Meet Buddy

As soon as I started to process the reality of the stay at home orders, I began thinking impatiently about the puppy we had decided to get which had not yet been born and would not be available to us for another four or five months. The prospect of Quinn being home, with just us and our old dog Mosey, unable to see ski club friends or school friends, teachers or coaches, or anyone else for that matter, just seemed like too much. What better time to have a puppy—something to bring joy and keep us busy and get us outside? For most of Quinn’s life, she’s talked of getting a puppy someday. There could be no better time than March of 2020.

I called Harold, the breeder we’d made a deposit with in January, and though there was no way to move us up on his waiting list, he shared the name of another breeder near him. I communicated with her and she had one black lab that would be available in May. In my mind, again, there was a yellow guy, and in my impatience I wanted him now, not later. Sam and Quinn rolled their eyes at my obsessive week-long search, and I called Harold again. This time he shared the name of a “crusty old Mainer” from whom Harold himself, it turns out, had been buying dogs for twenty years. He had a litter that was ready and he might have one or two pups left; Harold had one of the litter mates and said she was doing great. He warned me Dave Luxton wouldn’t seem warm or friendly on the phone, but assured me he was a decent guy who had good dogs. 

I spoke with Mr. Luxton within the hour. It was Saturday afternoon, March 28th, and he told me he had two yellow males left and ready to go. He sent me photos. He was gruff. And he warned me there was “some guy comin’ up from Boston” the next morning at nine and he couldn’t make me any promises over the phone—how was he to know if I was serious? I called Harold back and asked why this man had puppies left when Harold had a waiting list months long. He told me it was a good question to be asking, but with a laugh explained that Dave Luxton did not advertise, he had an aversion to the internet, and he only ever sold his dogs through word of mouth. “If I were you,” he told me, “I would get in the car tomorrow and pick up a pup before they close the border.” And with that surreal notion, I made our plans. We would arrive in Bethel, Maine by 8am on March 29th, just ahead of the guy from Boston.

Getting to Maine by 8am required leaving Vermont by 5am. It required getting a good night’s sleep. But how could we possibly do that? Quinn was so nervous, she burst into tears at every turn. “What if he doesn’t like me?” she asked, again and again. I tried to assure her that was an impossibility, but still she worried about falling in love and being rejected by the pup she had dreamed of for so long.

Quinn’s “sister-friend” Giselle and her family were also on Harold’s waiting list for a yellow lab. And they too were wondering how to get their only daughter through the at-home days ahead. So, I tipped them off too and they made the same plans we did. We’d all be getting up early the next day.

On the drive over we tried to imagine a name. Sam generated his usual sampling of haggard old man names, straight out of Appalachia, and turned his nose up at the hard to fathom names Quinn generated. I subtly tried reminding her of the little yellow lab stuffed animal she had been given by Nonna and Papa, whom she had named Buddy, and as the other names came and went, Buddy kept popping up. In my mind, it was the purpose he was meant to fill, as winter dragged on and lockdown set in, and it was a name she had first come up with. Sam and Quinn worried it might be confusing, since we are in the habit of calling Quinn Buddy, but somehow it felt right still.

We arrived at Mr. Luxton’s house early, as promised, and found our friends had already arrived. Graciously, they waited to let Quinn go in first. Social distancing had already set in and it felt strange to see them there and not be able to greet them with hugs. Everyone seemed to feel nervous. I went in to the barn to meet Mr. Luxton and get a glimpse of the dogs and their first home before bringing Quinn in. To my great relief, I entered a clean office space, with a couple of clean kennels and a big clean pen with a wiggling bunch of five happy, well-fed puppies. And they were gorgeous. And Mr. Luxton, it turns out, was charming and friendly and a softy for his dogs and for little kids. 

I went out to get Quinn and Sam. She was so nervous she looked like she might cry, again. When she stepped inside and saw the pups, I thought she might explode. Mr. Luxton pulled out the two yellow pups she had to choose from and, as the stories always go, she found her match instantly. One chubby guy ran right to her, not to me or Sam, but to Quinn. And he sat on her foot, leaned against her leg, and stared up at her nervously, as if to ask, “What if she doesn’t like me?” As this was happening, the other pup, a bit smaller and a bit more feisty, was jumping all around her and, without giving him much of a glance, she gently held him away so as not to be interrupted from her Buddy. It was clear to all in the room that they had chosen each other.

Once our paperwork was done, and we got our instructions for how to care for him, Quinn carried him out and we sent Giselle and her parents in to meet their Willoughby. While we waited for them, I watched Quinn nervously process that she was going to be taking a puppy home with her. He stuck close to her. She ran, he followed. He absorbed every ounce of her attention and love. 

As I watched her, I realized that as excited as I was going to be to have a puppy at home, watching Quinn’s joy was a joy that far exceeded my own. “I have a puppy,” she would said, again and again, in those first weeks with him, somehow still surprised by how lucky she was. And of course I just thought, the best is yet to come buddy; the best is yet to come.

Buddy's first pickup from Quinn

Sister friends with their brother dogs

Heading home, from Maine to Vermont

He made it!

After an early morning, a long drive, and a warm bath for Buddy, they were both tired out.

Add caption

Wherever Quinn goes, Buddy goes...happy to take a nap and wait if he has to.

Often sleeping, always with her.

When it is a tough day, he calms her down.

In stay-at-home mode, we've had lots of these days.

Reading buddy

Snuggle buddy

He seems to have a good sense of what his role is supposed to be.

Week Three

Today we are supposed to be flying to Paris. We would arrive and take a train south to meet Josh, Geraldine and the boys for a week-long visit in the country, before returning to Paris for three days of exploring the city on our own. Instead we are on our own at home, and millions of people around the globe are also at home. 

In the past three weeks, the realizations have continued to set in as exponentially more people, on every continent except Antarctica, have been infected. When we sent students home just over three weeks ago, the number of confirmed cases in the US was under 300, and in Vermont less than 5. Today there will be over 350,000 people in this country alone, and over 1.2 million worldwide. This morning there are 512 confirmed cases in Vermont, 22 cases in Washington County. It’s no longer just the elderly who are dying. Worldwide over 70,000 people have died; today we will hit the 10,000 mark in our country alone.

On March 19th we taught our first remote classes, hopeful (but not confident) they would last only until our scheduled April break. One week later, on the evening of March 26th, the governor announced that all Vermont schools would remain closed for the rest of the school year. We didn’t tell Quinn until the next day.

Our days of working remotely, are also Quinn’s days of remote learning. A few days after her school closed, she was able to go to pick up materials from her teacher. She brought home a yellow folder full of work packets and a Chrome book. Our dining room table became ground zero, with everyone’s work piles blending together. Sam and I have been so flustered trying to get ourselves prepared, that we have given Quinn little help. I counted on her love of reading to get her through, but she worries too much—about “not doing it right,” about falling behind her peers, about disappointing her teacher, about being embarrassed. 

Quinn has been working hard all year at learning to control her emotions and express her needs without angry outbursts. They’ve continued to happen, but less and less frequently and always with quick and genuine apologies. Better than most people I know, Quinn can offer articulate and mature explanations of what is bothering her, once she reigns in the rage. In the past couple of weeks, as she’s worried silently about what’s going on, the rage has started flaring up again. We are trying to help her. Sam will sit and draw with her, as if she is in art class. 

My contribution, predictably, has been to help her establish some order for her work: a different folder for each subject and a chart that she could use to track her progress and structure her structureless days. Quinn, like her mother, likes to check boxes.

One evening as she was headed to bed, she stopped at her whiteboard, which hangs above her desk, to put a checkmark on the calendar as she does each day to mark its completion. She paused. She stared at March and then said, to no one in particular, “I don’t know why I even bother anymore; the days are all the same.” The next day the calendar was erased and this was in its place:

From the very beginning of this I have been thinking it’s a tough time to be an only child. And, recalling our original promise, that she would always have a dog, and realizing that we are looking at five more months of being at home, it became a Coronavirus mission of mine, from the outset, to find her a puppy as soon as possible. We brought Buddy home from Bethel, Maine, at the end of week one.

New World: One Week In

Ten days ago we made the decision to send all of our students home. For two weeks we had been thinking it might, at some point in the future, be necessary. For one week we had begun to believe it might be necessary sooner rather than later, maybe three weeks out. On the morning of the 12th, we thought we might need to close the school in a week. I had a special teachers’ meeting planned for that day, to get the team started on preparing for that more likely need. We went into the meeting at 10:30 am and came out at noon. In that ninety minute period of time, sports organizations had begun cancelling sporting events, including ski races, both nationally and internationally. In the time between noon and 2:30pm, we made the decision to begin vacating campus immediately. We met with the school, staff and then students, between 5 and 6pm. At 7pm I hit send on an email to our whole school community announcing our plans for a transition to remote learning that would begin the following week. 

Once the dominoes began to fall, they fell far more quickly than we’d imagined.

The same was true in public schools. On Friday the 13th, our governor held a press conference saying he would keep public schools open for the foreseeable future. On Saturday morning I spoke with Kim, teaching this year in a public elementary school. Her principal hadn’t yet talked about the possibility. None of her colleagues were planning. On Sunday evening, an automated message went out from the school districts around the state: all schools would be closed by Wednesday of that week. Quickly following was a message from our district: all local schools would be closed effective immediately—with no classes Monday or Tuesday, no last good bye, no chance to gather what was left behind in classroom cubbies. Quinn too was now out of school.

On Monday the 16th I had teachers come in for one last planning session. We spent three hours together in discussion about our plans for delivery of remote learning. They had questions about structure, and schedules, and how to keep students engaged, how to protect the integrity of assessments, how to keep track of those who might fall behind. We formalized our plan, helped each other learn new tools, had one last lunch together in person, and then all dispersed to start doing the work we would need to do to be ready for our students who would be nervously, curiously, waiting to see what was ahead.

In a meeting of the administrative team right after, five days of adrenaline began to wear off. Four of us sat spread out in a classroom; one of us called in from home. Social distancing had begun. I was suddenly exhausted. I couldn’t stop yawning. Our conversation was all business. Should we close the gym? Should we conduct admissions meetings online? Should we allow people to use their offices? Should we go ahead with planned capital improvements, even though we were watching the stock market fall apart, already, day after day? So much of the weight felt suddenly on my shoulders—if the only substantive contact our families have is through students’ teachers and their remote classes, and it is my job to manage that team…? 

In times of crisis, which I’ve experienced with some regularity in the past five years at school, I am quick to energize. I am outward looking. Who needs help? What messages need to be communicated, and to whom? Where can I create order that I can then offer to people, to calm their nerves? I smile often, I ask how people are, I try to offer a picture of confidence and composure, so others will feel those qualities in themselves. But, then, after doing that for a while, inevitably, I crash. 

“We’ve got this!” I told people, but for how long would we have it? Seventeen teachers were looking to me for guidance. One hundred and thirty-seven students, and twice as many parents. Like a heavy object awkwardly held, how long would I be able to maintain my grip? In that Monday afternoon meeting, I asked the question that I am still, a week later, asking: How long will we have to function in this way? It is a question without an answer.

One week in to a world shut down, friends are not allowed to gather and grandchildren can’t visit their grandparents. The grocery stores open early in the morning just for elderly customers, to protect them from exposure. And in those same grocery stores the shelves are empty of supplies and many foods. Most human interaction has already moved into the camera lenses of our phones and computers, and economies are crashing, retirement savings are disappearing, and exponentially more people are getting sick and dying each day. 

At the same time, winter is beginning to make its exit. The sun is warm on the skin. Birds have returned to the woods. The whole earth and the blue sky above beckons us to come out of hibernation, just as the headlines scream at us to go back in. Global pandemic: everyone, everywhere.

Here on our hill I take some comfort in being at home—a place I love and long for in the normal busy months of winter. Now here is where I’m supposed to be. Some mornings this week, Sam and I have paused to do yoga together, before our slow coffee. Quinn, bored by yoga, has been engrossed by some rediscovered Legos. I’ve been eating breakfast, and lunch—two meals I usually don’t slow down long enough to eat. We’ve started a new puzzle. We have stacks of new books. We have been taking walks, as a family, with the dog. 

These are pleasures a normal March would not allow. This is not a normal March. For those of us who are planners, “indefinitely” is a disorienting concept of time.

What's True Now?

That was the question the yoga teacher asked us as we lay with closed eyes on the mat this morning, preparing ourselves to begin class. “What’s true now?” she asked. 

Here’s the obvious place for me to begin:

“Do you believe Santa is real, Mom?” We were driving to the bakery to buy bread for dinner yesterday, and Nonna’s favorite tea bags for her, for Christmas. I could barely look in the rearview mirror, trying to avoid Quinn’s eyes which were fixed on me expectantly. “I think the spirit of Santa is very real,” I told her, but she’s no dummy. “That’s not what I asked you…”

After six good years, I’ve suspected that Santa was on his way out, but I thought we might get one more year out of him. In some ways it hasn’t been an easy year for Quinn. She’s been making pointed remarks lately about how she shouldn’t bother asking Santa for any presents because she is likely to be on his “naughty list.” It was a probing statement, I see now, but also a reflection of how she’s been feeling. 

Quinn’s fuse is pretty short. A criticism, a light-hearted joke she takes personally, a crowded room, a worry…any number of things can set her off. The first day back to ski club this year brought probably the worst meltdown we’ve seen to date. So many things, we thought, were working in our favor: good friendships formed last year, with kids who would still be in her group, the return of her beloved coach Sarah, and the addition of two new coaches she has known from our school her whole life. I had to work the night before, but I left clear instructions for Sam: pull out all the gear, try things on, lay out clothes for the morning, get her to bed early. We know the pitfalls by now and we were trying to avoid them. Still, Quinn is a worrier. She worried about whether the friends from last year would still be friends. Her tight fighting clothes made her self-conscious. No doubt she worried about whether she’d still remember how to ski, and be able to keep up. The closer we got to departure time, the more panicky she got. The more panicky she got, the longer it was taking to get out the door, which meant she’d be late, which is another thing that makes Quinn panic. She hates to be the last one to arrive, because then the room is already full, and the swirl of activity is in motion, and she is left frozen on the periphery, unable to enter.

The meltdowns have grown more angry, more violent, more personal. “I hate you,” is not uncommon. “You’re the worst mom/dad/parents ever” is also not uncommon. She screams, pounds the walls, stomps up stairs, slams doors. It is pure rage and I feel an electric panic of my own when I sense one of her fits coming on. Sam and I both do; we are developing PTSD.

The heartbreaking thing is that after it passes, Quinn is left feeling hopeless and ashamed. It takes work to rebuild, for all of us, and Quinn anxiously, sadly, works and works to do the rebuilding, for herself and for us. It makes her feel terrible, and naughty.

At nine Quinn is able to say things like: “I’m sorry I behaved that way toward you, Mom, you didn’t deserve it.” And, “Can you forgive me?” She has such grown up thoughts, such grown up courage to walk into a room, face her parents and say these things. I admire her so much and just wish she could find ways to feel more in control, more open, more okay. 

“I don’t believe in the ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ lists,” I told her. “I don’t think you are naughty. I think you sometimes say or do things you wish you didn’t, but I don’t think that makes you naughty—it makes you human.” 

Sam managed to get Quinn out the door that morning for ski club; it was a fight all the way, but he did it. And when he got her to the club, our friends stepped in to help. Traudl stepped in and got Quinn in conversation. Sally told Sam she’d be fine and that he should leave. While this went on, I googled “why is my nine year old so full of rage” and “what does anxiety look like in a nine year old.” With that, I started skimming articles about the “fight or flight” response to anxiety. Quinn is no shrinking violet—never has been. If she is going down, she is going to tear the walls down around her as she goes. The more I read, the more I knew we needed help.

This past week Sam and I met with a counselor while Quinn was at school. She had a round bulldog named Maple, a comfortable and welcoming space, and a quick and sincere smile. She seemed to know Quinn within a few minutes of us explaining why we were there. “I’m guessing she’s really smart,” she said. I don’t see it as bragging to admit that she is—Quinn is undeniably smart. She reads constantly, listens keenly, has intuition about people, and their intentions and actions, that is well beyond what you’d expect of a nine year old. She can always put two and two together. She often reads my mind.

The counselor suggested we bring Quinn in, and she seemed confident that she could help Quinn develop strategies to use when her “worry brain” kicks in. She talked about other kids she's worked with, and shared some of the ideas she’d seen work. She talked about one girl who used a code word with her parents, to let them know when she was starting to feel panicky and needed their help. We left there feeling that it was worth a try and, if nothing else, that Quinn would enjoy meeting the round and hilarious bulldog named Maple.

That night Sam went out and Quinn and I went to school to help with a holiday celebration. She  brought a book to read while I helped with dishes. After dinner, there was an a cappella group singing in the student center. I gave Quinn the choice: go over and listen to the music, or go home and have a sleepover in my room and read books. She picked the music, so we ran over to catch up with the group. When we arrived, the room was full and Quinn started to pull back. I pointed to a corner where one of her favorite kids was sitting. I told her we could sit on the floor, out of everyone’s way. She pulled further and further back, until suddenly I turned to look at her and she was gone.

I found her hiding behind a door in an adjoining room. She faced the wall. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. She didn’t want to go in; she didn’t want to leave. I tried to keep calm, told her I was going to listen to the music for a while. I checked on her a few more times, but she never relented. Eventually, she asked if we could go home. In the car, I did my best not to dwell on it. “Is your seatbelt on?” I asked. “Are you warm enough?” As we got closer to home, eventually, Quinn offered this, “I’m sorry I was so rude to you, Mom, you didn’t deserve it.” She suggested I bring back her newly purchased ski gear. I told her she didn’t do anything that needed a punishment, but that I hoped she’d tell me what happened. “Sometimes when I walk into a room like that, I just feel so overwhelmed,” she told me. I asked her what she was worried about—what concern kept her from going in. “It’s not that I feel worried exactly, it’s just that it feels so close and I just feel like I need to get out.” At this point I had to stop driving. I turned in my seat as she was starting to cry. “Maybe I could come up with a code for you Mom, to let you know that I’m feeling that way…” 

She had more to say as we finished the drive up our hill. I was amazed, again, by her capacity—to know, to understand, to explain. Most adults I know would have a hard time being so articulate about their feelings, so soon after being in a tough spot. If only we can lengthen the fuse for her, slow the process down before it spins out of control, I think she’ll be okay. 

Kids like Quinn, the counselor told us, experience a pretty significant cognitive leap around this age. Talking with her makes this clear. In this same week, as we signed Christmas cards together after dinner one night, Quinn started telling us about her “life cycle” project at school, and about the pregnant dog that would be having puppies. I’ve been ready and waiting to have the “where the babies come from” conversation whenever necessary, but so far it hasn’t come up. I’ve had “babies come from a place near your leg,” all queued up and ready to go, thanks to my own mother’s artful dodge, but when Quinn explained that the pregnant dog’s litter of puppies would be “wriggling out of her vagina,” it was clear that I’d never get to use that incredible line. “How do you know about babies coming out of vaginas?” I asked her, as Sam bent closer to his cards. “I just know, Mom. And look at poor Dad,” she said, “He’s pretending he can’t hear us, and yet there he is, smiling sheepishly.” She laughed at her own funny observation and we had to too. Along with smart, Quinn is hilariously funny. The next day on the way to school the topic came up again. Still I was incredulous that she was ahead of me, and this time she was incredulous too. “I’m a girl, Mom; I have to know my own body! And besides, where else are they going to come from? They’re not going to come out of your mouth!”

With Quinn, sometimes it is hard to know what’s going to come out of her mouth. Like yesterday, with Santa. “I’m asking you if Santa is real,” she persisted. I found myself laughing nervously and also unable to breathe. “What’s the right answer here?” I asked her. “The truth,” she replied, without hesitation. 

When I found out that Santa wasn’t real, in the fourth grade, I was devastated—embarrassed that I was the only kid in my class who still believed, and sad at the loss of the excitement and joy. And yet, as I think back, I remember all of my annual pictures with Santa: every year I had a giant scab on my face…every year I got so worked up that I got cold sores all over my lips. “Which one of you does this come from?” the counselor asked us. Both of us share her genes.

I tried to size up how Quinn would react when I told her the truth about Santa, so I could at least have one or two seconds of lead time on what would come next. The kids at her school have been circulating the news: the parents are the ones who leave the presents, they wrap them in special paper and put them under the tree in the middle of the night. The parents eat the cookies and write the notes and sign them from Santa. “I don’t care if Santa is real or not real, Mom. Santa isn’t Christmas.” And so I told her, yes, we were the ones who left her presents.

I was crying by then, out of admiration for her intelligence and her composure and her perspective. She is the oldest nine year old I’ve ever met. Meanwhile, she was smiling at me, probably feeling sorry for me and my sentimental nature, as she offered me a Kleenex. Quinn seemed happy to have possession of the truth and curious to hear my explanation for it all. I told her about the article I read when she was nearing Santa age, about the importance of having experiences as a child in which your brain learns to believe in magic—that wiring that will someday be important as you find yourself having to take a leap of faith, maybe stepping into a crowded room, or showing up for the first day of something new, or bringing a baby into the world. Without Santa, the capacity for what is possible might be lost. 

I told her that when she was young, I had worried about lying to her about Santa, and I asked if she was mad that I did. She seemed to think it was funny that the whole topic was so loaded for me, and I asked that she remember this moment, in the car, next to the bakery, when she asked me for the truth and I gave it to her. And I told her that I always would, and I will.

“Did you at least enjoy Santa while he lasted?” I asked. “I love Santa,” she assured me, “but Santa isn’t Christmas, Mom,” she told me again. I asked her then, “Well, what is Christmas?”

“Christmas is family,” she told me. And that, right now, is both magical and true.

Category Is: Everything!

Late October rain, heavy in its coldness, plunks on the metal roof. The trees are mostly bare, save for the stubborn papery leaves of beech saplings, dim orange lights in these woods. It is Sunday morning, after a long stretch of school days, and the introvert in me feels relieved for this solitude, this grey dark day with not much that has to be done, except this work of resetting. And yet, like the dog in his bed, circling and circling, where do I land?

Always I am looking for my next story to write. Occasionally I see one, and I try to inventory the thoughts, the details, the sequence, in hopes I can store it for the time I will settle here to write. But the stories don’t usually keep well. On days when a story comes, and I can set it down right then, the story is preserved. Not so when I try to go back, to that good whole idea I envisioned a week or a month ago.

Sitting here now I see glimpses. From back in August when my dad was here with Louise for a five day visit that was only two…arriving late and leaving early, so eager to be with Quinn, and yet so unable to be away from home. From September when Sam was in Switzerland, missing Quinn’s 9th birthday (which was out of his control), and the early weeks of third grade. The rages she had and, in so doing, triggered in me. The lucky break when I thought to tell my dad and Louise, on the phone, that Quinn was having trouble at school with a girl…I listened, from the hallway, to the details she had refused to share with me—that she was being pushed around. The partnership that developed in the days following. I believe you, I tried to show her. I trust you, she showed me. 

In contrast to that girl at school who, thankfully, has moved away, I see glimpses of her with her new and important friend. A new neighbor and friend by choice, not one formed by circumstance. A friend with whom she is wholly herself, and her best self. Their shared love of baking, and soccer. The hours they will spend drawing, side by side, or having “cozy fort fun time,” building and building their world around them. Their plans, and compromises, their laughter. Their shared delight in each other. 

I see the soft contours of the night, while Sam was away, when they had their first sleepover in the cabin. I brought them home from soccer practice together. We ate pizza and played cards at the table and, afterward, we ventured down the hill by lantern light. I see Quinn’s joy in showing her friend our sacred space here in the woods. 

The girls slept in the loft; Mosey and I slept on the floor underneath. They played cards for a while. They decorated their halves of the bed with owl pillows and stuffed animals. They read for a while. And then, when I said they should get some sleep, to rest up for their game the next morning, they turned out their lights, triggering some uncontrollable giddiness. They rolled wildly back and forth in their sleeping bags, giggling hysterically for five minutes, before falling still, and sweetly asleep.

Cedar moves away soon too, though not too far away. Her parents’ sabbatical will pull them away from our hill and back to the other side of the state. Quinn knows it is coming. We all know it will be hard. Sam and I try to encourage her to say yes to the play dates she’s invited to with other friends, to the Halloween party, and the birthday party, to the pre-season workouts with the ski club. She says no, again and again. We are trying to keep her connected to other options, to the friends we hope will fill the void, but her focus is on spending every minute she can, while she can. I understand this. In my bones, I know—pulling away early from what you will lose will do nothing to dull the ache when it inevitably comes. And of course, if you do it that way, you will look back, inevitably, and regret not having savored every possible minute. The world reminds us of this, again and again.

After the separation happens, I hope Quinn will be able to look at the experience objectively and take stock of what this friendship has shown her. I hope it has shown her what is possible. That compromise is possible, and that taking turns making decisions is possible. That taking a chance with your heart sometimes pays off. That true friends allow us to be and say anything, without worry or fear. I hope she will see that when she finds the right person, she can trust that person, with her thoughts and her feelings. And I hope she will see that friendships like this one, one that feels a lot like love, can endure.

One night this fall when I was tucking Quinn into bed, she burst into tears. “Are you mad at me, Mom?” It was out of no where. “Why would I be?” I asked, surprised. “Because I’m spending so much time with Cedar.” She hugged me sort of desperately until I managed to reassure her and say something to make her laugh. And as I backed down her loft ladder, trying to keep my voice upbeat, I was struck by the fact that she picked up on something I hadn’t been willing to give words to myself. I wasn’t angry, of course; it’s not that at all. And fortunately, Quinn’s joy is something I experience as my own, and it is enough to keep any pangs of jealousy at bay. And yet…The separation is coming for us too. Not a complete separation, I trust, and nothing we can’t endure, but still, I know her growing up, and out, is a loss I won’t really prepare for. 

The rain still falls. Two hours have passed. What is she doing, I wonder, as I hit save and prepare to walk back up the hill.