Fragile

This is a story that is hard for me to tell.

It is a story of my father standing in a mine field of broken glass after everyone has gone to bed. The story of his trying to help: of hanging the cleaned glasses up in the rack, the last gesture of many before going to bed himself. It’s the story of his not having them securely in place and them crashing down onto the stone counter below, exploding all around him in the darkened house.

By the time I jumped out of bed, pulled on some clothes and made it downstairs, by the time I stepped barefooted into my clogs and rounded the corner to the kitchen to find my stunned father looking around at the glittering shrapnel trying to imagine where to begin, I already knew what he was thinking about: his granddaughter’s pudgy bare feet, her fleshy little hands. He had already imagined her bleeding and it was more than he could bear.

It was simple enough for Sam and me to shift into gear, picking up the big pieces first, getting the dust pan and brush, the vacuum. It was an easy task, just a couple of irrelevant glasses. My dad wanted to clean it up--to make it right--but it was easier for me to do; I wasn’t shaken, I wasn’t worried about baby feet, I was just worried about him, shattered and looking on, trying to block the thought of his granddaughter’s bleeding feet out of his mind, feeling upset about a simple accident and two irrelevant glasses.

When it was all cleaned up I went downstairs to tell him again it didn’t matter, to smile at him, hug him, tell him I love him, thank him for all of his help. I found him standing still in the middle of the basement, his arms by his side, still feeling stunned and guilty and trying to decide what to do.

After I went to bed I thought of the solution, but by then I couldn’t bring myself to go down and stir it all up again. I should have told him: if I broke one of your glasses, I would feel terrible, but you wouldn’t care at all...you would insist on cleaning it up and insist it didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter at all. I laid there in tears thinking about my dad, suffering from his embarrassment and worry through the night.

There is no physical thing in my entire house that matters as much as he does. I can barely express how much I love him and how grateful I am for the growing love my daughter has for him and for Louise. 

Louise: my dad’s wife, my daughter’s Nonna. A woman I have never been able to call stepmother only because it feels like a betrayal of the mother I’ve lost, in spite of how important she has become to me, and to all of us. A woman whom my mother would have loved, whom my mother was already making room for before she died--a kind of magnanimity I’m not sure I’ll ever be capable of. 

The second thing my mother told me, when I walked into her hospital room after she was diagnosed with cancer, was that I needed to allow for someone else in my father’s life, this mandate coming long before I ever allowed for the possibility that she might someday die, never imagining it would happen in four short months. 

My mother didn’t want my dad to be alone. And she wouldn’t want her granddaughter to be grandmotherless. And even though I’ve justified not referring to Louise as my stepmother, by saying I don’t need another mother, it’s becoming more and more clear to me how much I do need her. And Quinn needs her too--she needs all the grandparents she can get, for as long as she can possibly have them.

For Quinn, my dad and Louise are like one person. She says Nonnapoppa as one word, and she has begun to develop her own relationship with them, separate from any relationship I might have originally thought had anything to do with me. They communicate in their own way with her. And negotiate in their own way. And they can get her to do things we cannot--like eat half a chicken breast, multiple slices of cheese and an entire banana for lunch. She has never been willing to try a bite of chicken in her life.

When they were getting into their car this morning to leave, after three days of taking care of her while we worked and her daycare was closed, Quinn stood in the driveway getting increasingly upset. “I wanna go in Poppa’s car! I wanna go in Poppa’s car!” she said over and over. And just before Louise closed her car door, Quinn thrust her arms out: “I wanna hug Nonna!” And then, inevitably, “I wanna hug Poppa!” They each climbed back out for a last hug. I stood there and cried, not wanting them to go. Not wanting that sweet thing to end: my daughter, loving my father and her Nonna as her own.  When they started to drive away, Quinn insisted we catch them. So we all piled into the front seat of my car and we followed them down the hill to wave goodbye once more. 

And when we got back to the house I cried again, thinking about my dad’s anguish over the broken glass and feeling his embarrassment and wishing I could make it so he never felt those things at all. Ever, or for any reason. To sense your own parent’s vulnerability is to sense the fragility of life itself. 

My dad, my hero growing up, is someone I now deal with anxiously, trying to balance my desire to do things for him--to spare him over-exertion or potential harm--with my desire to let him still be the invincible man he was, before I came to know that that’s not how life really works. I am conscious, through every visit, of his mortality, always worried about how much time we might have left. Rationally I know it could be me first, tomorrow or even today, you never know. But emotionally I feel myself worrying about losing my second parent, about Quinn losing him too. Ten years? Twenty? Twenty-five? I know no amount of time will really be enough, when I watch Quinn laughing at his silly faces, increasingly able to express her own feelings for him. “Poppa’s cwazy!” she will say, laughing, “Get outa hea, Poppa!”

I hope I will always be able to call up the image, from our last visit, of my dad squatting down across the room from Quinn, with his arms spread wide, thinking that would trigger her to run to him for a hug. And Quinn, in her gray camouflage long-johns studying him for a moment before squatting down herself and spreading her arms wide too--like two sumo wrestlers, squared off and laughing. I want to always remember that and the high-pitched sound of her voice this morning, when they called to say they’d made it home, as Quinn squealed excitedly into the phone. 

“I lub you Nonnapoppa! Bye-bye!”

It's All A Blur

In December I read Fahrenheit 451 with my ninth graders. If you haven’t read it, Bradbury’s novel tells the story of what happens to a society when people, for one reason or another, stop thinking critically. It happens in stages. 

If the antihero, Captain Beatty, is to be trusted, people bring their problems on themselves. They get intimidated by complex ideas, and they stop doing the necessary work to understand what's going on. As a result, they stop reading, and stop thinking, and become consumed with nonsense.

If we consider Faber’s point of view, another character from the novel, we realize also that when ideas get reduced and oversimplified, when we are no longer surrounded by quality ideas, and the pace of life increases at the same time that our leisure time is reduced, these things also contribute to a society's deterioration. And, if we lose the right or ability to act on the things we learn, think, and believe, then we lose the impetus and ability to think at all— even if we want to. Our brain, like an underused muscle, loses its strength. 

Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953, offers a clear warning. We are meant to be put on guard so our own world doesn’t turn into a world like this, where people become disconnected from each other, and disconnected from nature and, as a result, less and less concerned about taking care of what’s around us—our friends, our loved ones, and the natural world that sustains us. We are supposed to see the consequences of a society in which no one thinks critically, and no one acts; we are supposed to see that such a society will cease to exist...

Right now, the wind is howling outside my windows, blowing leaves past horizontally, over newly exposed grass and mud. The next cold front is blowing in over the mountains, pushing out the weather system that caused rain here for the past 24 hours. The snow is nearly gone; yesterday the temperature was in the fifties. Today, the temperature is plummeting again, with wind chills below zero expected for tomorrow. The world is seizing up.

Last week I went to see the documentary Chasing Ice--a visually stunning depiction, through time-lapse photography, of the effects of climate change. The film is beautiful, and devastating, and it makes perfectly clear that climate change is undeniable.

With my eleventh graders, I’ve just reread The Grapes of Wrath. If you haven’t read it, you should. A man made ecological catastrophe, people displaced from their homes, millions of people devastated by economic and environmental ruin. And among them, Steinbeck’s Joad Family. 

“Literature has no practical function, but every day people die for lack of what is found there.”

-William Carlos William, paraphrased by Richard Bausch.

Here is why you should read The Grapes of Wrath: Tom Joad and Ma Joad. Rose of Sharon. Pa and Uncle John. Al and Ruthie and Winfield. You have to spend time with them to understand whom you’re dealing with; you have to make the drive from Oklahoma to the green California valleys to know their depth--so simple, on the surface, and yet so rich in character it’s easy to imagine they are real. 

Last week, proctoring a study hall, I heard two girls talking over the noise of the printer in the next room. They were discussing the novel. “I’m in love with Tom Joad,” one told the other. “I’m in love with Ma!” came the quick reply. And I agree with both of you, I thought, smiling. 

It’s hard to know what happens to the Joads after you fall in love with them. I’ve spent days talking with kids about whether Steinbeck meant for his novel to be hopeless or hopeful. At some level, I think the answer is both, and I tend to lean toward happy endings generally, but that’s beside the point. What you do know, undeniably, when you make it to the end, is that nature is not forgiving and that humans have an unnerving capacity both for selfishness and for selflessness. And if Steinbeck is to be trusted, it is profoundly clear that no one is going to make it in this life alone. 

Another night last week, here on campus, I watched Beasts of the Southern Wild. I set it up for students to see, but only two kids showed up, and only one lasted to the end. When it was over, she and I were the only ones there, and we struggled to talk about what we had just experienced--neither of us yet sure what to say, both of us sort of stunned by the images and speechless about some of the themes. 

The next morning, serving breakfast, I saw her again. We both agreed we liked it more, as the swirling images had begun to coalesce. One image, in particular, made the whole film worth it for me: tiny Hushpuppy in the arms of someone we assume to be her mother, all limp limbs and heavy head on the shoulder, surrendered to the safety of the embrace.

I’ve been at work, in some form or another--teaching, running dish crews, supervising dorms, holding parent-teacher conferences, announcing results at ski races--for some part of every single day this month. “Mom’s working” is Quinn’s latest phrase. Saturday will be my first day off in 32. I'm going to wake up and not run out the door. Quinn and I are going to "do baking" and make "pancake balls." 

Then we're packing up our peanut butter crackers and we’re going on a “benchure.” We’re driving south so she can see her Nonna and Poppa, and I can see my sister and my nephews. We’re probably going to spend some time making tea. 

And every time she says, “Mama, want a kiss?” I’m going to say yes (but that's probably stating the obvious). And hopefully, sometime soon after we get back home to Vermont, the world will feel right again.

Be Right Back

If I were to drive to Newtown, Connecticut, I would cover 260 miles. It would take me about five hours. And yet even from this distance, for the past week, I’ve been carrying Newtown’s babies, whom I have never met, around with me through each day. I have not yet been able to shake the grief.

Last Friday I could barely get through my afternoon classes. All I wanted to do was go to pick up Quinn. I spent Saturday morning with Kim, on a fortuitously planned breakfast date. When I arrived, my eyes were red from crying, and hers were too. I was so thankful for my time with her--we could have sat in silence for two hours and known so many of each other’s thoughts. I needed her understanding company to begin to process it all...sometimes only a best girlfriend will do. On Sunday, Sam went to work to grade papers; how he was able to do that, I don’t know, but I was glad to have Quinn to myself for the day. She and I set up my tent in the basement. We filled it with blankets and pillows and stuffed animals. We stocked up on Goldfish and books. We zipped ourselves off from the world and watched the snow fall through the mesh window of the tent, and the basement’s double glass doors. The bad guys won’t find us here, I thought, but did not say, as I watched her offer Goldfish to Winnie-the-Pooh. 

We read the same book over and over again. “Caps for sale!” we yelled, as the peddlar walked down the street with his caps piled on his head. “Caps for sale!” And we worked on flashcards too. Every day Quinn comes into the possession of so many new words. N is for number nine. O is for oboe. P is for the piggy on the puzzle. Q is for the lady with the crown on her head. 

I wonder what of these moments she remembers from day to day. They are heavy with meaning for me, things I imagine remembering long after I lose everything else, but Quinn is so blissfully unaware of how fleeting it all is. One night this week, long after I had put her to bed, Sam and I heard her talking in her room. Sam couldn’t tell what she was saying, but I could. “Caps for sale!” she called out in a restrained, past-her-bedtime, half-whisper half-shout, “caps for sale!”

When I start to cry, and force her into a hug, Quinn gets pretty still. She waits it out. She watches with concern. I wish I could explain to her how unspeakably sad I feel for the families of those twenty perfect little people. First graders mostly. Six and seven years old. Just babies...

...It wasn’t until I was in the fourth grade that I finally relinquished my belief in Santa Claus. I was ten years old and my teacher had us doing a Christmas project. The first graders in our school wrote letters to Santa and put them in a big red mailbox in the lobby--special delivery to the North Pole. Secretly, our teacher collected them. He brought them to our room and explained that we were going to write back to each of the kids, on Santa’s behalf. I imagined myself doing an important job--helping Santa who was inevitably too busy to write the letters himself. 

My peers had long since stopped believing, but I had a kind of awkward, lingering loyalty to the idea, stemming from an important experience I had had. I had woken up one Christmas Eve in time to see a reindeer leg pumping the air outside my second floor window, working to get lift off for Santa’s sleigh. It was proof; as implausible as the whole thing was, I had proof, and I cherished it. 

The letter writing exercise didn’t complicate my belief at all. Not until Mr. Nellist cautioned us not to talk about the project outside of our classroom, because we wouldn’t want the first graders to know that Santa doesn’t really exist.

I think I managed to wait until I got home to cry. I was embarrassed and sad all at the same time, and uncomfortable with the maturity forced on me by the news.

This year Quinn is old enough to start the Santa routine if we choose to go through with it. I feel conflicted about lying to her, in large part because I'm not at all good at lying, but also because it seems like a bad way to earn her trust. She won’t understand the Santa concept completely right now anyway, but I suspect that whatever seeds we sow this year, will take root for next year and the years beyond. And so we have a choice--to lie or not to lie.

But, do we really have a choice? Do we really have a choice given the world around us? It strikes me that Santa Claus is a good early test for us--of how to deal with information and influences that we can’t control. The good news I suppose is that the outcome of this lie is fairly benign; at least for a few years it will bring her joy. And I suppose that is at the root of all the lies we tell our children--the desire to bring them joy, the desire to keep them free from worry, the desire to allow them to feel safe, when really there are no guarantees. 

Charlotte and Daniel. Olivia and Josephine. Ana, Dylan, Madeleine, and Catherine. Chase and Jesse, James and Grace, Emilie and Jack. Noah, Caroline, and Jessica. Avielle. Benjamin. Allison. I wish someone could have kept you safe.

One night this week, I was in the kitchen assembling some sort of dinner. Quinn came running up. She put one hand on the counter and tipped her head to the side to look up at me. “Be right back. Okay? See you in two minutes!” I had never heard her use these expressions. She ran off, calling over her shoulder, “See you in two minutes! Be right back!” 

I wish they could all come back.

The Pendulum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perspective

An offering for our friends Jerry & Rebecca, and for Henry. Wishing all of them happiness they can feel in their bones.

A Brief One-Act Play 

The couple enters stage left to a dimly lit kitchen. Red lights hang over the island where the woman sets out placemats and napkins for dinner. The man stirs something in a sauté pan on the stovetop. Background music is audible from stage left. A fire is in the woodstove.

Sam: "Sounds like Jerry and Rebecca's birth was very civilized. Almost as civilized as ours. More civilized than ours actually…no one had to get up at 3am."

Kerry: "You didn't get up at 3 am."

Sam: "I didn't say that I got up at 3am."

Kerry: "You didn't even get up at 4 am."

Sam: "I got up at 5 am."

Kerry: "No you got up at 5:30 am when I woke you up. Again."

Sam: "Well, I had to drive…"

Perspective is everything really, isn't it? It is our version of what is real, what is happening, or what is not happening. It is a thing we sometimes lose in the chaos of days, and without it the world around us goes all askew. But regain that vision, that ability to see proper proportion, proper distance, things lining up as they are meant to, and the heart expands again. The lungs fill. The smile comes.

One night, maybe two weeks ago, Sam came to where I was sitting at the dining room table. He knelt down next to me and looked at me in the way he does when he has something intimate to say. "Lately I've been feeling really happy," he said, his eyes lit up with the sincerity of it. Ever the wise guy, I congratulated him. "Welcome to your forties buddy; it's about time." (When Sam is lit up like that, I can say anything and he remains largely undeterred). "I feel happy, in a rational way, a lot of the time, but this is different," he said, "I feel it in my bones."

I feel that way often, for at least some small part of most days, and so I was glad to hear his news. I've come to understand that Sam feels things deeply, but he rarely expresses those deepest feelings in words—one of the many ways we are different. For this reason, his pronouncement was a gift that I received with gratitude. He could have easily felt the happiness in his bones and kept on with his business, and I never would have known what he was experiencing.

It turns out we are both experiencing this kind of grateful pause fairly often these days. The perspective we have feels very fresh...very new.

One day, maybe two weeks ago, my boss and I were sitting in two Adirondack chairs on the side of our school's soccer field in front of the library. While we talked we were looking at the ridge of mountains that defines the campus view, lit up by midday sun on foliage. "I know the leaves are beautiful every year," I said, "but this year they seem more beautiful." I felt like that might have been a stupid thing to say, but that's what I was thinking. "And you know," he replied, "they actually keep getting more beautiful every single year."

I know what he's talking about. Every little thing really does seem to get more beautiful, every single year. I can't deny it, even in my most dour or skeptical moments.

One day, about a week ago, I came home from school ahead of Sam. I was fighting off a cold and felt like hell. Somehow I managed to force myself to get my sneakers on and get the dogs out for a walk…I'm not usually good at rallying like that when I don’t feel well, but for some reason I did. I wanted to bring my ipod so I could listen to some music, have some company along, but it wasn't working. I went without it.

When the dogs and I reached the upper part of the loop, and my eyes were on the uneven footing of the trail, I noticed fresh moose tracks in the mud and started feeling happy. We see tracks often, and every time I feel grateful to live in a place also inhabited by such wild life. Lost in this feeling of Thoreauvian good fortune, I hadn't noticed that the dogs were stopped ahead of me. It was only when I heard a deep groan that I looked up.

There were two moose on the trail just ahead of us. The cow and Moses stared each other down, my dog with  his fur in a full mohawk from head to tail. The bull was oblivious, munching away on the few remaining green leaves. I've seen many moose, but none so close as these, or for such a prolonged look. They were humongous and, as I stood there motionless, I started wondering, is this mating season?

Before I could remember, Moses broke the silence with a bark and the bull lifted his tremendous head, with its gigantic rack of antlers, and he turned to look directly at all three of us. It was then I started thinking I should perhaps get myself behind a tree. Both moose together took a few quick steps in our direction before making a fast left off the trail and down into the woods.

The dogs and I stood still, waiting for a minute, listening to them crunch their way through the understory before we continued on our walk. It is mating season, of course. Hunting season as well. How strange that the two are together…the risk of death always intertwined with the great raw power of life.

I smiled all the way home…my home on this hill shared by moose and bears and coyotes and owls. I thought of Quinn—eager for her to see her first wild creatures, eager to know what perspective they will offer to her, if any. I hope they do; it's hard to imagine they won't…

Yesterday was Sam's day to do something on his own. I was with Quinn who happened to be in a terrible mood—still congested and overly tired from her busy week. The weather worked in his favor for once: the rivers came up on a day he could get out, and the sun shone hot all day. A friend was free and he was able to go paddling…the stars very rarely align for him in this way and when he came home in the afternoon, just as Quinn was waking up from her nap, his joy was palpable.  "Daddy's home!" she yelled as he walked through the door, and she leaned out to be pulled into his arms.

We raked leaves before giving Quinn a bath. She ate dinner, read books and drank warm milk with maple syrup before going effortlessly back to sleep at seven o'clock. The house was clean, the dogs were bathed and walked and quiet, the music was on. Red potatoes were boiling on the stove, and I sat in a comfortable chair with a glass of red wine and a new New Yorker on my lap. Sam went out the back door to put a steak on the grill, and I started to cry...sometimes I feel so grateful I don't know what else to do.

I tried to explain it to him when we were eventually eating dinner. "That's funny," he said, "because when I went outside I sat in the chair on the deck for a minute looking at the stars, and I was trying to figure out how to express my gratitude to…I don't know, the universe."

How do we express our gratitude in this life? 

We never really came up with an answer and even now all I can think to do is write it down. Sometimes, when you feel it in your bones, happiness and gratitude seem beyond the scope of words.

The Nature Of It

Autumn marks my annual rendezvous with Ralph Waldo Emerson. I cannot seem to quit him.

"Every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight… Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit."

As cyclical as the seasons are the routines of relationship—at least my relationship with Sam, for better and for worse.

Sometimes we get caught circling in the eddies, whirlpools of frustration formed by seen and unseen obstacles. We circle around, easily agitated, never quite relaxed, or rested, or satisfied. After the highs of this life, the lows seem devastating. When we manage to catch up, to connect, get the laundry washed and put away, the dog hair vacuumed and removed, the counters cleared of debris, get outside together, share some laughter, some affection, some moments of color and joy…our little world seems illuminated. 

Then, after a day or two, or a week or two, of basking in that light, somehow the darkness returns—the papers pile up at school, the clothes pile up in the same place on the bedroom floor, the toothbrush, somehow unable to make it to the cabinet, lies pathetically on the edge of the sink, the recycling bin overflows, the shower head drips again, the toys sleep where they've been left, on countertops and on carpets underfoot, the mice return, to the kitchen and car, we eat frozen pizzas for dinner and go to bed, exhausted. In those cycles, we are sitting on swirling water, stunned to inaction, waiting passively (Sam) or impatiently (me) for the current to spit us out.

Always it does. But still, when we're returned to the moving water, we somehow forget to anticipate the next funky current; we forget to be on guard and fail to anticipate the pattern—the only way possible to break it.

Someday, maybe we will. Or maybe we never will.  I wish I knew. Nothing is perfect...but what is close enough? How do you know what to hope for, and what to accept? 

Nothing is perfect, but I suppose perspective is half the battle. Sometimes the sky can look very dark, and then, when you adjust your focus, on the same scene, the color returns.

"In the woods, we return to reason and faith."

And then, if we're lucky, we return home.

 

Quinn Turns Two

Before breakfast, on Quinn's second birthday, I wanted to get her foot prints and hand prints with paint, to add to those I have from the day she was born, and from last year's efforts captured in pink. This year, I poured some yellow latex paint into a shallow plastic bin and then lifted her into it, with her bare feet. Immediately she started to cry. I poured way too much paint, so despite the wrestling and pleading that ensued, I got no prints—just big yellow blobs on paper, and big yellow blobs on clothes and in hair, ours and hers. By the time we were done, all three of us were covered in yellow.

I also wanted to put a mark on the post in the basement, to show how tall she was on her second birthday, but this too made her cry. Sam tried his best to convince her it was a painless process, standing with your back to the post; we pretended to mark each other's height over and over again, pretending we were having tons of fun, but she's not an idiot. Sam stuck with me until I finally gave up, managing to reserve judgment, and determined, this year, to stay out of the eye of the birthday storm. And I was determined not to lose my mind like I did last year. But from the minute I woke up, I couldn't get out of my own way.

Eventually the art projects ended and breakfast happened and Sam packed Quinn up and took her to school. I was home alone, going through my mental list of things to do before her birthday party with Corey & Kellam: clean the house, make pesto, bake a cake, make some ice cream, wrap her present.

I found myself staring at her birthday present—one of those cool little bikes with no pedals, designed to help kids learn to balance and glide. I had picked it out on my own. A badass little number, with bright orange handles, and red and orange flames painted on the bike's black sides. What I realized, as I stood staring at it, was that it was the bike I wanted to want, but I didn't really want it.

The toy store had one other design that I hadn't seen, but they had told me about it on the phone: it had "some grass and flowers and things." Not nearly as cool. Sam was excited about the flames. Corey was also excited about the flames. But somehow the flames made me feel anxious. They made me hyper sensitive to the idea of her entire little-girlhood slipping away too fast—as if buying her the bike with flames would be fast-forwarding her into a future of skinny jeans and piercings and dyed black hair. Before my coffee was gone, I hated that bike.

I hated it so much that I packed it back in my car and then drove half an hour back to the toy store, in time to be there when it opened. I explained that I was having second thoughts on my choice and wondered if I could switch it for the one with "grass and flowers and things." The saleswoman was kind—she clearly thought I was insane, but she didn't say so. These bikes are for two year olds—I knew that and she knew that—and two year olds don’t really care. She was kind and she was also covered in tattoos and her hair was spiky and black. And even though I have nothing against tattoos and spiky black hair, I knew I was doing the right thing.

What I was doing was trying to slow it all down because already it all seems to be slipping away too fast. 

In the year since her last birthday, Quinn has learned to walk and to run and to jump. She's learned to go get her little owl apron when I ask her if she wants to bake with me, and she's learned to stir the batter in the bowl. She's learned to bite and hit, and she's learned to say she's sorry. She's learned how to go up and down the stairs by herself, and how to climb into our deep tub by herself. In the past twelve months, she learned to say a few words, and then a few more, and now she says things like: Dad's big truck. Be right back, Mom. Please, Mom. Thank you, Mom. And when she doesn't want me to do something, or she doesn't want to eat something I'm trying to give her, she says, emphatically, No thank you, please! And when she's sad, or tired, she says, I wanna hug. And, I love you. And lately, she says, I'm two!

Right now, just after her second birthday, I sense this moment of perfection in Quinn's life. She is still so tiny and soft and baby-like, and she is also so fully formed, with so many distinctive traits that I've come to think of as so very Quinn.

But in the midst of this sweet little perfectness there are already glimpses of her growing up. A couple of weeks ago, I actually saw her blush for the first time; she was belly laughing over the sudden loud noise of the food processor when she pushed the button, and she glanced over and saw that Corey was laughing too. One minute she was laughing, the next minute she was burning under bright red cheeks, aware of his attention, aware of herself. How is it possible that this has happened already? How am I ever going to enjoy her birthdays if each year all I can think about is all that is irretrievable? Another thing Quinn has learned how to do recently is climb out of her crib. As I'm feeling a desperate need to hold on, she’s already trying to escape.

I don't know how I'm supposed to handle all the letting go. And I don't know how to break this birthday pattern, but I find myself, again this year, thinking about how crazy it is that you bring another life into the world, through your own flesh and blood, and by virtue of doing that, you love that being more than anything--more than yourself--and what's expected of you next is that each day, for the rest of your life, you let that being go a little more and then a little more and then a little more. And the irony of course is that each day, Quinn is a little more, and she says a little more, and she does a little more, and she gives a little more, and it becomes increasingly harder to do that thing I'm supposed to do: to let her find her own balance...and let her glide.

©2012 Corey Hendrickson - All Rights Reserved

©2012 Corey Hendrickson - All Rights Reserved

Happy Birthday Quinn. 

I love you.

Return to Rainy River

Every fall, in my American Literature class, I read The Great Gatsby with my students. Not very original, I know, but classics are classics for a reason. And every year, when Nick realizes that Gatsby believes, without doubt, that he and Daisy will simply rewind the clock together, erasing what's happened in the years since their separation, and erasing the people they've become in order to go back to the people they once were, I join Nick in his incredulity and marvel over the absurdity of Gatsby's point of view. "You can't repeat the past," Nick tells Gatsby every fall, and every fall Gatsby replies, "Of course you can!"

Despite my annual criticisms of Jay Gatsby, it turns out I've been guilty of similar thinking.

Last November I turned 40, and my friend Char turned 60. For years we imagined some sort of epic adventure to commemorate this shared milestone. For a while, that epic adventure was supposed to be a trek in Nepal. In fact, when I turned 30 I was also supposed to go to Nepal—it was the planned destination that semester for my traveling school, but the summer before our departure, Nepal's crown prince went berzerk and killed 9 members of his royal family, before shooting himself. He too died days later and Nepal was in turmoil, so we planned to go to Thailand instead. It was September of 2011 and Thailand didn't happen either, but now I'm getting off track.

As the big 40/60 birthday year approached, Char and I started discussing Nepal again. And Sam was on board too—he bought me a guidebook for my 39^th birthday and promised to help me get to the Himalayas the following year. By the time 40 was approaching, Quinn had just turned one, and she was crawling, and cute, and starting to really grow on me. And the more I thought about being away for three or more weeks, the time it would take us to really do the trip the right way, the more petrified I became. I knew I wasn't ready to leave.

The problem was that my traveling partner was in a different position: For Char, getting to Nepal sooner rather than later was going to be important. I was so afraid of backing out on her...I didn't want to let her down. But, I got lucky: she was asked to join a big geology trip to Egypt last winter and, by the time she got back, she felt like she had used up her "out of the comfort zone" big adventure for the year. Either that or she sensed my anxiety and gave me an easy out. Either way, I could exhale: I was off the hook.

Instead of the Himalayas, we started discussing other trip options a bit closer to home. Pretty quickly we arrived at the idea of doing a paddling trip; for a number of years, Char and I would go on a paddling trip together every summer—so this idea brought us back to our roots, and we liked that. And once we knew we wanted to paddle, we pretty quickly focused our thoughts on the Boundary Waters—one of the world's quiet water Meccas.

Last March we started planning and what we pulled together was a week-long backcountry loop of lakes and portages in Canada's Quetico Provincial Park, the Canadian side of the Boundary Waters. We agreed to drive out, leaving from her Adirondack camp the day after Sam's annual Lake Placid lacrosse tournament ended. And from the moment our plan for the trip came to be, I looked forward to it every day.

I looked forward to the quiet water, and the quiet. I looked forward to the new scenery, and the adventure of it all. I looked forward to reuniting with my old gear—my beloved one-person tent, my favorite-ever sleeping bag which has been a comforting friend on countless great adventures since its first in 1993—a week on the Long Trail with Kim. I looked forward to seeing my trusty and easy to light, no muss no fuss camp stove, and my favorite pewter spoon found in the basement kitchen at Adventure Quest before my first international trip—my eating utensil of choice on every single camping trip since. I even looked forward to the two-day drive out, and the two-day drive back, because a good roadtrip, with a good friend, is good for the soul.

On every bad day, between March and the beginning of August, I thought ahead to my trip and took solace in knowing that it would eventually arrive. Ten days on my own, I felt sure, was going to be like going back in time. I was going to be free—of people and schedules and expectations—and navigating through a new wilderness was going to be a great adventure. Schlepping my two heavy packs, my paddle and our canoe over 18 rough portages (some a third to a half-mile long) was going to be physically demanding. We would be camping among bears, and moose, and wolves. And we didn't know fully what to expect—it was perfect. I couldn't wait to get going—to get moving back into my old skin—the free and independent and adventurous former me who, for the past seven years has been too busy building a house and building a marriage and growing a baby to get out and do anything as awesome as the things I used to do all the time. I've been missing that girl and I couldn't wait to find her again, somewhere out in western Ontario in the middle of the big woods.

My mind is like that—very black and white. The trip would be good. My old self was better than my new self, and I just needed a trip to bring her back. All things clear and absolute. Rather Gatsby-like really. 

As our departure date got closer and closer, the panic started to settle in. Sam was off playing lacrosse and Quinn and I were home together. I was scrambling to get ready—to pack, to shop for my half of the camp food, to leave things at school in order so I could return from the trip and go right to the opening day of school the next day, to pay the bills, clean the house, buy diapers and supplies to keep Sam stocked for the ten days that I would be away…And in the midst of all that work, despite my attempts not to think about it, I started to wonder how I was going to be away from Quinn for that many days.

The trip was a nice idea, but it was proving to be a tough reality. I had worried about whether I was in shape enough to handle the physical challenges, but it had never crossed my mind to wonder whether I would be equipped to handle the emotional challenges. It's been so long since my last big adventure that I had forgotten just how much I miss Sam when I'm away. And Quinn didn't even exist as an idea last time I did something like this. I didn't, at the time, know what it would feel like to have a tiny little person put her fleshy little palm to my cheek and say, "Mama." Or have that same little person, who can barely speak, put her finger to my chest and say, "You." And then point to herself and say, "Me." I didn't know what it would be like to hear her say, "happy" for the first time, or to say "thank you" for the first time, after 23 months. But these were the words she started saying in the days just before I left: You and Me. Happy. Thank you. 

For the word-lover in me, the irony was too much.

The night before I left, when I couldn't stand to hear her cry in her portable crib at Char's camp, I went upstairs to get her and I sat on the floor with her, and she asked me for "Baby Rocky?" which is what she says when she wants me to cradle her in my arms and sing Rock-a-bye Baby. And I held her as she asked me to and I cried my eyes out. How could I be so selfish as to leave her for 10 days? What if she calls for me and I'm not there, and I'm not even close to coming back? And what happens if, heaven-forbid, something happens to Quinn's mom when she's out on her big adventure? What if I don't come back? And if I do, how am I ever going to be able to let her out of my sight when she's older to have the same kinds of adventures that have been so important to me?

As I sat there holding her and worrying about all this and sobbing, Quinn did this amazing thing: she poked me gently on the nose and started to laugh this sort of fake little laugh…like she was trying to cheer me up but didn't quite know how, and she did it over and over again until finally I was laughing instead of crying. And then I felt even worse about leaving…I knew I'd be lost without her.

The next morning was miserable. We were packed and ready to go by 7:30, and Sam and Quinn walked us to the driveway to say goodbye. I kissed them and got in the car and the last thing I heard was Quinn's little voice: "Bye-bye Mama." I don't remember when I stopped crying, but I eventually did. And sometime after that, Char and I started to catch up, and as we talked the miles and the hours started to pass. And that night I called Sam and he said they were okay. And the next morning, we were up early and driving again. And I knew Char didn't want to spend her trip talking about what was waiting back home, so I learned to keep my thoughts mostly to myself, but I can tell you I thought about Quinn about 98% of the time, despite how good it eventually felt to be paddling, and despite how beautiful everything was.

After dinner, on our first night out, we endured a spectacular thunderstorm with an incredible amount of close lightning. The site I had picked for my tent was ideal for minimizing mosquitos—it was up high, next to a bald rock, away from the trees. It was also ideal for a lightning strike. I spent a few hours lying in my tent listening to the torrential rain and thunder, wishing I was in a different place—not because I was worried about my safety, but because I was worried about putting Quinn's mom in danger. Eventually my anxiety about being struck motivated me to move and I ventured out into the deluge, resigned to the fact that from that point forward I'd be wet for the rest of the night. I unstaked my tent, dragged it down the rocky hill in the pitch black night and set it up next to Char's in a more protected spot down low. Eventually, when I had redone everything and climbed back into my sleeping bag, the storm started to move off, the rain slowed to a drizzle and the world got quiet enough that we were able to hear a timber wolf howling in the distance. It was brief and eerie and magical, and after I heard it I was finally able to fall asleep.

By the time we rounded the southwestern end of our loop days later, and were headed back toward our northeastern end point, I started to really enjoy what we were doing. My body felt firm in places it hasn't in years, and my head felt more clear as well. Quinn never left my thoughts, but somehow it was easier psychologically once we were at least headed toward home—even though we were still days away.

Toward the end of the trip our route was right along the border between the US and Canada—running up the middle of our last chain of lakes. One morning we got an early start and the fog was still lifting over glassy water. We paddled in silence a couple of the last days—Char and I out of sync in our thoughts, despite moving as one on the water. The lakes were narrow that morning and the wooded shorelines were close together—an easy swim if you chose to make it. 

As I paddled I thought of another story: Tim O'Brien's "On the Rainy River" which was named after this very part of the world (we were in the Rainy River District). His story was the story of a young man with a Vietnam draft card in his pocket, sitting in the bow of a boat with the US just behind him and Canada just in front. The old man fishing guide steers the boat wordlessly toward the Canadian shore, and then puts his fishing line in the water and waits. The young man is paralyzed—torn between his sense of family and responsibility, and his desire for freedom and life. In his mind, he jumps in the water, swims to the opposite shore and starts running; he never looks back. But in reality, he doesn't move, and eventually the old man brings him back.

The whole landscape up there is, at times, motionless. It's easy to get turned around, and when you do, you're not sure what you're looking at. 

Gliding through those boundary waters, I felt the same polar pulls within myself, but where one idea ended and another began wasn't always clear. I went up there thinking family would be put on hold for self, responsibility paused for freedom, home and away both distinct. But I realized that is two-dimensional thinking in a three-dimensional life. Family for me is no longer different from self. Responsibility and freedom no longer mutually exclusive. Home stayed with me no matter how far I went.

On our last full day we got to camp before noon and had a long afternoon and evening to spend. I was glad for the time to reflect before returning to the car, and the world, and before heading home. I have a romantic view of what backcountry trips are all about—I always think they are going to be so much fun, and then always they are more difficult than I remember. And of course that's what makes them so important: they challenge our sense of who we are and what we're capable of. Schlepping my gear through buggy woods, and swampy trails, paddling from lake to lake, I realized I wasn't journeying back to a former self—I was getting more acquainted with a new one. I used to feel proud of my adventures, but I've never felt more proud of anything than being Quinn's mom. My last night in the tent, instead of thinking about what I had gained, I was glad to realize what I had lost: the idea that there is a difference between the old and the new.

The day we left the Quetico and got back to the car to head home, we stopped at a little store on our way down the Gunflint Trail to ask about driving routes. I saw a postcard with the image of a beautiful wolf and picked it up. The caption on the back explained "The gray wolf mates for life...all the members of the pack help to care for the young…A lone wolf will give a beautiful and haunting howl when separated from its pack."

We never saw any black bears, and never saw a moose. But I heard the wolf howl—I'm quite sure of that. That and the fact that you can't repeat the past…and right now, that's just fine; I can't imagine going back.