Too Many People, Not Enough Bees

As of today there are now 7 billion people on this planet.

I can still remember the news that the Earth's population had grown to 6 billion—it was October of 1999 (don't worry, I had to look that up). That's 1 billion additional people on the planet in the span of just twelve years. In the United States alone there are an estimated 484 births per hour, and only 288 deaths—an additional 196 people every sixty minutes, or 1.6+ million per year. And in the US the rate of growth is considered slow.  (check out "The World at Seven Billion" by the BBC)

When I was pregnant, Sam and I actually talked about over population. We talked about the fact that our plan to have only one child would make a positive difference. We wouldn't be adding to the problem by having many babies; we wouldn't even be maintaining the status quo by leaving two new bodies in the space we will someday vacate. We would be providing a solution: one small step for humankind.

We also talked about plenty of other reasons that having only one made sense. Starting this baby process as late as we did, with our modest financial reality and our tiny house, one baby fits. We don't want to be under diaperland house arrest forever. We want to resume the more social and active lives we used to have and we really want to travel with our kid. In our estimation, these things will be easier to do with just one. And, our limited resources will be dedicated to her, not spread thin among many. With more than one kid, we don't think we'd ever be able to afford to go anywhere as a family, or do anything, and no one would ever be able to go to college, that's for damn sure.

When we really started to formulate our argument, we addressed the inevitable opposition by anticipating The Sibling argument: I have one and she's incredibly important in my life, but when we were kids she was kind of a pain in my neck (Amy, you'll forgive me, right?). She wanted to sleep in my bed all the time and she made funny noises with her mouth when she slept. When she got older I told her no one would ever want to sleep with her because of those crazy lip-smacking sounds (Then I married someone who does the same thing. It's karma, I know). Sam has siblings too—a bunch of them! He's the youngest of four and he has wonderful relationships with his brother and two sisters. But, Sam and I also both grew up loving our family dogs, so we agreed that it would be feasible to have only one kid if we made sure she would always have a dog.

So we had our one baby. And we were ready to feel satisfied, like we reached our destination: good jobs, nice house, dogs, and baby. Family? Check!

But then, the world started crowding in again: When are you going to have another? Have you started trying yet? You are going to make sure she has a sibling, right? Of course you'll have a second! You have to have another one! Let me tell you about my kids…I just couldn't imagine life without #2!

Well, of course you can't imagine life without #2 because #2 has a name and a personality. And #2 exists and talks and hopefully now and then says or does something that makes you love him or her. But, that doesn't mean it makes any sense for me to have another one, just because your #2 is right for you.

I get frustrated when people ask me questions that are based on their own assumptions, because whether I care about their opinions or not, sometimes I find it's impossible not to doubt myself. And even though I don't like it when people do that to me, sometimes I too get so caught up in my own point of view that I ask stupid questions as well : Recently I tracked down two moms I know who are mothers of "onlies." Both have daughters--very hip, very smart, very lovely daughters. I went to them feeling vulnerable and asked each one for a pep talk: "Please tell me all of the reasons that you think having only one kid makes sense. I need some ammo so I can fight back." Of course, I don't know their stories either…maybe these two moms wanted more than one and couldn't? I'm genuinely sorry to those two moms for my own insensitivity! And I'm genuinely grateful that they didn't tell me I was an insensitive moron, and instead they told me things like this: having one is wonderful, it's just us, we're a team, the bond we each have with our child is a gift.

Sam was in on the conversation too, as were their husbands. The husbands were a bit more direct: "Tell people to mind their own damn business!" Maybe they were trying to tell me that? I admit, I was caught up in my own concerns at that moment. Nevertheless, their advice was good, for me and for lots of other people who ask too many questions.

As the talk about babies continued, one of the moms said this: "If having a baby doesn't change you, nothing will."

I've been thinking about that ever since. And I often find myself taking stock of the many ways I've changed. When I try to explain it, all I can come up with is this: I feel like a kinder, gentler me. I feel like a better human being. I feel, well, softer, less edgy. I could be kidding myself, of course, but either way, I like the new me better. If having a baby doesn't change you, nothing will. Wouldn't it be sad to never change? Thank god for Quinn! She's the only thing in my almost-forty years that has truly, in one definitive move, changed me.

And so here's the problem: if having her in my life is this good and this important and makes me this happy, wouldn't having two or three or seven of her just multiply my happiness accordingly?

I used to have very clear ideas about things--about myself, and other people, and the world in general. And while some things are a lot more clear than they ever were before, some things are less clear, like the plan to have only one. I'm not saying we're pulling the goalie because we're not. It's just that some days it is a struggle for me to be rational, and to hold onto the many good reasons our original plan makes sense. I want to do what's smart and responsible and right for us. But right feels a bit nebulous on the days when I'm laughing out loud because I taught Quinn how to touch her nose and now she anticipates my question by the time I get to "where's your..."...and she jams her finger into a nostril, or sometimes in her eye. 

Still, at 7 billion and counting, I'm afraid to think of what the world could be like when Quinn's trying to make these decisions for herself. I hope there's enough food to feed her, and fuel to keep her warm, if in fact there is still such a thing as winter. And I also hope she'll have found things to do in life that make her feel useful, and I hope she'll live somewhere she feels safe and happy, and that she'll have the company of someone who is kind and loving. I hope I'll have the intelligence and the restraint to let her interpret those things as she will when the time comes. And I hope I won't muddle her thoughts with pressure to do things the way I've chosen to do them. 

And I really hope someday I'll stop looking for the next thing I'm supposed to do and just be happy where I am…someday I hope my brain will stop buzzing and I'll know how to just be.

Humpty Dumpty

Soon after Quinn's first birthday, something bad happened. Our sweet daughter--who 95% of the time during the first year of her life, went to sleep quietly each night in her crib, after a warm bottle and a brief snuggle in the rocking chair--was kidnapped. In her place, someone left another baby who looked a lot like her…but this baby cried, a lot. And this baby did not sleep.

The timing of this exchange was uncanny for a few reasons.

The first reason is that I had just been spending a lot of time marking her first birthday by thinking about just how totally perfect and wonderful she was, and how I was completely in love.

The second reason is that it was at the beginning of a two-week vacation that we were very much looking forward to, and during which we had imagined we would accomplish many great things.

The third reason is that she timed this metamorphosis to take place on a night when we had friends over for dinner. When I put her to bed and she started crying, I returned to the table, apologized, and hoped she'd sort it out. Five minutes turned into ten which turned into forty-five. Our friends said things like, "Don't worry! It's not bothering us." That's nice, I first thought to myself and then said out loud, but it is bothering me! Sure I felt bad that the background music to our meal was screaming, but also I felt bad that Quinn was so upset.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a little tough love now and then. I've been practicing it on Sam for years. I was happy to let her "cry it out" because in doing so I would be able to demonstrate, to myself and Sam and our friends, that I am still very much in control in my relationship with Quinn. That it's my way or the highway, you know? Well, that's all a lie. All I wanted to do was go up there and hold her. But, I waited. I gave it what I thought was a valiant effort: I let her cry for four solid hours. The problem was that she didn't get it out. She cried, but she never quit. I quit. I quit dinner, I quit pretending, I quit dishes, I quit trying to be a good host. I just left the table, went upstairs, picked her up and felt very very bad for having made her go through such an ordeal. She feel asleep instantly on my shoulder. A little while later, when I made it to my own bed to lie down, I knew why she had been screaming: nasal drip, an angry sore throat, a pounding head. I was sick and so was she. She had passed her first birthday without ever getting sick…ever as in not once, but this was the onset of her first cold.

That was the beginning of what felt like a very long road. Keep in mind that Sam and I had no experience dealing with a bad sleeper. We had no solutions and no stamina. All we had was each other: to yell at, snap at, insult…two stuffed dolls just waiting for the pins.

Each night we'd try to soothe Quinn into a happy place so she'd go to bed. Each night as soon as we approached the crib, she'd start screaming and holding on for dear life. Some nights we just admitted defeat from the start and one of us would set up in the chair, prepared to hold her until she was asleep. If she was deeply asleep, we might be able to sneak her into the crib and tiptoe out. To be sure, we'd sit in the chair for an hour or more, listening to her snore. The chair squeaked when you tried to get out of it, but if you froze halfway up, and tried not to move, she might stir and then settle again. Or, she might not. And then you'd start over again. The worst torture was on the nights when you'd successfully get her up out of the chair, over the side of the crib, down out of your arms, and onto the mattress still asleep...only to have her scream the moment you slipped silently out of the room.

Other nights, when no one was here to witness it, we tried the cry-it-out routine again. I've read some books about this. I've read about how the first night or two can be really hard on the parents. I've read about how some babies will even cry for an hour or, would you believe it, two!?! I've never read about any babies who cried for ten hours straight and only quit then because their parents had already caved…but that's what my baby did, more than once. I'm worried about the future, I'm not going to lie; we're about 0-5 against her—things don't look good.

At some point in that sleepless blur I read something about a period of separation anxiety that generally happens right around the first birthday, a time when the baby realizes for real who her parents are and who her parents are not. And, if you're doing things right, the baby insists on you and rejects those who are not you. As I thought about it, I realized she was doing that more and more. The book said that this phase can also interrupt a baby's sleep—babies who once went to bed willingly might resist, and babies who could put themselves back to sleep when they woke up in the night no longer could. The book said the sleep interruption might last up to three weeks.

For three weeks, Sam and I learned to dread Quinn's bedtime. The closer we got to having to put her to bed, the closer we got to the torturous screams. The evening hours, which used to be ours, were gone. We either took turns staying awake to hold her so she could sleep, or we both writhed in misery listening to her scream. A couple of times, out of total desperation, we just brought her to our bed where she'd sleep peacefully and we wouldn't sleep much at all for fear of suffocating her. I would have gladly done that every night if someone could have told me that it was, in fact, just a phase and it would end. We wrestled nightly with whether to hold her and comfort her and let her sleep close by, or whether in doing so we were turning our once good and independent sleeper into a bad one who would never again sleep without our help. The evening hours were confusing and interminable. The daytime hours…well, I don't know what the daytime hours were like because I don't remember them…except for the bickering, I remember that.

We started to think we'd never get our baby back. And that we'd never be able to go out again, because how could we possibly leave her with a babysitter or, for that matter, leave a babysitter with her? We worried our friends would no longer want to be friends…no one would ever come over again. We started to worry that our marriage wouldn't survive…okay, I started to worry about that; Sam's not quite so dramatic. But for sure we started to think we couldn't handle it. And then it stopped—right at the end of three weeks.

By then, of course, all of our immune systems were shot and so we've spent this last week taking turns going to the doctor's office. Three weeks after Quinn had her first cold, she had her first fever. It was horrifying—she was hot to the touch all over—hot like a right out of the oven baked potato. And she was lethargic. I started to believe there could be nothing worse than a lethargic, feverish baby, until I woke up one day to a lethargic, feverish baby with hives all over her legs. The doctor said she had "a raging and inflamed ear infection." I've got a sinus infection and a rash on my neck where a new necklace used to be. Sam's got symptoms too: when he tried my new Neti Pot to flush out his nose, the water went in one nostril and came shooting out his mouth. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure your plumbing is not supposed to work that way.

It's all okay…I'm starting to feel sure we're going to make it because we're sleeping again and frankly, right now, that's all that matters…that and the fact that she's not lethargic anymore. Tonight I watched her figure out how to put one of her small stacking cups inside a larger one. She's mastered disassembling things, but until now hasn't put them back together again. Tonight she put the small green cup inside the larger yellow one, and she swirled it around so it would make noise. And, when the small cup flew out of the larger one, she doubled over laughing…and then she did it again and again. Now, two hours after I put her to bed, she's still sleeping and I'm still smiling with the sound of her laughter in my ears, thankful it's all been put back together.

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. 

Multiple Choice

When you have a tendency to leave your wallet on the roof of your car, you should not: a) carry your Social Security card around in it, b) carry a lot of cash around in it, or c) buy one that is the color of roadside weeds. You should definitely not do: d) all of the above.

Friday was our first day back to school…the hard-to-believe, but inevitable, end of summer. It was a good start to the year: some good vibes, some good plans, and already some interesting moments to reflect on as I beat back the weeds on the three-mile stretch of road that I walked for hours that night before dusk searching for my lost, weed-colored wallet.

My sister and brother-in-law are visiting, here to take care of Quinn while Sam and I are busy at school in these first days. Friday, after our meetings, I took them over to Waterbury to do some touristy stuff: buy some cider donuts at the mill, stop in at the Ben & Jerry's factory for a tour and an ice cream.  It was a nice idea. Unfortunately, my head was in a variety of places other than those places, and I left my wallet on the roof of my car (again) when I drove from one to the other.

As soon as we pulled into Ben & Jerry's, three miles down the road, I realized what I had done. We peeled out and headed back, scanning the new pavement as we went. I felt certain we'd see it…it had only been a few minutes. But then we didn't see it. We drove the loop again. Still nothing. That's when I started to do an inventory: new license, new Social Security card, credit cards, the cash from the returned weed wacker meant to pay the credit card, my Healthy Mama discount card for the local market, my health insurance card, Quinn's health insurance card…I started to feel sick.

We checked in at the cider mill and the gas station across the street. I looked in the garbage cans (last time I lost my wallet, ironically on another ice cream mission, it was dropped into the mailbox outside the Post Office, without my cash or my ipod, but with everything else). Quinn was growing increasingly irritable (screaming), and it was approaching everyone's dinnertime, but I couldn't leave knowing that it must be right here! I sent Amy and Scott home with Quinn and started walking the road, back and forth on the first mile or so where I would have picked up speed and the wallet would have blown off. They said they'd get Quinn taken care of and send Sam back to pick me up.

I found a tomato stake on the side of the road and used it to poke around. My confidence waned as I realized I would see brightly colored objects only if I was looking right at them. The weeds were dense and my wallet would have blended right in. I walked back and forth as cars with Vermont plates sped by, presumably headed home at the end of the work-week, and cars with out-of-state plates sped by headed to or from some sort of local fun. I called the house about ten times, but Sam was outside and I hung up on our answering machine over and over again. I kept walking, and looking, and beating back weeds.

I had a few hours like this to think. I thought about the school year ahead. I thought about karma. I thought about good (maybe someone will return it) and I thought about evil (maybe someone will steal it). As the sun started to go down, and cars continued to speed by, and I realized it was the third night in a row that I wouldn't get to put Quinn to bed, my thoughts gravitated more and more toward evil.

Sam eventually showed up in the truck with his bike in the back. He rode beyond where I had turned around on foot. We both looked for another hour. Eventually, I gave up, got in the truck and drove down the road to pick him up. He got in and said, "let's drive it one more time." I was skeptical, but I agreed. I drove while he looked out his window along the side of the road. I drove slowly, close to the edge. Periodically, I pulled over and let cars pass by. At one point, I pulled into a small parking lot and the truck I was trying to let pass pulled in behind me. I parked. The other guy parked. Then he got out and came to my window.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I explained what I was doing. He seemed relieved, because I wasn't drunk, and empathetic--he told me he had lost his gas cap that very morning. "I'll give you my gas cap if you can get me my wallet back," I offered...I didn't feel better, but he meant well.

"I just wanted to be sure you were okay. I've seen some other cars swerving already tonight. I was just going to offer to drive you home…it'd be a lot cheaper!" (Cheaper than the DUI, I imagine). "I don't want to see anyone get hurt."

I thanked him and he wished me luck. It was too dark to see anything by then; it was already eight o'clock. We picked up a pizza on the way home and returned, defeated, to a quiet house. The four of us ate, and Sam and Amy and Scott all tried to cheer me up. I can't believe I did this again! I thought, and said, over and over. I feel so scattered, so distracted…my anxiety from the end of the last school year flaring up, like an infection that the antibiotics didn't quite kill…too much to do, too much to worry about, not enough energy or time in the day. It's transition time again and I'm not good in transition. The lost wallet, the lost money, the new identity, lost already…all of these symbolic of one fear: Will I be able to handle it?

By ten o'clock, I was headed to bed, still feeling down. Sam said we'd go back in the morning to walk some more. Amy and Scott were determined to help. When I got to our room, I saw the answering machine blinking with all of my hung-up calls. I hit play to delete them one by one.

"Hi Sam, it's me…"

Click.

Click.

Click.

Then this: "Hi Kerry, I hope I have the right person…Kerry Jackson or Kerry Litchfield…I found your wallet. I have your wallet, your driver's license, your Social Security card, your credit cards…My name is April, call me back, I'm going to be here all weekend. So, I do have your wallet. I repeat: I have your wallet…Alright, bye-bye."

All the evil fell away.

I thought back to a show I listened to on VPR this week, talking about the rise of violent crime nationwide and even here in Vermont. Those on the show were talking about what social and economic factors might cause such increases. One person talked about his theory that when people in communities stop being able to relate to one another, and stop having opportunities to interact with one another in person, things start to fall apart. He talked about the importance of raising children in such a way that they do interact with their neighbors, and they do have opportunities to gather and play and work with others in the community. I thought about how I hope to raise Quinn. I thought about wanting to be the kind of teacher who can motivate kids to look up and see beyond the screens of their laptops, see into the eyes of other human beings…it's not easy, but it's obviously important.

This morning Sam drove me over to Waterbury to meet April. We picked up a maple sticky bun from the bakery on the way…it wasn't much, but I wanted to have something to offer. She met us in the driveway and told me, "I was driving home and I saw your wallet in the middle of the street. I thought, 'I'm going to pick that up for that person!' Now, I had to look in it to figure out how to find you." She was confessing, but it wasn't necessary; I was so grateful. Then she scolded me for carrying my Social Security card around: "That is so dangerous!" I tried to explain: I'm in the process of changing my name, I had a baby, I need it to change all my paperwork…I thanked her, tried to offer her some money (for breakfast out? a bottle of wine?), but she shut me down immediately, "Oh no! Your gratitude is more than enough," and then, she hugged me…she hugged me…and she thanked me for "the sweets" as she waved over her shoulder and headed back inside.

Times are tough. It would have been so easy for her…$140 in cash, no one would have known…I wouldn't have ever known. But, she didn't take it. And when she didn't find Kerry Jackson listed in information, she kept trying, and she found me.

I didn't get the name of the man who stopped and offered to drive me home if I needed a ride. And I didn't really get to express how much I appreciated April's efforts to reunite me with my evolving identity. But I did get to renew my appreciation (yet again) for this incredible place where I live. I got to renew my faith in people's ability to care for other people. And I got a good refresher, as this new school year begins, about how to contribute to the preservation of community: Notice other people. Spend a few minutes. Offer help. Be kind.

Life often seems so complicated, and it seems like there are so many hard choices to make, but when you really think about it, the right choices are pretty straightforward. I'm so grateful for the many people who have the strength of character to make them. 

Grand Cru

Yesterday, while I pulled weeds in my northside garden, I had this random thought: "If I were to croak right now, it would be okay. I've had a good life." As soon as I thought it, I wondered at its origins.

I can't entirely explain where it came from. I'm definitely not planning to croak any time soon. And usually when I think about croaking, I feel a bit panicky. But not yesterday. Yesterday I felt sort of fine about it all. I've traveled a lot, I have loved and been loved, I've done physical and intellectual things I'm proud of, and I have a job that I feel good about. I have a head full of happy memories. Already, at 39, I've had a very good life. And I feel lucky and grateful.

I suppose that's where the thought came from: a place of gratitude.

Sam cut firewood all day while Boone supervised. Quinn and I went for a hike with Moses. We visited with the neighbors on our way back up the hill. I found and ate ripe blackberries. Quinn napped and I worked in the garden—two things that never seem to happen often enough. At the end of the day, we all drove over to our friend Corey's to go for a swim. I forgot Quinn's bathing suit, with its built-in diaper, and I forgot dry diapers too. But, we made the best of it: she went skinny dipping for the first time*, and then Sam fashioned a "diaper" out of a blanket to hold her over while we all had tea.

We returned home in time to get Quinn some dinner (Annie's mac & cheese, scrambled eggs with cheddar, pureed mango) and get her to bed. She went down without a peep. It was a satisfying day.


Sam cooked us some pasta and I closed windows against the cooling air. Autumn already feels close by. As we got ready to eat, we wondered what to drink with dinner. We had a bottle of white wine in the fridge, but it was a red wine kind of evening. All we had in the rack were three bottles of Bordeaux I have been saving for years.

The 2000 vintage of Bordeaux was, according to many critics, one of the best Bordeaux offerings ever. Wine guru, Robert Parker, in The Wine Advocate, called it "a monumental vintage," and said it was "undoubtedly the greatest year Bordeaux has ever experienced." The best ever...My father and I used to share an amateur interest in wine and, over a few Christmases, he bought me three bottles of this promising vintage. I have been carrying the bottles around for years, never convinced that a special occasion was special enough to merit opening one, and never sure when the official "right time" was.

Last night suddenly seemed like a good night. I told Sam about my "it's been a good life" realization and I used that to justify opening the bottle. I also told myself the wines had probably been ruined by improper storing over the years, so why wait? And, I remembered my pledge to buy an expensive wine to celebrate my mom's recent birthday, which I had yet to do. These were good steps toward uncorking the bottle, but once I peeled the foil off the neck, I started to get Catholic about it (I have somehow inherited my family's sense of guilt, despite not actually being Catholic myself). I started to feel like I was making a mistake…what if it was too soon? Am I going to regret this? I ruminated silently, trying not to ruin it for Sam too.

But suddenly, it came to me: this week marks the 10^th anniversary of the year Sam and I first met. It was a fortuitous meeting and it's been an incredible ten years…with most of that incredible actually being the good kind. So that was the occasion I needed to make myself feel good about the decision. Problem solved.

I don't usually make decisions in this way: commit first, justify later. But maybe I should more often…the wine was exceptional: complex and yet still balanced. We tried to pick out individual flavor components. We came up with black currant and bacon, with bacon being the catch-all for indefinable smoky goodness. The fruit was held in check by tannins, a dryness like all of your teeth had been dried off with a towel after each sip...a strangely pleasing experience.

Before bed, I got online to see when the experts recommend opening the 2000 Bordeaux. To my joyful surprise, our timing was just fine. Most sources say any time from ten years on is when things are at their best. I couldn't agree more... 


Happy ten years Handsome Guy in the back row with the sexy voice. Thank you for not having a girlfriend when I found a way to ask if you did. Thank you for being just a bit older than me, since I had sworn off dating younger men. Thank you for using the word "predilection" in a sentence when you asked me out to dinner that first time. Thank you for the best first date ever: rock climbing, swimming hole, art gallery, dinner at The Starry Night Cafe...and the best kiss of my life. Thank you for being the guy in our Wilderness First Responder course to lead the night rescue; I'll never forget looking up at you, standing on that rock, calming everyone by giving clear guidance and genuine encouragement. Your ability to do these things holds us together even still...Thank you for all of these first memories and for your countless other contributions, since then, to my very good life.






*Wendy & Richard, don't worry, we had a long talk with Quinn about what not to do in the pool while skinny dipping! Thank you for sharing it with us this summer.

A Million Diamonds

Yoga is not supposed to be competitive; that's what they tell you. But, it seems to me you are a pretty exceptional person if you are not at all fazed by how you look in the mirror compared to that 5'11" twenty-something who weighs about 102 lbs and insists on bending sideways like a rubber band into your personal space, looking so serene. Or, maybe you are that twenty-something and you don't need to compete, because you are, in fact, a yoga goddess (and someone who perhaps has never given birth and who doesn't have forty breathing down her neck).

I left my first summer yoga class in tears. I was so disheartened by how far back up I have to climb to regain my former flexibility, my former strength, and my former balance. But, in the weeks since, I've kept at it, trying my best not to look at the other people in the room. (If only it weren't for that damned mirror!)

Balancing poses are, right now, my biggest challenge. I don't know what's happened; I used to be pretty steady, but everything is unsteady these days.  The irony is that I feel more centered emotionally than ever. My purpose, at least for right now, is focused and clear: diapers, tiny little finger foods, guarding the stairs, electrical chords and all things that topple, and naps. But my body, and even my mind are a bit, well, clumsy. I forget things. I can't concentrate. I fall over.

I'm especially prone to falling over when I look at someone else who is not falling over, someone who is rock solid, anchored through one leg, stretching through the crown of the head, hands in prayer position in front of the heart's center…When I leave my own thoughts, stop trusting myself, compare myself to others, that's when I fall.

My instructor on a recent Friday was Patty who seems to emit kindness like sonic rays. She smiles all the time. When I walked into the building, she said hello and asked me, "how is your practice going?" How is my practice, I wondered, as I put my things on a shelf, and I kept wondering as I laid out my mat. How is my practice? Am I practicing?

About twenty minutes into the sequence, we were into the balancing postures: awkward pose (aptly named), standing bow, balancing stick, tree pose. I was wobbly. Patty glided quietly around the sweaty bodies, guiding the sequence, offering tips for adjustments. "When you feel yourself falling over, Kerry," she said, "lift your chin up, just a little bit. That will help you regain your balance."

Lift your chin up. Just a little bit.

Patty was right. I lifted my chin and, when I did, my eyes met their own gaze. The gumby girl next to me vaporized and I became steady. I focused on what I needed to do.

It wasn't perfect, by any means, and I struggle on my right leg more than my left. My body is different than it used to be, but everything is different than it used to be—my whole universe. When I inhale oxygen into my lungs these days, I notice a greater capacity to breathe. So, imperfect is okay…the effort and the ease.

When the series ended, and we laid on our mats for the final resting pose, Patty didn't say "Namaste," as yoga instructors are wont to do. She said, "Rest well," and then she rested with us. Rest well, I thought. It too is part of the practice. Resting, as well as working, is something we must aim to do well. Again, I was reminded of my husband: every night when we go to sleep, the last thing Sam says to me—for as long as we've been sleeping side by side—is "sleep well." How does he know about these things? (My friend Wade once described Sam as The Buddha…primarily for his patient capacity to put up with me, but maybe Wade was on to something?)

At the end of class people were milling around waiting for the shower. Patty was talking about her hip replacement from last winter, and how her own yoga practice is helping. "If you focus on the healing, the obsession strips away." Another sentence left to reverberate in my mind: focus on the healing, the obsession strips away.

I have healing to do too: to reclaim my body for myself, to accept myself in this new role as someone's mom, to stop obsessing about what I am not, and be glad and grateful for what I am...to keep expanding beyond my former limitations. Lift up your chin. Just a little bit.

I stood behind the far curtain letting the air dry my skin for just a moment. It was 95 degrees outside; the sun was shining and there was a soft breeze through the low open window. I looked out and was surprised by what looked like a million diamonds twinkling up at me from the illuminated river below. Gratitude washed over me as I filled my lungs. Yoga tears again, but different this time…I am practicing.

Rest well.

(Thank you, Patty.)