Racer Ready

When Quinn was a baby our colleagues at school started imagining the day when Quinn would join the ski club. They started telling us how great it would be, and how much she, and we, would love it. When she was in preschool, they started telling us, “you have to sign her up for the club!” 

As is often true, those who have gone through life before you have an uncontrollable desire to preview, for you, what’s ahead. To tell you the absolutes of your future, and in so doing leave you to feel that your process as a first-time parent, isn’t really a unique process at all, but rather a following of other people’s leads. I tend to think of myself as a nonconformist, at least a little bit, even at my “mature” age. And certainly I know that I react against being told what to do—no matter how immature that may be. I like to make my own choices, and I always have. And “clubs”—either literal or metaphoric—have never been my thing.

For all these reasons, I have never been sure that Quinn would, as predicted, join “the club.”

There is irony, of course, in the fact that Sam and I have both made our living from working at the academy for the past sixteen years. Irony as well in the fact that I have, long since, come to fully believe in the values and the mission of our school, and to admire the expertise and the care of the ski coaches I have worked with for so many years. Among them are many people who have coached or competed at the national and World Cup level. There are champions and Olympians and heroes among them. And yet, in spite of now being the point person in the academic program to sell our school to prospective families every year, when I have imagined it for Quinn, I haven’t been sold. 

One of the stories I tell prospective families is the story of our graduation tradition. For as long as the school has been graduating students (forty-five years now), the graduation ceremony has been the same: every graduate gives a speech. This remains true even in years when we graduate over thirty students. Every single one earns her and his spot at the lectern. And inevitably, the predominant theme, year after year, is gratitude for the opportunities students have had to build meaningful friendships with each other, and with the faculty, and a sense of appreciation for the ways those relationships helped them through the many highs and lows of their high school and ski racing experience. “Skiing is just a metaphor,” our long time Head of School would say, again and again, and graduation is the place where I am reminded each year of what it is a metaphor for: hard work, taking risks, the importance of setbacks, the value of commitment and perseverance, the gift of being challenged. I could go on.

Who wouldn’t want this for their kid? And how could I not want it for Quinn, when I clearly see the value it has for other people’s kids? And how can I sell people this bill of goods if I’m not willing to buy it myself? 

Graduation isn’t every day…it’s one day, at the end of a long road. And on that road our students face some formidable challenges. Mostly I picture the crutches—many, many sets of crutches, and bandages, and braces, and stitches, and bruises—of the flesh, and of the ego, and worse yet, of the heart. “Be careful” is one of the phrases that comes most often out of my mouth with Quinn. I try to stop myself, and sometimes I succeed, but still it sneaks out. And being careful is the antithesis of ski racing, the opposite of what ski racing requires. Ski racing requires you to be comfortable taking risk. And while risk taking is something I used to be good at, that changed a lot when I went from being “Kerry” to being “Quinn’s mom.” As Quinn’s mom, it is my biological imperative to steer her (and me) away from risk—it is a hard wired aspect of my job as mother, and when I do a job, I do the job. 

And all that said, just as I see the idea of being able to make my own choices as a sacred right, I believe it to be Quinn’s right as well. I have always felt a desire, even a responsibility, to honor Quinn’s right to make choices, or, at the very least, to protect her future ability to choose things for herself.

This fall, as the ski club sign up deadline approached, again, I found I was more conflicted than in years past as I tried to dismiss it. Quinn is nearing the age when, if she is not soon involved in the sport, she will lose the ability to later jump into it and experience any success. Insanely, if she were to ever want to go to our school in high school, she would need to be working her way toward that opportunity now, in the second grade. 

At the end of the last ski season, Quinn was still small enough that Sam and I would help her onto the fast-approaching chair lift as it swung around to scoop us up. And for the duration of each seemingly interminable chairlift ride, as Sam gazed around at the scenery, I would hold onto her, pinning her to the seat and to my side, waiting anxiously for the ride to end. As the beginning of this ski season approached, I was sick at the thought of Quinn being at the mountain without us. I had a hard enough time letting her go with her dad, nevermind going with some kid “coach” who wasn’t going to pay attention. 

And yet as sick as I felt at the notion of Quinn being fifty feet in the air in slippery snow pants, I also felt sick when I imagined having a conversation with her as a middle school aged Quinn, trying to explain to her how I let my own fears get in the way of her being able to make a choice for herself. Quinn has grown up on our school campus. She is at home there. For every day of her life she has been welcomed there and treated with care and kindness by our colleagues and our students. I imagined her reaching the age when she could finally be there on her own, if she chose to, and being told it wasn’t available to her. I knew this was a conversation that I never wanted to have.

We had asked Quinn in year’s past if she wanted to try the ski club, and each time she said no. It’s possible I willed her to answer that way, and it’s possible she had no interest. In all other things Quinn has signed up to do—soccer, gymnastics, swimming lessons, camps—we have had to coax her in, and promise to let her quit if she would at least give it a try. Fortunately, whenever she’s tried things, she’s later admitted that she’s had fun and was glad we made her do it. This year, when we asked Quinn if she wanted to try the ski club, she thought about it briefly and then said yes. I was surprised when it didn’t require any coaxing. She asked plenty of questions about it, but she seemed, from the beginning, fairly determined to give it a try. It reminded me of a day last year, when Quinn was in first grade and we were driving to school, she said something along the lines of “When I go to GMVS…” At the time, I told her it wasn’t certain that she would go to GMVS. I told her that all the kids who go to GMVS are ski racers. Her response was quick: “Well I don’t have to be a ski racer,” she said. It was half statement, and half question, and it seems she filed the answer away.

The ski club kicks off with a series of dryland training workouts in the fall, as they wait for the mountain to open. The workouts take place at our school, where Quinn feels as if she is master of the domain. This helped her, on the first weekend, with her first-time jitters. What also helped was the fact that every one of the coaches knew her, even if she didn’t know them. They were our colleagues and our current and former students. Upon arrival she had the gift of being treated as a “native,” even though Sam and I both see ourselves, and therefore Quinn by extension, as outsiders to this sport that was never our own. She took note as one coach told another who she was: Sam and Kerry’s kid. She took comfort in knowing where the bathrooms, and water fountains, and mats and rings and balls were, and knowing too that she could point these things out to others. Quinn has always imagined an air of authority for herself, and the whole scene suited her. She loved everything about "dry landing." And, eventually, when she came home and told me who her coaches were, that suited me. 

Quinn’s primary coach, week after week, was Sarah McHugh…the same Sarah McHugh who was my advisee, and who knit Quinn a blanket, along with another advisee, Susan, while they were training in Chile at the same time that Quinn was being born. Sarah, who has since gone on to graduate from college and become an elementary school teacher. Sarah who, I knew without doubt, would make sure Quinn got onto the chairlift.

The first Saturday of skiing was a depressing one for me. I felt sad to see her head off to spend the day with other people, just as we each have to do all week. For the past eight years, I have enjoyed our lazy winter weekend mornings, watching cartoons (Quinn) and drinking coffee (us). We rush out the door all week, and I hated the idea of rushing out the door on the weekends too. I was cranky and sad that first Saturday. But on the second Saturday, I went to a yoga class. And then I went grocery shopping. And I had time to do some things around the house. The second Saturday wasn’t so bad and, in fact, it was kind of nice. Just when I finished doing things I wanted and needed to do, Quinn came home—excited to see me, excited about her day of skiing with her friends, and eager to tell me all about it. 

And so it went every Saturday and Sunday for the rest of this winter: out the door by 8:30, skiing from 9am-2pm, home around 3pm. In all these weeks Quinn took only 2 single days off—each time to go to birthday parties. She went to training when she was tired, when she was sick, and when the weather completely sucked. And she added days on school vacations when, miraculously, the club coaches offered extra training. One day, over Christmas vacation, when it was pouring rain on bullet-proof ice, and the start of training was delayed, and Quinn was in her new Christmas pjs watching cartoons and feeling sick with a cold, I told her she could stay home—that in fact she should stay home to rest (i.e.: be with me because I was missing her). “No way, Mom. I want to go to club!” Quinn has always been a heel-dragger in the mornings, she still is every school day, and yet this winter, every weekend, she got herself dressed and out the door. On this December morning when she insisted on going, in spite of my repeated encouragements to stay home, I drove her to the mountain, and I stood watching in disbelief as she clomped up the hill, with her skis already on, to catch up with her friends on the t-bar.

Within a couple of weekends of skiing with her group, Quinn was a different skier entirely. Her confidence was undeniable and her whole demeanor had been transformed. She was quick to pick up the habits of the other kids—leaning casually on her poles, and clicking out of her bindings in quick alternating steps. When she trained or raced in gates, her vertical posture set her apart from the more experienced skiers, but when she skied with me, she was the one with skills. One Saturday, when I met her to take a few runs after training ended, she was eager to take me into “Semi-Tough Woods,” but I stopped her. “I don’t do woods,” I told her, so she said okay and turned down a different trail—a trail with moguls. “I don’t do moguls,” I yelled down to her, but she was gone, weaving effortlessly between the mounds. She stopped at the bottom and turned to watch me. “You’re doing great, Mom!” she yelled up the hill, and I was mortified by the realization that she has already, at age 8, left me behind.

Still, what I can’t deny is that the ski club has been utterly incredible for Quinn. The kid who always wants me or Sam to go with her wherever she goes, now goes all over the mountain on her own. The same cautious kid who has refused to buy school lunch for three years running, is now asking for money so she can walk from the clubhouse to the ski lodge with her buddies, buy chicken tenders and maybe some Starbursts. She is negotiating the crowds, the lines, the transactions, and the change she knows she needs to bring me. She has gained so much confidence, independence, pride, strength of body and will, and so many new friends that I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude every time I think about “the club.” 

All of these gains make the risks, for now, worth it. Every single weekend since the end of October has been dedicated, in our house, to ski racing, and yet ski racing, as I’ve been told for years, has so little to do with it. Our Alpine Director at school described Quinn as having a “fine-tuned sense of self-preservation.” That was his positive spin on the fact that she is, for now, still slow. It is a description that I appreciate, given that I’m still getting used to this new sport she’s chosen for herself. 

The two highlights of Quinn’s first year of racing had nothing to do with racing, which strikes me as just right. The first was winning the “Best Crash” award on the mogul trail with her group, with the bag of Starbursts she was given as a prize. And the second was winning the medal at the Club Championship race for “Second Place” in the costume contest, where she was dressed, appropriately, as a Starburst--a costume she imagined and her crafty dad managed to make real.

In a year or two or three, Quinn might decide ski racing is not for her, and it will be fine with me if she does. I don't care about the ski racing, and I don't care about whether she's ever any good at it. I do care about the metaphor--the hard work, facing the challenges, and learning to pick herself up after her "yard sales" in life. Most of all, I care about her right to choose her own path. What an amazing thing it is to watch your daughter become her own person—ready or not.

With sincere gratitude to our GMVS family, for helping Quinn on her way.

I Love You

It was late, and we were tired.

We assumed there would be other nights…

I said, I want to tell you something.

She said, You can tell me tomorrow.

I had never told her how much I loved her…

It was always unnecessary…

There would be other nights.

I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.

Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you…

It’s always necessary.

I love you…
(314)

It is not new that Quinn can be a firestorm of emotion. Not new that she can be reactive, easily offended, and then quickly angered. It is not new that she doesn’t like to hear, “no,” and that it takes her time to shift gears and, eventually, reset. Sometimes it takes her a long time. Occasionally it takes her a good night’s sleep.

In this way, Quinn is like her father. Sam’s long-standing need to hold on to his anger, when it arises or is solicited, for a period that is often overnight, or for a stretch of linked together days, is, after all these eighteen years, unchanged. And unchanged too is my deep belief that life is too short for this. Too short to waste a day or a night on anger. Too short to risk a missed I love you. Mine is the perspective of someone who has experienced unchangeable loss. Theirs is enviably inexperienced.

And so how do I help Quinn understand what I understand without scaring her, or alienating her? How do I convince someone whose weeks are still months, and months are still years, that time is briefer than any of us can truly imagine. How do you insist on the fresh start, the I’m sorry, the I love you, without forcing her to confront the moment when those will no longer be possible. For Quinn, everything is still possible and she will get to it all in time. Meanwhile, I watch the clock.

A couple of weeks ago Quinn and I were driving to school. She asked me to give her some math problems; she likes solving for X. She got a number of them right, and then, she got one wrong. I started to explain it, but she cut me off, accusing me of “saying it wrong.” It was my fault she got it wrong, she insisted, I hadn’t asked the question the right way. I waited for her first wave of anger to pass before interjecting. There were so many things for me to say, and all of them were meant to help her stay the course, to rebound, to put things in perspective. But she wasn’t ready for any of that because she was embarrassed, or felt she had been wronged, or both, and in her deep angry voice she snarled at me, “Why don’t you just drive.”

We were silent for a brief while, while my own sense of right and wrong crystallized. In my life as her mom, I told her, I do my best to be patient and compassionate while she works to figure things out. But, in my regular life, I would never tolerate someone speaking to me in that way. 

In the two and a half years that Quinn has been going to Thatcher Brook, there had been only one day that she walked in to school on her own. I had to get to my own school early, and she and I were running late. I asked her if she could walk herself in, to save me a little time. She agreed, asked for a hug, and then hopped out of the car balancing her nervousness with her pride, as I worked to do the same. On this day, this “why don’t you just drive” day, having endured one too many of her meltdowns, I suggested that it didn’t make sense for me to walk her to her classroom after she’d just been so “mean” to me. I told her I would drop her off instead. She started to cry, mostly angry tears. 

When we got to the parking lot, I put the car in park and turned to her. “It’s not too late for a fresh start,” I offered. “Let’s not start the day off mad.” She looked me in the eye, opened the door and stepped out. She slammed the door on me and never looked back as she weaved her way through the morning parking lot traffic, hidden from each driver's view as they backed their cars up. I watched, stunned, until she made it safely to the stairs. I resisted the urge to jump out and go after her. I felt a little impressed by her fortitude, if I'm being honest, but also really sad that her feeling of being wronged was more powerful or important than love. For me, nothing is more important than loving Quinn, but for her, life continues as a series of important events that happen without interruption. And from her vantage point, there is no car that backs over her in the school parking lot. There is no truck that crosses the center line while her mother drives to school. For Quinn, as it is with Sam, “I’m sorry” can wait. “I love you” can wait.

“Why didn’t I treat everything like it was the last time? 

My greatest regret is how much I believed in the future.” (281)

Sam’s daily outlook is that nothing will ever go wrong. He constantly underestimates how long things take and is therefore always late. Just now he is gearing up to go for a ski. I have a meeting this afternoon at 4pm, the time when Quinn’s bus will arrive at the bottom of our hill to drop her off. Sam knows he must be there to pick her up. He also knows that it took him four hours the other day to do the ski he is about to do. It is now 11:33 am. The other day, he skied with Moses. Today he will ski with a friend. The other day the snow was heavy and wet. Today it is cold and light as air. The other day, he worried about the dog and only did two laps on the untracked wooded hill dropping down from the ridge. Today will be untracked again, with yesterday’s new snow. It will be a fresh start. The other day, the dog did not argue about turning toward home. The dog didn’t feel the pull to do “just one more” lap, and Sam didn’t either because he was worried about the dog. But today the dog is not going, only the friend is going—the younger, fitter friend who does not have a daughter arriving on a bus at 4pm. There is no time to spare, in Sam’s plan, between his return to the house and the arrival of the bus 15 minutes away. There is no time for the extra lap in snow as light as air. No time for the broken binding. Certainly no time for anything human to break, for anything else to go wrong. But that’s okay, he assures me, because “nothing will go wrong.”

If Sam is far left on the spectrum of worry, my sister is far right. In Amy’s purview, everything is always about to go wrong. Disaster lurks around every corner. Chaos is always a moment away. I see myself standing between them. I look left and then right, and then left, and then right. I can’t un-know what I know about life, which is death, and yet I can’t, in my awareness of death, entirely give up life. My compromise, ultimately, has to be this: I can do my best believing in the good that is still to come, as long as I don’t assume the future. 

“You can’t protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” (180)

In my family, when we were growing up, we were not allowed to go to bed without saying I love you. It forced reconciliation when I wanted to hold on to my righteousness and anger. It made each new day a new day. 

The day that Quinn walked away from me in the parking lot, away from needing me in her morning routine, Sam was having his advisees up to the house for dinner. I was going to be driving them there after school, arriving with them, to our small house, without yet having seen Quinn. I called home before leaving school, as I often do, to see if Sam needed anything at the store, but really to test how it was going to go with Quinn. I felt confident, but not certain, that she was going to be ready to reconcile. I imagined that the walk from my car to her classroom was one of the longer walks of her life, but I couldn’t be sure. “Hello?” She answered the phone with a hint of the morning still in her voice. “Hello Quinn,” I responded in kind. I asked to speak with Sam, and then asked him to put her back on the line. As soon as she had the receiver back, she greeted me with an “I’m sorry Mom,” her voice softer and more vulnerable than before. I asked her if she had dinner plans and whether she would like to have dinner in the cabin with me, away from the house full of boys. 

She was excited and grateful, as was I, and while I built a fire in our little cabin stove, Quinn asked me if she could read me the letter she’d written me that day, sometime after she walked away from me without saying goodbye. “Dear Mom,” she read, “I’m sorry I was so rude. It was all my fault…I love you…”

“It takes a life to learn how to live.” (184)

Nothing went wrong that day that she walked away from me without saying goodbye. We still had time for I love you. We had the best dinner together, picnicking and talking by lantern light in our Owl House. We talked about perseverance, and the importance of taking chances, and what happens to girls’ self-esteem when they are good at math but afraid to make mistakes. I told her about books I have on the subject, and she told me she’s seen them in my office, and that she likes to read the titles of the books on my shelves at work.

When she’s old enough, I’m going to give her a copy of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer—maybe I’ll even give her my copy, with all of my notes. It is an excruciating book in so many ways, but in ways I believe she will appreciate—this daughter of mine who, at age 5, thanked me for buying Charlotte’s Web for her, even as she told me it made her sad. When she reads Safran Foer’s novel, she will read through all the bewildering but interconnected plot lines. She will see the parallel narratives of Oskar Schell, and his father Thomas Schell, and his grandfather who is also Thomas Schell, as well as his grandmother, and his neighbor, and his mother, and a long list of strangers, and even Shakespeare's Hamlet. She will see that the one thing all people have in common is loss. And she will also see that it is always necessary to say I love you.

I love you Quinn. More than life itself.

PS: It is worth note that Sam sent me a message at 3:09 pm today, to let me know he was home and "all set to pick up Quinn" at her bus. :)

Dear Quinn, Let’s Talk About College

Quinn is currently only eight and a half years old, and in the second grade, but it seems now is the time for me to start talking about college, and I have a few things to say.

There are many ways we can put people into categories. One of which is to look at people in terms of those who believe in “good schools” and those who believe in “right” schools. I will be direct here and say that I have a very hard time with people who believe that a school’s fancy reputation equals some sort of automatic transferable benefit for any student who attends. Even thinking about those people makes me feel like I’ve smelled bad cheese.

I have always believed that the quality of the education you get is most closely connected to the type of student you are. And I believe, wholeheartedly, that “the best” school for any given student is the school that feels right to that student, for dozens of different reasons. 

My father went to a community college and earned a two-year Associate’s degree. My mother earned her Bachelor’s degree at a four-year state college; she was the only one in her immediate family to do so. Each of my parents was “successful.” And by successful, I mean they were employed, challenged, fulfilled and respected in their work, and they were financially stable. My sister and I grew up in nice homes, riding in new cars, wearing nice clothes. We were well cared for. We had every kind of thing we wanted. We went on family vacations. We both went to college, and graduate school after that. I look at my parents’ financial success, not to mention their marital happiness and the fun they had together, and apart, in their lives, as something enviable and aspirational. I am in awe of them still, and humbled by what they were able to accomplish and provide, given that nothing was handed to them.

Quinn’s paternal grandfather went to Yale, and then he went to Cambridge, where he met Quinn’s grandmother. Their children all went to Yale, except for Sam, who went to Brown.

In the years that Sam and I have been together, we have had occasional conversations about the privileged educational lineage he comes from, and occasionally, in those occasional conversations, there have been dilute hints of a privileged perspective—a point of view I tend to sniff out. But, only hints that have been explained away. Until last night. 

Last night, in conversation at a local burger restaurant, with a co-worker and Quinn also at the table, we were discussing the fact that one of our students heard, this week, that she got into a school she really wants to go to. We were all genuinely happy for her, and all was light and celebratory until the moment when Sam said, “She’ll be much happier there than at [the other school she applied to].” The needle dragged across the record, and the music stopped. “Why?” I wondered, aloud. “Well,” he said, matter of factly, “It’s a better school.”

In the twelve or so hours since that dinner table bomb was dropped, we’ve jousted a bit on the topic of how you can accurately define “better.” Sam has pointed to the standardized test scores of the student body, and the amount of financial resources a school has. There are plenty of articles available that address those debatable indicators of a school’s quality. If reputation is everything to you, then fine, you can prance through life telling everyone the name of your school. And pat yourself on the back. Congratulations. 

Can you smell that?

My view is that other people can’t define, for me, what is a better/best school for me. It strikes me this is a highly personal decision, based on the criteria of each person’s choosing. If your actual education is what matters, the personal and intellectual growth you might realize during your time at a school, then it seems there are countless factors that would inform “good” vs. “not good,” and those factors might be different for each person.

UVM was “Harvard” to me. Here’s why: When I first set foot on the campus, I felt at home. It was beautiful. The old brick buildings on University Place, with their hilltop view of the lake and mountains beyond, thrilled me. That was the beginning of a first-sight love that never waned. I loved my classes. I loved the people I met. I loved the daily view of natural beauty and easy access to it. I felt a surge of self confidence and purpose when I walked onto the varsity swim team, from the nowhere, nothing high school swim team I came from. I was one of the two worst swimmers on the team, along with one of my then, and now, best friends, but we were ON THE TEAM, an NCAA Division I team. With that team, I traveled to many other colleges and universities to compete, I traveled out of state to train, and in those travels I never saw another pool or school that I would have preferred. And when I had the crazy idea to join the crew team, and keep swimming at the same time, they let me! They let me out of the pool five minutes early so I could catch a ride to the river. At the river, I met my people, and they are still my people today. At UVM, I spent some time taking classes I thought I should take, to help me get to the places I thought I wanted to go. But in that time, I also discovered other classes, classes I loved with a passion, and my whole future took a right turn. Once I found my real path, everything about my college academic experience came even more alive. And other doors started opening. At UVM, professors took an interest in me. I was offered opportunities that have since defined my life—tutoring in the Writing Center especially—and relationships that have given my life meaning. I could write about my years there for days, but no matter what else I add to this list, the punchline is this: UVM was the best school in the country, for me. 

I feel very lucky to have grown up in a home where I was taught that the opportunity to go to college is a privilege and an honor, something to be proud of, not something to be valued in proportion to its cachet. And I am also grateful that I never, not once, heard any language in my home that correlated, directly or indirectly, my value, or my potential, with the schools I did, or did not get into.

In my own work now, teaching high school students, I am interacting with students, every day, who are incapacitated by their own performance anxiety and self-doubt. Anyone who does not see that is not paying attention. And, anyone who doesn’t think those kids’ anxiety and self-doubt is connected to the messaging they have heard, either at home or in the world, is entirely disconnected from reality themselves. 

Sam and I will not be able to control the messages Quinn hears from the world, but we can control the messages she hears at home. And she is already, and has been for some time, listening. “Off-hand” comments are just the kind of comments that are easy to remember—they are short, shallow, and easily stored and retrieved. Our messages have to be thoughtful and intentional, and they have to be well-informed. All I want Quinn to know about college is this: It is awesome. I will do my very best to make college financially possible for her. And I don’t give a you know what where she goes, as long as she feels at home, inspired, and empowered by the people and opportunity she meets there. 

And, if she decides not to go, and is otherwise happy, healthy, and able to create a life for herself, that’s fine too. Truly. I want Quinn to define her own “best.”

The Owl House

When I was young, around Quinn’s age, we moved from Massachusetts to Fairport, New York. A suburb of Rochester, our town was, logically, full of suburban neighborhoods, ours among them. We lived on Towpath Trail, a horseshoe-shaped road that didn’t resemble a trail at all, with it’s two story colonial style houses and well-kept lawns. There were kids everywhere and we played, and fought, as kids do. 

On the far end of our road was a house with a young girl near my age. I can’t remember any details of her: her name, her specific age relative to mine, nor what she looked like. I remember only that she had, sitting in her backyard, a play house big enough for “grown” girls like ourselves to stand up in, walk around in, disappear from the outside world in. 

The little house was not well cared for. It was full of moldy growth and debris, and I felt the sadness of that even though it wasn’t mine. Perhaps because it wasn’t mine. I felt as though it was in the care of the wrong girl—not well loved as it should be. I imagined what I would do if I had such a house of my own. I craved such a space, a place to hide out and escape my younger, eager-to-play sister. A place to do my dreaming and thinking in private. I pleaded with my dad, again and again, to build me one. He declined, again and again, and I settled for building a fort in my wide closet, upstairs in my room.

Some desires, I realize, especially now that I’m a parent myself, are passing fads or phases. Toys seen and longed for lose their novelty once acquired and so grow dusty on the shelves, or moldy in the yard. But this desire of mine, for a little play house, formed in third grade when I was the new girl in a school full of kids with funny accents, who perceived me to be the girl with the funny accent, did not pass. Perhaps because I felt the outsider in my new surroundings—someone arrived after early elementary school friendships were already formed, someone who arrived behind in learning cursive and, no doubt, other academic skills—perhaps that is why the desire for a place of my own initially stuck. And perhaps because we moved again, six years later, to repeat the process of trying to find my spot, the dream of a little “play” house persisted. 

A dream that long in the mind is hard to shake, and my dream of a little house of my own has followed me through life, even, it turns out, after I built my little house in the woods with Sam, and loved it to its core as my first true and lasting home, the place I’ve built a family and a life I love. Even in that little house, I have continued dreaming of the littler house. The simple place tucked into the trees, with books and a wood stove and a comfortable place to sit and write. 

The playhouse dream became the writing cabin dream and in the years since I’ve fallen off my brief but regular writing habit, the years in which Quinn has become a human of her own, and my job has become a greater and greater impact on my life, the desire has, at times, overwhelmed me, as it once did when I was in third grade. 

And so, when my job flared up, into significantly more work, for a brief one-year time of school transition, and that flare up brought a paycheck with it, I felt the time finally had come. Something good and tangible had to come from the year of life that disappeared. Quinn’s first year of school, her kindergarten year, was my first year of school leadership. We were both out of our comfort zones, both being challenged in more ways than we probably would have liked, and the little cabin in the woods became an imperative more than a wish…a place we could disappear into, from the outside world.

When I started dreaming it out loud, Sam was supportive and encouraging, as he always is, and always has been, when confronted by my desires. While his calm “it will all be alright” attitude can drive me crazy when I am convinced of disaster, it comes in handy when I’m looking for the courage to take a next step. On winter afternoons, in early 2017, when we were stuck indoors, Quinn and I would sketch what we named, early on, The Owl House. And when it was time to take that next step, calling in Josh to talk about what it would take to make it real, it was Quinn’s drawing we sent him, and from which he drew up the plans.

Set in motion, the frame was cut that spring, but as the summer months raced towards us, and I realized I had only saved a third of the funds we’d need, and had done none of the prep (decision making about the site, the materials, windows, etc.), I had to slow it down.  Josh offered to store the frame for us for a year and I suddenly had the time to savor the process, as I had done when we built our house. Researching wood stoves for my small space, understanding insulation options, calculating how big my windows could be, finding a great deal on flooring I knew I would love…all of it a joy and yet the cabin itself was still somehow intangible, in spite of the cabin supplies piling up in our basement.

The next school year wrapped up (as much as it ever does) in June of 2018, and with an early July raising date, the same timing as when we built our house eleven years ago, the pressure was on for me to choose the spot to build it. This decision, as with all other commitments in my life, proved the most difficult. I imagined it in a spot surrounded, in close proximity, by trees—that was a must, it must be tucked in. I imagined birch trees, though we don’t have too many and they are pretty well dispersed. We have beautiful stone walls that are inviting, but finding a flat spot without a threatening spruce above it is hard. And finding a spot that would remain unadulterated by neighbors’ future decisions weighed heavily—probably more than any other factor. It must be tucked in, and it must always be so.

I wandered and wandered and entertained countless exasperated suggestions from Quinn, and more than a few patient ones from Sam.  As was true our first time through, Sam was willing to defer to my wishes, in spite of the fact that he would inevitably be the guy to do the manual part of the work, and in spite of the fact that I imagined this a cabin for our family, not just for me. 

My search continued, with increased difficulty the closer we got to the deadline, until one early morning before work when I walked out the basement door and resumed pacing, this time along the bottom of our still evolving “meadow.” Blackberry thickets ten yards deep formed an impenetrable barrier to our remaining woods, until that morning. That morning I saw, for the first time, a cleared entry and a worn path. I followed it downhill into the woods and found myself standing on a relatively flat spot, surrounded by white and yellow birch trees, a lovely hemlock, some sizable maples. Always here there are spruce, small and tall, but this spot was truly a mixed lot, with dappled light, out of sight of the house, in nearly the center, width-wise, of our small six acre lot. I was stunned and overcome by a strong sense of having finally arrived. 

When I sat down on a log to take it in, glancing casually to the ground I saw a pink lady slipper orchid right between my feet. When Sam first walked me around the perimeter of this lot, working to convince me it was the spot meant for us, I pushed through chest deep ferns to find myself in a tiny field of orchids—a clear sign, as Lady Slipper Orchids have always been linked, for me, to my mother. Memories of my mother, and stories of my growing daughter kept me writing actively each month for a few years after Quinn was born. Then I got busy and missed a month, and then two, and then three years. As I got closer to realizing my dream of a writing cabin, I inevitably started to doubt whether I had any more stories to write. Or, worse, whether I’d know how to write them if they came. In these past few years that have flown by undocumented, our stand of lady slipper orchids has seemed to disappear. I’ve looked for them in May, the time when they usually bloom, like little pink lights on the forest floor, right around Mother’s Day, but it has been years since I’ve seen any. Until this year, just when I needed one, I found it hanging on past its bloom time—a single orchid, helping confirm where my cabin should be.

I hurried back to the house astonished by my discovery and eager to tell Sam and Quinn. Sam, who was unsurprised, had been cutting back brambles the day before and hauling old felled logs out of the woods. Just some routine clean-up for Sam that revealed the answer to my unanswerable question. My relief was immense.

Sam spent two weeks at the end of June and beginning of July clearing and leveling the spot, assembling boulders and building the foundation. We took a short break to visit the clan in the Poconos for the annual Jackson family gathering and, while there, I picked up a Mary Oliver book next to the elder Sam’s reading chair and opened randomly to this:

And so with that added good omen, we returned to Vermont and prepared for the raising on July 10th, a Tuesday. Josh was in France with Geraldine and the boys, so Timo was our partner and guide for the raising and the work ahead. As we did with our house, we raised the frame by hand, grateful to have many of the same beloved hands with us to lift her up. By some miracle, Kim and Justin and the girls were home from Lithuania. Corey was able to come, and so was Jerry, with Henry in tow. Other friends made it as well and, just as happened the first time, I spent the day feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for these lasting friendships—friends who show up on days when you need them. It’s hard to explain what it means to have a place built by those you love—their spirits reside forever in the timbers from that first lifting up. And when you box it all in, and step inside, it’s impossible not to feel their energy. Even strangers who have visited our house have commented on it—an undeniable presence of soothing calm and warmth.

The night of the raising, as is true most nights in the summer, I stood at my bedroom window and listened to owls in our woods. That night I would have sworn I heard one calling from the Owl House timbers, standing proud in their new home among the birches.

The few weeks that followed were busy. We had an unusually long stretch of hot, bone-dry weather for nearly all of July. Unlike when we built the house, when it rained for weeks from the minute our frame went up, this time we had the luxury of not worrying about keeping materials and tools dry. Timo arrived early each morning and he and Sam worked late into the afternoons. My job was largely to occupy Quinn and run the errands needed to keep the work moving. I would have liked to do more, and Sam would have happily traded places with me at times, but there is no denying that his skills far exceed mine. Still, Timo put me to work whenever I could be there, showing me the details of a project (insulating the floor, taping the seams of the vapor barrier, or working to seal a chimney gasket), and doing his best not to tease me too much when it took me five times longer (at least) than it would have taken him.  Mostly, as I’d done before, I spent time after the day’s work was done, tidying the site, clearing out the day’s garbage, restocking supplies and setting up for the next day’s fresh start. Some projects I did after hours when I had the place to myself. They were minuscule contributions, but something that helped me feel involved. 

In just thirteen days together, Sam and Timo had the whole building enclosed and all but one window installed. The Owl House was real. Beautiful and real.

And then, in August, Sam needed a break, and I owed him that, for sure, even though it was hard for me to stop with certain things left undone. Always my impetus is to complete all the work in one push—no matter what the work is. This need has helped me get a lot done in life, but it hasn’t necessarily helped my physical or mental health. These past three years at work have been incredibly busy, my work now being people, rather than projects, and I’ve realized, finally, the work never ends. If I wait for my work to be “done” before I take a break, the break will never come. 

In mid August, after a couple of weeks off—with a baking class for Quinn, lacrosse in Lake Placid for Sam, time at the lake with Char, some camping at Green River, and a trip to Montreal for a day—Sam was recharged enough to come back to the work. He installed the last giant window by himself—the struggle of hoisting it up the ladder and leaning it into place alone was no doubt less troublesome than having me tell him what to do each step of the way. Neither of us can stop being ourselves. We brought boxes and boxes of walnut flooring out of the basement, finally, and realized that we had exactly the amount we needed for the one-and-a-half floors. On September 7th, we celebrated Quinn’s 8th birthday with pizza and presents and our first overnight in the cabin. Soon after, I brought three 2x6 pine boards home one day, and the next day had a beautiful ladder with walnut plugs connecting the main floor to the loft. Another day, I found a wall of lovely shelves to hold my books—many of them in boxes for years waiting for this very space. Sam quietly continued, in all of his free time, to make each detail of my dream come true. Eventually, with the help of the tractor (and a visiting cousin Rob), we got the wood stove down the hill and, some time later (painstakingly) the stove pipe was connected and work was complete.

The week of the raising, in mid July, my horoscope was uncanny:

I’ve taken to calling my writing cabin a reading cabin now, daunted as I am by the pressure to produce something worthy of this beautiful, sacred place. Just sitting here for an hour somedays, long enough only to warm up the stove, drink a cup of tea and read some poems, is enough to fill me with a peace that is physical, and gratitude that brings me quickly to tears. Time here changes my whole perspective, recalibrating a sense of what really matters in this short life…and reminding me of the work I have to do each day to thank Sam, and Quinn, for making real every beautiful thing I’ve ever imagined.