What Has Changed

Camel's Hump, July 2021

"Eventually I grew weary: I had traveled so far, yet was no closer to my destination than when I began. I was a fish inside a sea inside a bigger fish inside a bigger sea, and I wondered if the world itself swam also inside the belly of a much greater fish, all of us fish inside fish inside fish, and then, tired of so much wondering, I shut my scaly eyes and slept…” - Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land

New Year’s Day, 2022, and this passage, among all the many passages in a handful of books I’ve read this month, resonates. So much has changed since last spring, and so little. We continue to exist in this seemingly endless in between. The virus mutates, flares up, spreads, then quiets down, only to mutate and flare up again. We mask up, lower our masks, mask up again. Now, we are told, we should double mask; Omicron is the most contagious variant yet. Weekly samples are left in tubes from swabs that circle our nostrils, first one, then the other. They are sent to the lab. We await our results. Negative is positive, positive is negative. We’ve entered our third calendar year of COVID and still it is disorienting, the now-regular routines somehow still foreign and unfamiliar. Our sense of what is past persists; what is present still seems like something that shouldn’t be. It remains impossible to see the future. Fish inside fish inside fish.

The year end tally is this:

Global case count: 288,680,388

US case count: 55,696,500

Deaths worldwide: 5,455,377

Deaths in the US: 846,905

Deaths of people I know personally: just 1. 

Nick Kenyon, 42, father of two girls, son of Doug and Donna, owners of Kenyon’s Farm Store, sellers of dog food, gardening tools, plumbing supplies, compost, fresh eggs. Many other things. 

Here is what has changed: 

We are vaccinated. We visit with family and friends. We got my Dad and Louise, and Amy and the boys, to join us on a family vacation on the Cape, just before a tumor grew out of the side of my Dad’s temple. It was removed; he seems okay. We built a garage. I took on a new role at school.

Cape Cod, June 2021

Celebrating Father's Day on the Cape, June 2021

Celebrating Olivier's Birthday, August 2021

Saranac Lake with Char, August 2021

Boat Building Class with Addy, July 2021

First time up Camel's Hump, with Giselle, July 2021

July 2021

And Quinn has changed, in so many ways, as have I, in the opposite direction. As Quinn grows more strongly, more beautifully into her self, I’ve turned 50 and feel myself withering. Muscles are a memory. My skin grows papery and thin. In the mirror I see my mother, not my own face. It is New Year’s Day and I have set “new” intentions, again. More exercise, better balance, more joy. And yet even now, on the morning of this first day, I feel skeptical. 

The one constant and true source, for me, of inspiration, laughter, palpable joy and heart-aching love is Quinn. She is in 5th grade, at Crossett Brook Middle School. She reads constantly, loves animals fiercely, and responds like a divining rod to the world around her. She is learning to manage her worries, she is trying new things, accepting imperfections (her own and those of others), articulating her needs, listening to input, forgiving herself and us. She is tall; the top of her head now over my shoulder, but still under my chin. She exists all day at school in the presence of others, but in the constant absence of any smiling faces. I suppose she has learned to detect a smile in the crease of the eyes, but still, it is not enough. 

4th grade graduation from Thatcher Brook Primary School, June 2021

On the boat at Char's

2nd day of 5th grade

11th birthday

Visiting the puppies at JP & Steph's

Last month the US Surgeon General issued an advisory on the youth mental health crisis we are experiencing. And no wonder. I can’t bring myself to record the statistics here. All I can do is document, for posterity, that my early questions about Quinn—why is she acting this way? what is going on? what am I supposed to do to help her? Those questions are gone. They don’t matter. What matters is this: she is everything that is good—and I love her. And when she reads this someday in the future, she will roll her eyes, and laugh at me a little, and say, “I know, Mom. I know.” And that means I will have done the one small thing I can do as her mother: I can imprint on her the unchangeable fact that she is loved, deeply, beyond measure. More than life itself. 

I’m sure that feels like too much, but I can’t scale it back. I’m sure I will have screwed many things up. I can list so many mistakes already. But failing to love her with my whole being, every single day I’m able, will never be one of those things. At the same rate that malaise and ambivalence have increased in me, the clarity of what few things matter has crystallized. She sparkles, her edges catch the light, no matter how hard I try I still can’t count her layers. I'm sure she wants it that way.

The Anniversary

This week I had the first of my midyear conversations with teachers, and set our departments up for planning conversations. On Friday afternoon, the first of my colleagues started finding appointments for vaccinations, just now opened up to all K-12 teachers in the state. I found myself feeling elated, kind of high really. I couldn’t contain my positive energy. It was the first time in a year, I realized, that I had engaged in any real future thinking. It felt completely novel and totally invigorating, like a spigot of energy turned open. And then, on Saturday, I felt exhausted. I was in bed, again, by nine o’clock.

I am a planner and, normally, most of my energy is put to future thinking. I have to work to stay in the moment, and yet for the past year that’s all I’ve been able to do. Be here, now. In the here and now of this long Covid year, being in the moment has been a protection against hopes and expectations that might not be fulfilled for a still-unknowable amount of time. It has also been a daily taking stock of what we were doing, or planning, in the before times, and what has been lost since. I feel guilty even writing this, since we haven’t, technically, lost much. One in three Americans, according to the Times yesterday, has lost someone to the disease. We have not. We have not lost loved ones, or our jobs, or our homes. We have not lost the freedom to move about freely in our beautiful state, provided that we’re masked. We have not lost the privilege of visiting with friends, as long as we’re outside, and masked, and spread apart. This is all incredibly good fortune considering that 29.6 million people in this country have contracted the disease, and nearly 540,000 Americans have died.

Driving home from school one day last week, a day of teaching and attending meetings on Zoom all day, I noticed black smoke curling out of the windows of a house close to the road in the center of Waitsfield Village. It was an old house, tucked into the hillside sitting close between its two neighbors, with a pile of firewood always sitting in the front yard. I’ve seen an old man come and go from that house, walking his old dog. On this day, as I drove toward it, I saw people running toward the house from different directions. There were no fire trucks yet. I slowed down to pass. I glanced as I drove by. The inside of the house was filled with fire, every inch a frenzy of flame, and standing, just outside, staring at it all, was the old man, his arms by his side, immobile and helpless, his chin tipped up, watching as his house was consumed.

This scene overwhelmed me; shock gave way to tears as I drove toward home. Thank god he made it out, I thought, but how crippling to watch your life go up in flames. Quinn called me from Sam’s phone. They had been skiing when Quinn spotted the black smoke from the chairlift. A black ribbon climbing skyward in an otherwise white landscape of hills and valleys. They would take a different route home; no doubt the road would be closed. The old man, I later learned, is 81 years old. His name is George and he lives alone. A clothes drive was organized right away, and community members worked to secure housing for him. I got online and contributed to a fundraiser for him. Last I checked, over $11k had been donated, which seemed meaningful until I learned that George didn’t have home insurance. He walked out of that mess with the clothes on his back. His cat has not been seen. No one has mentioned a dog; perhaps the dog was lost before the fire. 

Somehow I experienced driving by that scene like the gradual, and then sudden slip of clasped hands—my composed self losing her grip against the pull of gravity. The fire was a visible reminder of what life has been feeling like for so many months: vulnerable, with incomprehensible threats always lurking nearby, the chance for something awful to happen at any moment. And as much as I do what I’m supposed to—keep my mask on and my spirits up, reassuring myself and others—inside I know we could all be George, standing there watching our lives go up in flames, our arms hanging useless at our sides.

This morning one of my colleagues called my cell phone and left a message—it was early, and it is Sunday, and I didn’t hear the call. I listened to her voicemail and heard her voice give way to tears as she told me she has to cancel a meeting with me tomorrow morning because Roy, her husband, and everybody’s favorite vet, is in the hospital. They spent the day in the ER yesterday as his body grew weaker and weaker. Twenty-four hours later, he can no longer support his own weight; he is immobile in a hospital bed and Amy can no longer visit him. He’s been diagnosed with Guillain Barre syndrome and while hopefully he will recover, “it is a long road.” Some people can walk again in six months to a year. It’s a fluke illness, and Roy seems like an unlikely target—he is as strong as an ox. 

Another metaphor. Anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Yesterday Quinn’s ski club friend Addy had a race. Her neighborhood friend Cedar went skiing with her dad. No one was around for her to play with. Most weekends she’s angry that she can’t have friends inside the house to play, and that she can’t go in their houses either. Two weeks ago she had an accident in her snow pants because she was too embarrassed to ask to use Cedar’s bathroom, or the phone, in the middle of her rare opportunity to play. And yet yesterday, she would have been fine playing outside—no complaints—she was just desperate to see a friend and do something fun. When no one was available, her mood wavered between making the best of things and feeling sorry for herself. She agreed to go for a ski with us and the dogs. We staged the cars strategically to minimize the work and maximize the fun. I put chocolate in my pocket for when she would need it. She started up the trail happy for about a minute before she started to groan. It fell apart quickly from there, slow shuffling steps, groans giving way to tears. 

Quinn’s stress becomes ours. I hadn’t had exercise all week. Sam, stuck at home with Quinn and no vehicle (because I’d backed my car into his and it was in the shop) hadn’t had space all week. We needed that ski. Quinn convinced herself she did not. We encouraged her up to the top of the hill, where the trail turns right and the skiing gets fun. We assumed she’d pull it together, but she didn’t right away and I threw in the towel before she could. One of us should go ahead with the dogs, I determined, and the other should take her home and go out later. Sam took her home; I skied on without them. Exercise and fresh air helped me return to the house ready to talk and move on. “I’m not mad,” I told her as she put her book down, curled into a ball, and started to cry. “I’m sorry Mom,” she said. 

The regret and shame she feels after these moments is sincere, and terrible. And then, a few hours, or a few days later, we find ourselves in it all over again—another moment, another meltdown.

Watching Quinn’s anxiety become increasingly debilitating for her in the past year or so has been a little bit like watching the house burn down. At first we realized the chimney was blocked, pretty soon the flames started to build, and then they spilled out along the roof. Some days we are standing there, helpless, wondering what we could’ve done to prevent it.

The worst times are always the transitions, like returning to school after time away—school vacations are terrible. Leading up to the first day back after the new year, Quinn started to worry days in advance. Meanwhile Sam and I kept thinking how great it would be for her to reconnect with her school friends. We are on opposite sides of a chasm, trying to communicate from a distance, each of us unheard by the other. Monday morning she refused to go; it was confusing to us at the time, but it is less so now. The bad days always look the same: she says she doesn’t want to go, she is slow to get out of bed, she barely eats breakfast and then she can’t move beyond it. When she is finally hustled back upstairs to get dressed, while we pack lunch, assemble what’s needed in the backpack, do our best to keep the mood light, she bides her time. We find her, later, still in her pajamas. We know she panics if she’s late, and with the clock ticking, our own stress starts to spike. Eventually the confrontation happens—when we insist and she refuses. She stomps and screams, while we try not to. We don’t always succeed, but we do so more often than we used to. We’re either figuring things out, or accepting defeat. It’s hard to know.

That Monday night in January, after not being in school all day, we try again to build momentum in the direction of reentry. She tries again too. We get to bed a little earlier. We lie down with her to help her settle. We love her and, anxiously, hope. On Tuesday morning she manages to get herself out the door. It’s fragile, she is fragile, but she goes. 

We listen to music in the car, as I try to make her laugh and keep things upbeat. Partway to school I ask her, “What happened yesterday?” I’m not judging her, just trying to understand, and she tells me, “I had a nightmare the night before and I was too scared to go.” In her nightmare, it is the first day back to school. She forgets her mask and enters the building without it. The adults yell at her. The kids laugh at her. She has a sign on her back that says “kick me.” It is too much. 

She tells me this story from the back seat. We are on Main Street, headed toward her school. We are early. All is well. Until it is not. Sitting in the car, at the front of the drop-off circle, with ten minutes to go before “the ladies” come out to open car doors for kids, she panics. “Do we have my sneakers?!?” We do not have her sneakers. It is her nightmare come true. Still, I try to keep it light, as she starts to cry, “I’m not going! I’m not going!” She is completely gone already, as I call Sam and, as calmly as possible, tell him “I need you to get Quinn’s sneakers and bring them to school, okay? I need you to do this right now.” 

“He’ll be here in ten minutes,” I tell her, trying to smile gently, “it will be okay.” But Quinn is not okay. She is absolutely freaking out. 

When the art teacher opens her door, Quinn pushes herself back to the far side of the back seat. She is shaking her head; tears are streaming down her face. “No! No! Please, Mom! I’m not going.” But I can’t let her miss a second day of school—I’m afraid if I do she’ll never go back. I am reminded of the time my childhood dog cornered a raccoon. His face and ears were shredded when all was said and done, and I know in this moment she is prepared to fight for her life. Mrs. Monley peers into the car. “Come on, Quinn, you need to get out of the car.” The other cars are waiting for us to move, I’m trying to tell her it will be okay, and the flames are climbing the walls.

I step out to try to explain, scanning the road for Sam’s truck. The principal comes over. “What’s up?” she wonders, and I shrug, wondering where to begin. With the sneakers? With Covid? With that time she dug her nails into my hand and refused to go into the room where the acapella group was singing Christmas carols a year ago? Or the time we got all the way to her school for a Valentine's Day event in the gym, in the first or second grade, and she got all the way to that door, heard the crowd inside and refused to go in? Or when she was just three days old and the woman at the hospital watched Quinn refusing to nurse, and said to me, “Oh…She’s stubborn!” 

Mrs. Goodnow, Quinn’s principal, with her blue and yellow pom pom in one hand and her walkie-talkie in the other, opened the back door and lowered herself in. As she closed the door behind her, I pictured the back seat—half of it folded down, all our skis and poles and random refuse piled up, Quinn in tears, her giant backpack with everything in it—everything except her fucking sneakers. Pandemic be damned, a masked Mrs. Goodnow was in there in that tight space for five minutes, the cars backed up around the circle and down the road. Eventually she climbed back out. She closed the door behind her and turned her back to the car. “Wow,” she said, “she’s really stuck!” Yeah, I nodded, my arms hanging useless by my sides. “I have one more idea,” she told me as she held the walkie-talkie to her masked face. “Send Camille out to the circle.” 

Quinn’s pregnant fourth grade teacher was next. She too climbed into the backseat. Mrs. Goodnow returned to her work of greeting people. Cars started to slowly pull out around us. The art teacher circled back. “You know,” she told me, “I don’t have class the first two periods. Quinn could come hang out with me if she wants!” I thanked her, and waited, my daughter completely in the hands of others. Eventually the door opened. Mrs. Anderson gave me a hopeful look. Quinn emerged behind her—grey hat down over her eyebrows, tears still leaking down her cheeks. “Say goodbye to your mom,” I heard her teacher say, but Quinn walked by me like I was a stranger. And perhaps, in that moment when she felt abandoned, I was. 

As soon as the school door closed behind her, my own tears poured out. Mrs. Goodnow showed up again at my side. I was crying and shaking my head, and she was nodding—a gesture of understanding—as Sam’s truck came screaming into the lot. He rushed toward us with the sneakers held high, trying to make sense of the scene. “You have no idea,” Mrs. Goodnow told us, “how many kids are struggling right now. Quinn is not alone.”

I drove to school that morning thinking of my own students—how many of them are not functioning well. I have students who are regularly paralyzed, unable to respond as their teachers’ emails stream in, reminding them of all the things they are supposed to be doing. I’ve thought of Mrs. Goodnow every day since that morning in January. Every day I tell myself that I will get in the backseat with kids if I have to, and I do. I tell the teary parents I don’t have solutions for them, but I tell them I understand, and I do. I tell them how many kids are struggling right now. I tell them their kid is not alone.

And yet, I can’t help notice how alone I feel as I continue to process what Quinn is dealing with. Sam is here, of course, and he is in this with me too. We take turns being the calm one, and take turns helping her out the door. But sometimes when he doesn’t understand her, I get angry at him. And sometimes when he is frustrated with her, the mother lion in me goes into overdrive. But I don’t have it all figured out either. Sometimes it is me who gets frustrated.

Watching Quinn wrestle with the ski club this winter has been incredibly hard. I have said, all along, that I don’t care whether she ski races or not, and in many ways I have hoped it would work itself out of her system before she reaches seventh grade. At the same time, there is no denying it has been good for her. So to watch her worries and self-doubt take over has been heartbreaking. On multiple occasions she’s said yes to going, done all the work to get dressed, ready, and delivered, only to freeze up and refuse once she finally gets to the mountain. We have had this happen while dropping her off, and we have dropped her off and been called back to pick her up. 

What we’ve had the hardest time figuring out is if this recent increase in her anxiety, and the club’s necessary Covid restrictions have expedited a decision that would have been natural for her eventually, or if her current anxiety and/or Covid is responsible for her change of heart. I know she misses being part of a pack, she misses goofing off in the clubhouse, riding the t-bar with friends, ripping around in the woods, and the adventure of navigating the lodge at lunch time, among other things. The timing of these Covid related changes, with the transition this year to new coaches, new equipment, and the increased focus on training vs fun has proven too much for her. 

When I look back at writing I did two winters ago, her first winter of ski club, I see a kid who only missed two days all winter in order to go to birthday parties. I see a kid who went to club when she had a cold, when the weather sucked, and when we offered her days off. Every time I offered a day off, she said "No way! I want to go to club!" This same kid, this winter, has been one who makes excuses, worries days in advance, panics, and ultimately refuses to go.

She is also a kid who, after the panic subsides, can articulate clearly and often eloquently how she is feeling. “When I start to worry,” she told me one day, “it’s like I’m on a carousel, and every time I go around the circle, my worries multiply, by three…they just keep growing and growing.” What she is able to express, and understand, is amazing to me. She has skills that so many adults do not. She is sensitive, intuitive, and the most powerful person I know. Seeing all of the work she does, every day, makes me both proud of her and sad for her—I wish she didn’t have to work so hard. And seeing the shame she feels, in the moments when she loses control, is devastating.

Sam and I are not sure if we have screwed this ski club decision up for her. Has she outgrown her love of skiing and the club, and we're making it a bigger deal than it is? Or has her anxiety gotten the better of her, and we’ve failed to help her through that? When I asked her, a couple of weekends ago, after she had been away from the club for a couple of weeks, whether she missed it or felt relieved, she told me she felt relief. But I don’t know if that is relief that she doesn’t have to go to ski club anymore, or relief that she doesn’t have to wrestle with her worries about it anymore.

If she was happy, it would be easy. We could easily hang up the race skis for good. But she’s not visibly happy about it. Ski club was the first thing that Quinn seemed to want for herself. It gave her a sense of belonging, a community of friends and coaches, it gave her freedom. Quinn has spent her whole life in the constant presence of GMVS, and even though she is only ten, she seems acutely aware that the decisions she makes now, during this insane time, will impact her options in the future. How messed up that she has to carry that weight too. The night that I asked her whether she missed it or felt relief, the answer came easily, but the thing that was hard was this: “I’m just having a hard time telling myself I’m not a ‘club' kid anymore.” She buried her face in Buddy’s fur, and then in my arms, to cry.

Here, at the one year anniversary of when this whole thing took hold, I feel like we are all in mourning. Mourning the loss of who we were before, of the plans we had that never happened, of the lives we were used to living that now seem lost. Certainly we are mourning the time we can’t get back with our loved ones—the holidays and vacations and dinner parties and birthdays. And as soon as we feel sorrow, we feel guilt, because it also feels like we have no right to complain.

In five days my dad and Louise will get their first shots. Char has had her first one. Sam and I will probably sign up for vaccine appointments this week. We are hearing about a third stimulus check from the federal government sometime soon. Winter’s end is near. And yet, I feel so pared down a lot of the time, so on the edge of panic myself, that I can’t really imagine my old life. The notion of having a house full of people, or being in a loud bar, or in close proximity to others seems so foreign. I'm losing interest in casual get togethers with some friends because, well, what is there to talk about? I don't want to complain. So in my free time, my time away from work, I am often alone by choice, dumbstruck at the ongoing realities of life right now—the smoke pouring out the windows, curling up toward the sky. Somedays it’s hard to see the future. And while I used to feel bad, in the before times, for not being better at living in the moment, there are days now when I don’t know how to escape it and look ahead.

It's not all bad. We have so much to be grateful for. It's all kind of hard to explain.

A 2020 Christmas

Pandemic, politics, parenting. Where do I begin? Enter anywhere on that circle—it’s all the same loop. The world has hit terrible milestones. Quinn has endured, but not without moments of real sadness. Since November the Vermont state guidance has been no indoor or outdoor gatherings with anyone outside your immediate household. Walks are okay, wearing masks, spread apart. She’s tired of walking. She’s tired of us. She’s lonely.

We spent Thanksgiving alone. We cooked a roast chicken dinner with all the sides for Sam and Alden. We delivered it masked, and talked to them through the window. Then we went home. 

In December, her school managed to stay open 4 days per week. That is a lifeline—other kids, her teacher, a change of scenery. She’s truly grateful for it and so are we. By mid December she was skiing with her club. As with all things, it’s different this year. The coaches are different. The club is smaller—in state kids only, no out of staters allowed. They ski only half days—no going inside. No walking from the clubhouse to the lodge with her posse at lunchtime to buy chicken tenders and Starbursts. On free ski days she can ride the lift with a friend, but when they’re training in courses, she’s alone. Only one kid at a time on the t-bar. She keeps lifting her chin back up.

I bought her an iPod for her 10th birthday. I had really mixed feelings about it. If I could manage to have her avoid the tech altogether, the chats and social media, and unpredictable internet, I would. I’m not convinced that’s possible, so maybe if she builds skills now she’ll be better prepared in middle school. That seems doubtful too. The one thing that compelled was FaceTime. She can call my dad and Louise, Grandma & Grandpa, Betsy & Claire in California, Auntie Amy, cousin Rob. She can call me at work, and she does, a lot. This part I love. I love that she can dial up a friendly face when she needs one. 

I could hear her as Christmas approached, answering Louise’s questions about what she might like for Christmas. I was surprised to learn she asked for "something of Claire’s." I found a letter, in a sealed envelope, addressed to her. Another one to Boone. She is lonely. She panics sometimes.

Sam and I could both feel ourselves trying to compensate for all this at Christmastime. We had a great morning, opening presents, reading new books, eating sticky buns (our best ones yet). We kept the tree lights on all day, and Christmas music, trying to keep it festive in spite of the torrential rain. Of course it rained. 

We opened presents with Nonna & Papa over FaceTime, and Zoomed with the extended Jackson clan. We had a quick phone call with Char, so Quinn could thank her for the latest batch of Nancy Drew books. 

The governor had, that week, relaxed the guidance for Christmas Day, just a little bit. An effort to compromise, but not give up completely. We were allowed one other household, so Sam and Alden came over in the afternoon and Quinn convinced them to stay for the night. We played lots of games, ate lots of food, enjoyed having company and tried to focus on gratitude for all we do have. It is so much, really. 

Still, the stress is there. I miss my Dad, and worry. Quinn worries too: “I never thought Dad would think I was good enough to buy me paints,” she told me, marveling over her new acrylics and brushes. She wants his approval so much. It’s a familiar feeling to me. 

The meltdown happened at bedtime, as it often does. She wanted a "sleepover" in our room, but we were all tired after a long, full day. The truth is that I would be happy to have her sleep in my bed every night, but it doesn’t really work for Sam. She hit the "red zone" as soon as she heard the first sound of no. "I don’t want to be alone after this social day!" I could hear the panic rising in her voice. "I don’t want to be the only one in the nest! I’m lonely!" Pleading was quickly followed by demanding, which was quickly followed by screaming and anger. If she’d hung out in the yellow zone for a minute, I might have had time to change my mind—it was Christmas after all—but she didn’t, so I couldn’t. "Nobody cares about me!" That was the last thing I heard on our otherwise very sweet Christmas Day, her fear issued as an accusation. 

My heart breaks for her when she loses control this way. I bought her a punching bag and boxing gloves for Christmas, thinking it would help her "get her anger out" as she keeps telling me she needs to do. And I agree. But when it comes out in a fit, it makes me so sad. I know she will feel like garbage afterward. I know she will be embarrassed and full of shame. It happens every time. She screams and stomps and says mean, hurtful things—she digs deep to find the worst things she can come up with. And then she passes out—she exhausts herself. And when she wakes up the next morning, she usually writes a note, turning the vitriol on herself and wondering if we’ll ever forgive her. 

The morning after Christmas I found the note next to me on the pillow. I went to get her from her room and brought her to mine to snuggle and talk. It’s always the same talk: I will always forgive you. It’s okay to be angry, it’s not okay to take your anger out on others. She understands it all…it make perfect sense, except when it doesn’t. 

We talked some more about the yellow zone—she has to find ways to grow it, on that we are both agreed…and it is growing. She is trying. She is trying so hard.

I’ve been trying to find a counselor she could talk to since last spring; there haven’t been any with openings—they’re popular right now. Even Quinn has asked for this: Is the lady with the dog available yet? Is there anyone else? Finally, in mid December, one of the local therapists had an opening. She works with many other girls we know. Quinn was nervous but incredibly brave. It was over video conference. She sat at the dining room table. I got on with her to say hello and introduce them to each other, but after that I was relegated to the basement. I promised to keep my earphones in; she didn’t want me listening.

On the morning after Christmas, at the bottom of her apology note, she wrote, "PS: I think I might need to talk to Heidi about this." And she explained what Heidi told her: that when you’re sad sometimes it feels easier, more in your control, to be angry instead of sad. I think she's relieved that she's beginning to understand what's happening when she rages like that, to not feel so out of control. And I know it's helping me. I’m glad she feels she has a resource. I know she hears the things that we say too. My respect for her maturity, her desire to "get it right" no matter what "it" is...these things help me keep that little bit of my own worry for her, for our relationship, in check. 

At school we’re getting COVID tests weekly and the day after Christmas they needed someone to drive the samples to Cambridge to hand-deliver them to the lab for quicker turnaround. We haven’t been allowed to leave the state because doing so means a seven day quarantine on return, so we hadn’t seen my dad & Louise since August. I asked Quinn if she wanted to do the drive with me, and said we could stop in and surprise Nonna & Papa on our way back. It felt kind of exciting to have a road trip with her. 

Before we left we cooked one last meal for Sam and Alden, and played one more game over coffee. As they bundled up to leave, I asked Sam his philosophy on hugging. The Jacksons are a hugging bunch, but Sam’s reply was quick, "I don’t do it, but if Alden wants to she can." It’s the reason I asked, and of course I respect it, even though there didn’t seem to be much logic in it after twenty hours spent in close proximity, unmasked, talking, laughing, eating, swapping playing cards across our narrow table. But that’s the way of this thing—it gets to all of us. You’re aware of the vulnerability, you take some minuscule calculated risks, but draw the line in other places. We are always explaining every move…"I went for a walk, wearing a mask," you always add, "six feet apart," you always say. It’s like a low grade fever—not enough to take you down, but enough to make you feel like crap.

Quinn and I packed snacks and blankets and a pillow for her in the backseat. She played DJ with songs and podcasts all day. We started off happy.

By the time we got to the city, which I’ve last seen in early March, and Quinn has last seen I’m not sure when, we notice everything. The streets are quieter but not empty. Faces are masked and unmasked. I parked the car in the taxi lane, in front of the sign that is clear as day—"No Standing," and of course that's all we're doing--we are all just standing still. I stepped up to 245 Main Street, and called the number I was supposed to call. No one answered so we stepped inside the small street-level corner lobby, to get out of the wind. There was a bank of elevators straight ahead, and a man sitting at a table—like a bellhop, but in a lab jacket. Only after I entered with Quinn did I notice the snaking line of people waiting for their COVID tests. I’m sure they could all see my panic as I rushed her back out to fresh air. "Don’t touch the door!" I whispered urgently, as she rolled her eyes. I called the number again and this time someone answered… "I see you there. In the red sweater?"

I told Quinn to stand right there in front of the door on the sidewalk in the open, clean air, but back inside the woman tells me I have to take my box of samples up to the 2nd floor…"I just have to get my daughter," I say. "Oh I can watch her for you," she says, with equal parts competence and genuine warmth. I believe she is someone I could trust, but I don’t trust myself to make it up to the second floor and back without losing my mind while Quinn is alone on the street, out of my sight. When we make it back to the car, Quinn is outraged when I ask her to sanitize her hands a second time in as many minutes. 

By the time we get to my dad’s it’s dusk. We park the car down the street from their house, and sneak across the neighbor’s lawn so we can surprise them. Quinn’s mood has gone south at this point; I’m not sure why. I’m not doing anything right. She stands in front of the garage door and I call them on the phone. "We shipped something to you and I was just notified that they left it in front of your garage. Would you go out and see if you can see a box?" Quinn stands waiting as the door rolls up. She is happy and not happy at the same time. And Louise is speechless for a moment, somehow smaller since I saw her last. The fact of us eventually sinks in and she yells to my dad, "Dana, can you help me with this box?" She winks over her shoulder at Quinn as she goes to the door. Papa is thrilled to see her. So thrilled that he loses his head for a minute and asks if we want to come in, maybe just in to the basement. 

Before I can say no, Quinn says yes, her eyes lit up once again, but I can’t let her. I explain where we’ve been, explain the lobby of people waiting for tests—all of them positive, for all we know—and he returns to his senses as Quinn glares at me and starts to cry. I try to keep it light, for the sake of all of us, but it doesn’t work. My dad points to the pile of clothes hanging on the railing outside the door to the house. "Nonna always makes me take my clothes off in the garage," he explains, "and then sends me straight to the shower." It’s their routine anytime he goes out for errands. They leave their mail in the garage for 24 hours before they bring it in. The tinfoil bundle of cookies we brought seems to crumble to dust in our hands.

They walk us out to the yard so we can peek in the window at their Christmas tree. Quinn won’t let me near her even though I know she desperately needs a hug. We retreat to the garage to get out of the wind. Quinn tucks herself in behind the parked cars, her face hidden behind her mask, chin tucked in to her collar, her head buried in her hood. There are two wet spots on the cloth under her eyes. 

My dad goes in to make me coffee for the three hours of driving we still have to do, and I pretend to need something in the car so Quinn and Nonna can have a few minutes alone. Nonna draws her out a bit as I knew she would. I call my dad on the phone and we talk for a few minutes too—me in his driveway, he in his kitchen. I miss him.

When he returns to the garage, he has a green and red bag with Santas all over it, tissue paper sticking out at the top. He hands it to Quinn. "You said you wanted something of Claire’s, right? Well I thought of just the thing...something I think is perfect for you." She pulls out a long-handled gold hand mirror and matching hairbrush. They used to sit on my mom’s dresser. I recall the set as a centerpiece there, with clean space around it. I recall it having some magic when I was a kid—the kind of thing a real princess would have. I don’t recall her using it, but there are a few hairs in the bristles so it’s clear she did. Quinn seems a bit mesmerized by the objects and also not quite sure what to do. She can’t hug anyone. She whispers a soft thank you. We say our goodbyes and get back in the car as darkness fully settles. 

We turn left, instead of right, at the end of their driveway, so we can see the extension of their road that’s been built and the new houses they tell us are there. They wave from the door of the garage. Right away Quinn tells me, "I’m sorry I got so mad." She chokes on her tears as she tries to explain, "I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity…It is so hard…we work so hard and then as soon as there is a little reward, it is gone." I’m not mad, I promise her, and I’m crying too. It is so hard, and she has been so strong. When we pass by the end of my dad's road again, I can see him still standing in the open garage, watching for us. Quinn falls asleep soon after we reach the highway, and I let her.

At bedtime she pulls her mirror and hairbrush out of the bag again. She lets me brush her hair as she wonders where she should put it. I notice a tiny sticker on the face of the mirror: 

ANTIQUE GOLD FINISH

guaranteed

not to tarnish

It takes a bit of the magic away for me, and I resolve to peel it off when she’s not looking. At ten she already seems too aware that there are no guarantees.

I'm Speaking

Four years ago Quinn had just started kindergarten; I was a few months into my new job as Academic Director. In early November Sam was in Colorado at the training camp. Voting day was sunny and warm. I was elated all day, waiting for Quinn to finish school so she could come with me when I voted. I ran into Senator Patrick Leahy at the bakery while I waited, and had a chance to talk with him. I told him about Quinn; he was confident and optimistic as I was, as I explained that I wanted her to be part of that history-making moment: the first woman President of the United States! A woman who had worked hard her entire life, who was exceptionally well educated, prepared and qualified. There was no way she would lose. 

She was running against a tv personality, a real estate guy, a bully and a buffoon. He was someone who was handed his wealth, and yet who still lied and cheated his way through life. His oversized ego was so ridiculous he made a caricature of himself. He was someone who mocked people, called them names, demeaned and threatened people. He was someone who bragged about doing so. There was a recording of him talking about women who would say nothing if he “grabbed them by the pussy,” allowing themselves to be assaulted, seemingly happy to let it happen, because he was “famous.” That recording was made public before the election.

That people like him exist is not a surprise, and not even that much of a problem, when they are just people you can avoid. But to see someone like him put into the highest position of authority in our entire country, voted in by nearly half the population, was an experience so demoralizing and disorienting it is hard to explain. And to accept that he actually lost the popular vote, losing to the qualified female candidate by millions, is unreconcilable. And then there is the unfathomable circumstance of your own father voting for him, your father who raised you to believe that you mattered, that you should always speak up, and never let anyone put you down, and that you could believe anything is possible if you are willing to work for it.

I looked forward to Hillary’s historic presidency with anticipation. I was hungry for the confidence-inspiring presence of a woman in the White House as I worked to build confidence in my own small leadership role, and also as I worked to build the confidence of my growing daughter. It meant so much to imagine her moving through her elementary school years with the image of a strong and articulate woman doing what many would consider the most important job in the world. 

That, of course, is not what happened. 

Two days ago, on Saturday morning, our local Development Review Board showed up to inspect our lot in order to consider whether or not they’d grant us a variance on town zoning policy so we could build our garage ten feet closer to the road than the seventy feet required. They were supposed to have come up two weeks prior but never showed. This time, they did and as Sam and I tried to explain why we wanted to put the building where we did—the most logical place in all of our 5.8 acres, they walked around offering alternatives: well, you could put it here (in the middle of the front yard), or you could put it here (halfway into our stone-bordered flower bed), or you could put it here (hanging off the edge of the driveway over open air). Hell, you could even put it here! (fully blocking the entire front of our house). One of the three men, in particular, was full of ideas. He seemed hellbent on being right. He was loud, dismissive and rude. I’ve played this game before and so tried to tread lightly on his oversized ego…I tried to offer some rationale for our plan but, in the middle of a sentence, he interrupted me. Talking over me as if I hadn’t been speaking at all. But I had been, I had been speaking. 

Not interrupting others was one of the two most basic rules of civility I was taught growing up (that and not talking with your mouth full). It is a rule I was held accountable for until it was ingrained in me, and it is one I cannot excuse in others.

As the discussion of our permit went on, the buffoon got louder, and more insistent. It was clear that the debate was no longer about the placement of our garage, it was about him winning. It was also clear that his power was meant as a threat. He had control; we did not. It took all of my self-control to avoid calling out his obnoxious behavior and telling him off. But I kept my composure, even when the next time I was speaking he interrupted again, blowing raspberries like a child over something I said. Everything stopped in that moment… "Did you just blow raspberries at me?" I was incredulous, and he seemed unabashed. 

It was incredible, and at the same time, it was predictable. It was a small vignette of what our country has become in the past four years: a place where loud wins, where reason and rational thinking counts for nothing, where it’s okay to insult, threaten, and demean people. It is a place where women are meant to be silent and accept the treatment dealt to them. Women, and people of color, and LGBTQ people, and basically anyone who is not part of the yelling, unthinking, throbbing mass.

When Hillary was running for President, other democrats were campaigning for her. Quinn and I listened to a speech by Michelle Obama. In response to the angry, ugly politics of the buffoon, she implored people, “When they go low, we go high.” I’ve reminded myself, and others, of those words so many times—believing them to be good strategy, as well as an indicator of good character, and it has worked in my own leadership role dealing with difficult personalities in the past four years. But there is a fine line between taking the high ground and tolerating the low. When they go low, we go high…and yet, we should not take the high road so quietly that we are silenced. 

For the past four years we’ve watched ugly behavior surface, in small encounters, like in my driveway, and in large, on the international stage. We’ve watched racist acts of violence and murder go unchecked and even encouraged (good people on both sides; stand back and stand by). We’ve watched scientific facts be ignored, denied, and mocked (climate change and a global pandemic). We’ve watched criminals and morally corrupt people installed in positions of power once held by decent, intelligent, compassionate people.

In the grand scheme of vulnerabilities, we are somewhat protected as white people of privilege, living in a state where the impact of the climate crisis takes more subtle forms than the historic fires, floods and storms that threaten many people’s daily existence, and where we have enjoyed a buffer of sanity in this pandemic, thanks to clear leadership in our state and neighbors generally willing to follow it. We have the luxury of living in a circumstance where we wouldn’t have to expect that our daughter would be taken from us just to punish us for daring to hope for a better life. And yet we have been living in the dark shadow of a man whose every gesture and decision belittles that same daughter (at best) and imperils her existence (at worst).

Given all of the unbelievable things we have had to bear witness to in the past four years, I approached this year’s election differently. I didn’t dare to hope. I couldn’t bring myself to think of anything other than four more years, to ensure that the fall after the election would be less precipitous this time. 

Quinn took this picture of me doing some stretching on election night, trying to calm my nerves, with our "therapy" dog still doing his job so well.

And yet, I have been watching the news and the events and the debates, trying to keep track of what further harm is and will be done. I watched him cover his inability to handle the rules and content of a debate by yelling and interrupting and insulting his opponent—a man who has been a civil servant his whole life, who has suffered so much personal loss that he has more genuine empathy than any politician I’ve ever seen, a man who is decent and hardworking, well educated, well prepared, and highly qualified. And in the midst of personal attacks on the man’s life, and his children, one of them deceased, Joe Biden stayed as high as anyone could be expected to, while also naming, directly, what is going on and what is at stake: the character of this entire country.

Running with him was Kamala. A woman who embodies it all: intelligence, confidence, joy, compassion, laughter and light, power and clarity. In her own debate with the current Vice President, when he spoke to her in that too-familiar patronizing voice, that aren’t you cute but why don’t you shut up voice, and then he interrupted her…she stopped what she was saying. She turned to him. “I’m speaking,” she said, and when he kept on, she said it again: “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.” There was no apology, no “I’m sorry, but,” just the fact: "I'm speaking." And eventually he shut up.

It was Sam’s voice that was ultimately heard in our driveway by the DRB. Not by the buffoon, but by the other two men. "What happens when my 85 yr old father has a medical emergency and the ambulance can’t get to the door?” he asked. And with that I saw a lightbulb go one for one of the men. He was reasonable from the start, not necessarily seeing things as we did initially, but willing to actually listen. Our arguments for logic, logistical and financial pragmatism, aesthetics that would protect our investment, and personal choice largely fell flat, but the threatened patriarch argument got some attention. And in the end, the buffoon was out voted, two to one, and we got our building permit with a variance. It was a small victory to start the day.

And as the day went on, the energy of the universe continued to change. It was four days after the election, and votes were still being counted in some states, and yet by late morning it was finally clear that Joe Biden had enough votes (both popular and electoral college) to win the presidency! The nightmare of the past four years would be ending. 

On top of that, Kamala Harris would be the first woman elected to a job in the White House, the second highest office in the nation. A black woman, of South Asian decent, the child of immigrants, she is historic in so many ways. And while I will never forgive the loss of four years of inspiration, of role modeling, and of possibilities imagined, for my daughter and all the daughters, the four years of progress that did not happen, I am willing to begin again, as women always have, and start forward from here. 

“To the little girls watching,” Kamala said, in her victory speech, “Dream with ambition. Lead with conviction. And see yourself in a way that others may not—simply because they’ve never seen it before. Know we will applaud you every step of the way.”

Perhaps there is some value in having the struggle come first before the victory. Quinn has not been cowed into submission by the toxic climate of our society during her elementary school years. If anything she has been emboldened by it. She listens to everything going on around her, and speaks up against every injustice she perceives. Her voice is unignorable; she is powerful medicine and continues to learn how to use her powers for good. With middle school on the horizon, I'm glad she's a fighter. 

I'm speaking. For Quinn, and through her, I'm speaking.