one of his old classmates:

"We are ok and our all families are ok. Thank you man. Still there are

earthquake coming constantly...But I know that we will be ok.

Cuz I know how to survive from those crazy earthquake."

His message was a huge relief in our community. But we've had other Japanese students as well. And our students are obviously just the beginning of what I am thinking about. A few days later, Masaru posted this on his Facebook page:

"need to save the energy sources. like gas, electricity, food, drinkable water

...
but never be enough to save all the life..."

Concentric circles ripple out from this great disaster, over all of Japan and, of course, beyond.

Another email came through to Sam from another alumnus who was passing on a message from a woman in Mississippi. Sam coordinates a senior class service project each year. For a few years, they went to Mississippi and New Orleans to help clean up and rebuild after Hurricane Katrina. Some of the kids have remained in touch with some of the people they worked with down there…

"I'm the lady whose home you dear people readied for rebuilding after Katrina.

I haven't been able to get my mind off Masaru. Did he return to Japan or is he

still in the US? I'm hoping you can tell me if he and his family are safe.

ALL of you will be forever in my heart and prayers."

When I start thinking about the devastation, I get overwhelmed, as so many people obviously do.

I heard a news clip on NPR: a reporter walking around in the rubble spotted a woman sorting recyclables out of the trash. "Was your home damaged in the tsunami?" he asked. "My home was washed away," she said, through a translator. And so, she sorted recyclables out of the mountains of "trash" that was once the stuff of people's lives.

I try to imagine myself in such a position and I can't. I can't imagine having any ability whatsoever to pick myself up and keep going. I used to take pride in the fact that I made it through my mother's death without being institutionalized or becoming a drug addict—as if that was some test of my strength. When I think about the magnitude of other people's losses and hardships, I laugh at myself. It is incomprehensible to imagine having your whole world shaken…and then washed away…and then being left standing in the rubble trying to find your loved ones, wondering how much invisible radiation is raining down on you.

I keep looking at the images coming out of Japan. Rescue workers standing over bodies, their palms pressed together in prayer. Boats perched on top of buildings. Raging fires. Mountains of debris. Adults sobbing. Children's faces covered by masks, except their wide vacant eyes. I watched a six minute long video of the tsunami overtaking a town…at first, a trickle of water rushing up the center of the street…by the end of the video, only six minutes later, everything under water, cars and buildings rushing by. The videographer clearly moving uphill as the time passed. In the final seconds the camera zooms across the raging river to a small group of people huddled together on top of a building, in the middle of other buildings which one by one disappear around them. It just goes blank…the video ends on the screen and yet it inevitably continues to play in your mind.

It is so far away. I take solace somehow in the incomprehensibility of it all. I don't live on a fault line. I don't live near the sea. It couldn't happen here. I count my blessings. I focus on what I can handle. Denial is a family trait.

Then I see this:

...and it all comes crashing in around me again: the sadness, the ache of empathy, my friend Masaru, the vulnerability of us all…the magic and beauty of our short sweet lives.

About a month ago, Sam and I had a date in our kitchen. Quinn was asleep in her crib. We opened a bottle of wine, had a fire in the stove, soft light in our dining room. We were too tired for a movie, or books and for those reasons I tolerated the laptops being open and on (I resist their presence in our home life most of the time). We shared news from friends, looked at things we had each discovered during the week. Sam played me this video that he found:

We were mesmerized by it…the music, the serenity of the landscape, the fluid grace of the skiers, the focus and artistry of the Japanese subject. At school yesterday, I played this video again, in my office, and I started to cry. 

I feel an obligation to look at the hard things, as if my empathy only has potential to reach the people it is intended for if I remain focused, in the way that they must be focused, on their present crisis. And yet, what I hope for them is relief, peace, comfort, a return to beauty and joy…a fast forward out of their present crisis which is really, if we think about it, our present crisis. Our shared, human, present crisis. 

Though for us, from this distance, it is only really shared conceptually.