With Bug in the tub, it seemed a shame to let all that water go to waste. Off went the socks and up turned the jeans. My grandma would call it a “hot soaky.” I called it Yes.
Oblivious to my freeloading feet, Bug dipped into little meringues of shaving cream decorating the rim. He dotted his arms with it and donned fancy white hats and matching gloves before spreading it in whorls on the tile walls. I dug out the old Gillette Trac handle made obsolete by the march of progress and removed the last rusted blade. In Bug’s hand, the flat head became a squeegee, a paintbrush, a snow shovel.
Bug glanced at his toothless razor, the foam, my legs. The troika of temptations coalesced into their one true destiny. His eyes brightened with the dawn of revelation.
“Mommy, I have an idea!”
Spa day over in three… two…
“I can shave your legs!”
One.
Bug took the lather into his palm and smoothed it down my calf. With uncharacteristic focus and gripping the Trac handle with two hands, he opened wide, straight(ish) trails through the white. “Feel how soft,” he said, touching the damp skin beneath.
This was over a year ago. Our bathtime routine took a 180, and sea monster battles gave way to regular mock grooming sessions. In terms of life expectancy of kid innovation, a year is the outer limit. The next idea has been right there waiting to pop. So, why does it take me by such surprise? Tonight, I hand Bug the cruddy Trac handle, he gives the foam a halfhearted swipe, and the light clicks on. “You know,” he says, eyeing the razor and then me. “I could do it for real.”
“Oh.” Not a chance. “You know, I don’t think so. You don’t need to be using blades on me.”
“But I could! I know how.”
My naked boy sprawls now, taking up the tub. I can still feel the wriggling fish of him against my flesh. As an infant, he was startled by the water and loathe to inhabit that terrifying echo chamber alone. I ladled him into the bowl of my lap and kept him afloat in the warm eddy there, nursing him through the shock of immersion. He clung, mouth and claw, his eyes anchored on mine as his jaw worked in defiance of the disquiet.
Now, he rolls like a walrus, laying all the way back with his head under. He listens for the hollow tones. Then, he sits up and takes another crack at it. “I’ll be careful, I promise!”
My son, using a razor on me? This kid laughs when I stub a toe. When overexcited, he cries, “I’m gonna smack you in the face!” Or he pretends to throw a toy at me then giggles when I flinch. Bug is too enamored of his power fantasies. No, I don’t want him anywhere near me with a sharp object.
Suddenly, my hot soaky seems scant protection against a chilling insight. I don’t trust my son. Fancy that.
This seems a rather dangerous state of affairs, and it extends well beyond us. Boys become men. He has to learn how to handle his ever-increasing capacity for harm. Isn’t it my job to help my boy become trustworthy? To harness his hunger for power and focus its generative force?
What if I give him the chance to make the choice himself?
“Please, Mommy?”
Never let them see you hesitate. Into the half-beat, his desire surges. “I’m old enough! I’ll be really, really careful.”
Okay. Here goes. “You know, you work hard at lots of things and I see you getting better at them all the time.” I stand and back the 4-blade Cadillac out of its valet spot by the shower-head. “This is a big job, but maybe you can handle it.”
“I can!”
I hand him the pink razor and we look together at the tiny teeth. He touches them with a fingertip. Then he scoops up a handful of foam and lathers up both sides of my leg. I roll the jeans even higher to make way for his expanding canvas. With intense concentration, he places the razor against my skin and begins to slide it down, down. He takes such care, the blades barely touch my skin. I lay my hand on his and show him how much pressure he can apply. When I let go, he presses in, glancing up at me before continuing. I nod. He is a Zamboni, not missing a single stroke. He even rearranges me, having me place my foot up on the wall so he can slip underneath and shave my calf from below. I call him Michelangelo. He pats all around and says, “Okay, other leg.”
My son doesn’t draw a single drop of blood. When he puts the razor down and helps me rinse, he has me touch my legs again and again. “See how smooth?” He crows. “They’re so soft!”
They are, as is his touch. My boy took an opportunity to hurt me and used it to care for me instead. He made a promise. For him to fulfill it, I placed a portion of my welfare in his hands. Apparently, this is how promise works.
What a tricky thing, love. We walk this roiling deck all the time. Hold off or venture? Guard or lay bare? When is it safe to unbutton the collar and open the throat to the whims of another?
It’s not never. It’s not always. It probably isn’t even when we think it is.
It might be when we catch ourselves tipping at the warm edge of a revelation. When we find our old tools cannot prize open the curtain separating this place from the next, and a sharper edge is required.
When we know there is peril in placing such power in untested hands. When fear beats a tattoo against the taut skin of old scars and yet underneath it, a whisper (has it been there all along?)
When we tune to its key and let the dangerous thing pass between us. When we choose.
Here, we say.
Here?
Yes. Like this.
Tag: trust
Hello Here
On the brink of leaving this home for the next (inshallah), and I still don’t know what I’m after. Place? Family? Community? Safety? The list is long and it changes with the breeze.
Ambiguous purpose calls for simple acts. I turn to my son and say, “Let’s go outside.”
These days, he joins me. This is new. It used to be a struggle, cajoling and begging before demanding or giving up. Now, he pounds down the stairs, “I’ll put her leash on! Here, let me!” He throws open the sliding glass door and calls her with his quasi wolf-whistles. She is suspicious of his intentions but ducks inside, unable to resist the word “walk.”
Flexi-leash in hand, Bug races down the driveway dragging the dog. She tosses a few desperate glances back at me but I’m no help to her now. Bug has finally learned to slow long enough to let her have a break for her bladder. It rarely lasts past the last drop so she forgoes all olfactory temptations gets down to business. They lope down the swath of grass between the fences. At the bottom where the year’s accumulated leaves lay in drifts, Bug snaps off her leash and she tears off into the trees. He squeals in delight and tramps after her, knee-deep in brambles.
The dog is the leader but doesn’t know it. Winding and snoofling through brown tangles, she takes us on a looping journey up and back down the hillside. Scattered clumps of daffodils poke their way up into patches of sun and purplish flowers unfurl from buried brush. Light threads its way down through dry spindles scratching the sky. I carry a plastic shopping bag and collect the crumpled cans and muck-filled Corona bottles that peek up through the leaves.
I follow Bug. Bug follows the dog. The dog follows her nose. We come upon a creek snaking out from under a neighbor’s chicken wire fence. Across the way is a clutch of bamboo as high as a rooftop. It bends against the breeze. The road beyond is near enough to keep me vigilant. Bug fords the brook with a single leap and slips up the muddy bank beyond. He picks his way through the deep green flutes, swishing them low. Feathered leaves stroke the water’s golden skin.
“I’m in the bamboo jungle! There is a tornado coming! Get out of the storm, Mommy!” I duck across and hide with him in the cool dark there. Cars roar just feet from our back and I holler the dog back from the roadside. She bounds into the creek, splashing us with wet silt.
When it is time to go, we gather leash and garbage and assorted leafy treasures. I urge. Bug dawdles. The dog drips. Eventually we shimmy into a dry creek-bed and follow the tracks of raccoons and deer back to the trail into our neighborhood. Just as we start up the hill, we turn and see a strange sight. In all our years of walking here, we have never come across such a thing.
A boy.
He is making his jerky way over the buried roots up to a log that bridges the dry trench. His black hair and pale skin trace a ghostly curve over the hillside. He looks up and sees us. I wave. He pauses then waves back. Bug and dog and I are poised on the forest edge ready to go home.
“One second, Mom,” Bug says. And he is off. He plows straight through the weeds and pricker bushes and heads straight uphill. The boy leaps off the log, starts to climb, and then slows. Bug is talking to him. He turns and responds. In a blink, they are deep into it. By the time I have gotten the dog turned and have approached the pair, they are discussing the bamboo forest and the forts up on hilltop that some older kids built years ago. “We come in here all the time,” the boy says.
“So do I!” Bug cries.
They talk pets. Neighbors. Teachers. Movies. Books. The boy is into the Warriors series and Bug is reading JK Rowling. I hang back and marvel at their ease. They compare notes on the best scenes from the last Harry Potter movie. Bug seeks and seeks a common footing. The boy, a few years older, is happy to oblige. They giggle about an explosion at a quidditch match then giggle some more when the dog grunts and tries to lick the boy’s hand off.
The sun is sinking and it is past time for dinner. Bug manages to tear himself away. We plod back up the swath of grass. Bug watches the boy return to his own porch and join a group of children there. A grown man sees us and waves a big Hullo. I return the greeting.
“We come in here all the time,” the boy had said. We had never seen him, yet here he was. We have paid attention to this place for years without looking for anything. The dog’s nose has been a truer guide than our own intention. Only in today’s purposeless looking do we stumble upon what we didn’t know we’d been after: a person who shares our place and a similar way of wandering through it.
My son’s bold delight stuns me. Even with no idea what he will find, he bridges the distance to meet what glances against his sense of wonder. Call it innocence. Call it courage. Whatever it is, in our new home (inshallah), may that wide-open not-looking to guide us to what we seek.
Featherweight
To the woman who has signed up for a single-parent dating seminar because she wants to figure out how to get things right, he says, “It’s like boxing.” Then he laughs and apologizes. To a runner, the metaphor is endurance. To a world traveler, maps and foreign tongues. To a boxer? The next match.
“Sure, hear them out,” he says. “You can get good advice from everywhere. ‘Do it this way. Try that.’All of it probably works.” He halfway smiles. “My trainer teaches me things.” Here, he hunches his shoulders just a fraction and brings his loose fists up to shade his face. “’Use your legs like this, lean like this.’” He shrugs and his hands open like wings. One alights on his thigh hidden just below the table. “My legs might be just a little bit longer. Maybe I have to lean differently. I need to find that out.” Now he lifts his palms and placates an invisible onslaught. Of fists? Advice? Skepticism? “You just have to find your own balance. Your balance.”
The others at the table pause and let this settle in. The only Right is boxing from within your own skin. Continue reading “Featherweight”
Home Run
Seventy-five days of radio silence. Not a word. Nada.
My realtor and I spoke exactly once during that time. Right around the New Year, I started to panic. “Is there anything I should be doing?”
“Nothing at all. The bank has the documents.” She paused. “There are no guarantees here. We won’t stop looking at other properties. You should your eyes open.”
Short sales are an exercise in forbearance. Trust, too. Both have been running thin. How long can the mind and muscles wait at the starting line in a state of perpetual readiness, stretching and gulping air? Every day, inventory in my price range shrinks. Every day, prices in the area go up. The market sizzles and the bank is silent. Where’s that starting gun? Is it minutes? Hours? Or did the race move over to some other track without me realizing it?
As for my realtor’s advice to keep my eyes open (as if they could be any other way), no properties popping up in MLS over the past two and a half months have come close to the fit of the one I chose. The one that chose me. What if one had? It’s a high-stakes gamble. Moving on another place would mean pulling the plug on this one.
My place. The one that is a bit too much and a bit too little but still exactly right for Bug and me. The day before Thanksgiving, the offer came together. Here is the story.
Seventy-five days later, the counter-offer landed.
Bang!
We are off and running! The bank’s new plan is palatable to me. They upped the overall price of the place in exchange for a ridiculously expensive special assessment I can’t afford ($6900! For staircases!) A few other tweaks and details accompanied the counter. My realtor has my okay. She sent the acceptance back over this morning.
Next, inspection. Appraisal. HOA documents. Shifting money. Any bump could send us tumbling. Nothing is certain, except this: we’re covering ground. A home is on the horizon. We haven’t closed yet but we are closing in.
Found and Lost
In the dream, I leave Bug in the hands of a busy child care center in the city and head out for an afternoon walk. The water is close. Just a few bold steps off the unmarked edge of a road carry me down to a quiet beginning.
A river snakes along sand and volcanic stone. As I stroll along it, the buildings disappear behind me. Soon, the path opens out onto breeze-rippled silence. The sun is bright enough to blind me and I have to pull my narrow-brimmed hat low over my eyes. I pause and take in the impossible pitch of the rimed stone jutting up from the surface of the confluence. Is it ocean or river, this aquatic jewelbox? Sapphire and emerald stand shoulder-to shoulder with opal, all of it turning in luxurious circles under the glittering sun.
The riverbank calls me closer. I shed my shoes. The water is clear enough that I can peer down into the caverns below the rough stone. White sand is a warm powder massaging my soles. No one is anywhere. I want so badly to slide into the aquamarine shallows but I am alone and it could be dangerous. I do not recall where I am. Is this country home to alligators? Piranhas? No one would hear me call if a hidden barnacle sliced my skin.
Just on the other side of the large stone, a pool spills into the cool silver below. The bottom disappears into deepening dark. It could fall all the way to the center of the earth. It is not a swimming hole per se, yet it is wide enough for my body even with my arms outstretched. The hunger to immerse is powerful enough to make me quiver but caution stills my descent. It is better to be safe, yes? I only have a few hours before I must return for my son. I settle for submerging my feet up to my ankles. The cool brine makes me shiver. I bend and splash it over my calves and shoulders. The sun is so very warm.
Footfalls behind me rend the silence. It is Tee. He is jogging, waving hello. His pink skin is flushed and he has that goofy grin on his face he so often wears. Hello! Hello!
I ask him why he is not with Bug. He tells me he stopped into the child care center for a visit but he decided to go for a run. It is my night with our son anyway. He has all the time in the world. Nearby, up a low slope of grass, the balconies of apartments overlook this riverside trail. Tee strips down naked and I remind him that people live close here. He seems surprised to find he might be exposed. He dons the shorts again but ties his shirt around his waist and makes as if to join me on my stroll.
I’d really rather walk alone.
He shrugs as I go ahead. Instead of turning back, though, he picks up the jog again and passes me. He plods on just in my line of sight along the soft and sandy path. My path. The waving reeds and sea-grass are obscured by his sunburned back. He is going in the direction of what I had thought to be my solitary exploration. Now I know I must really remember Bug because Tee will be too far ahead and cannot be relied upon to take him home if I lose my sense of direction.
The wild path is no longer wild, not with my ex pounding along it before me. I don’t want to share this with his noisy presence. I turn off and wind through the neighborhood there. It is a place with rental apartments, playgrounds, a crumbling community pool. The swimming families squeal and chatter. Women with thick thighs and thinning swimsuits snap at their children. There are so many girls. They tease in a screeching playfulness that shimmers with latent violence. The yellowish-blue does not look inviting at all. I walk on past feeling crowded, heavy, a little desperate.
When I find my way back to the water, the river has grown to a surging froth. It runs below a road bridge built high on concrete girders. A footpath descends a sharp cut of rickety stairs down to the place where a culvert spills foaming debris out into the current. There is no place to cross. I cannot make my way on foot up to the pounding, traffic-dense bridge, and anyway, it seems to go the wrong way. I have somehow come out on the side opposite where I need to be.
I am so confused. My wild place, that aquamarine pool and the waving sedge, has all given way to boat launches and drawbridges. Roaring vehicles tow rivercraft. There is nowhere to walk. I carry a small inflatable raft. It is red. It is tucked under my arm. It is too big to carry but too flimsy to use for crossing. I stand near the edge of the road where it falls into this sea. I look across the choppy black. It is far too wide for me.
Somewhere over there is the city I just left, my son, and the home I don’t yet know is my own. The place I need to be is there. This awareness is a knife in the gut. I feel miserably unsatisfied. For as long as I’ve been gone, I never took that quiet stroll on which I set out. I never did find out what grew along the edge of the wet lip of the bay. I wish now I had simply let myself in to that dangerous, lonely deep.
Had I called upon the years of swimming in mountain lakes and relied on my own strong arms to keep my head above water, I could have immersed the whole sheath of my being in that jeweled and quiet embrace. If only I had trusted the body of this wet earth and this mighty self to hold me, I could have whetted my appetite for solitude.
Now, I have to ask for help.
A man hauling cables barks commands at drivers. I am quivering, on the verge of tears, but I do my best simply to state my need.
Can you help me get across? How does this all work?
He is brusque. All business. He points me to a dinghy. Another man clips my raft onto the bigger vessel. I pay six dollars and board. He whirs the motor and speeds across the water. None splashes on me now. It is an opaque and impossible substance. I do not look down. My eyes trace the smooth line out to the west or east, if only I knew. The open horizon has room enough but no map. I have no compass to carry me to it.
The emptiness recedes. It is so very far never to go.
The captain, if he can be called this, deposits me on the asphalt launch opposite along with the other passengers. I scrounge my raft from among the anonymous craft and make back towards the road. The city thrums in the distance. I am late. I have miles to retrace. My son is waiting.
Happy 100 Days: 75
I haven’t even taxied down the runway yet and this home-buying mission is making me queasy. The loves ones say, “What fun!” and then tell me fifteen things to bear in mind when I start to look. The other loved ones say, “Oh, gracious, it’s so hard,” and then tell me fifteen entirely different things that could make me crash and burn. Meanwhile, the sweet little home I had tagged to see this weekend went under contract yesterday, and the two properties still open are even junkier than I had feared.
“Keep picturing the perfect place,” one friend says. “If you can see it, you’ll make it happen.”
Okay. Good advice. So, I peek out the windows and down through the clouds, whispering reminders to myself when the turbulence starts to make me panic. A small living room where I can move the furniture and dance. A nook for Bug to do crafts and make a mess. Plants in hand-painted pots drinking in the light from the windows.
This week, I made the command decision to shut all this off when I am at work. If I am not careful, it can seep in under the door and choke off the air supply. No looking at home listings, no checking emails from the realtor when I am at the office. My job is what makes all this possible, so I have to be here when I am here.
The phone rings. It is the nice lady from the free Mover’s Advantage program. Again. I ignore it. I am in the throes of preparing for the information session for the January qualifying exam for the students. This is the job, and this is where I direct my focus.
The qualifying exam is the threshold assessment the doctoral hopefuls take after they have finished their core courses. Those whirlwind four days in January will be the litmus test for whether or not they have the right stuff to continue in the program. At the info session, the PhD program director and I offer up a few pre-exam details to calm their jittery nerves and let them know exactly what will happen starting at noon on January 3. Our school has honed a system to a sharp(ish) edge over the years, and we try to keep it straight and clean for the students. The double-blind exam is administered in two parts, with a quantitative in-class portion and a written take-home essay. I proctor. Anonymous faculty members grade. Students sweat. Most pass.
Before Day One of Semester One in the program, temperatures begin to rise. At the orientation in August, the incoming cohort is already abuzz with questions about the exam. You can’t blame them. They don’t want to get a year or two and $20,000 in, only to discover they don’t have the combination of brains and stamina to seal the deal. This is why we try to make the expectations crystal-clear. The students can take care of their studies. We’ll make sure the test is fair and the packets are in order.
My colleague and I touch base a few minutes before the info session to divvy up the tasks. I make the fatal error of popping back into my office to check my email. A long-ago friend who used to work in affordable housing in Vermont has read my blog from wherever he is in the world now. He has shot me an email from across the miles, illuminating yet another fifteen points for me to bear in mind as I begin my quest for a home.
This is a welcome gesture, of course. But, wow, is it terrifying. The ink is barely dry on the loan approval, and the dark clouds of these new tasks are gathering on the horizon. Time-of-sale ordinances. Buyer’s attorney. PMI. Contract review. Closing costs. Home inspectors.
Choke.
This friend is one among many who clearly has no idea what an amateur I am. The bankers seem equally clueless about the extent of my ignorance. Maybe I have bamboozled the lot of them, or maybe they are banking on the folly of the neophyte. How should I know? I can’t tell where to begin. I feel out of my depth and stupid to boot. Find the place first and ask about ordinances later? Learn about PMI before looking for a place? A home inspector before attorney? When is — no, what is — contract review?
A first-time homebuying course would be a great place to begin, but the county’s classes are full full full. One is available at the end of November (!) but until then, I have to figure it out on my own. More questions. Are the online courses reputable? Whom do I ask? Do I check out a library book? Which one?
I print out the lengthy (and so generous — thank you, dear friend!) email to take home. I will read it when I have attention for it and can look up these strange terms I should probably already know. (Escrow? Short sale? Lord have mercy.) Then I head over to the qualifying exam info session to do the job that will pay the someday-mortgage.
I walk on shaky legs out of my office, trying ease my mind back to a more manageable altitude. In the hallway, a first-year student flags me down. “I have a question about qualifying exam,” he says, a little breathless. “I saw the form online, and it says this thing about having grades for all the core courses, and I think I should be taking the exam at the end of this year, right? But I will still be in the classes that need the grades when the form is due. . .”
“You’re ahead of the game,” I say with a smile. “You’ll be taking 804 and 805 in the spring, right? You don’t have prerequisites?”
“No,” he says. “I’ll be done with the core in May.”
“Okay. So, after the winter break, I will schedule another info session for the folks taking the May exam. We’ll go over the details then. You don’t have to come to this one today, and anyway, some of the information will be different in the spring.” I go on to give him a brief review of the steps. I watch his shoulders ease down.
“Okay,” he breathes. “I’m on track.”
“Right on track.” I nod. “And thank you for being so conscientious. It’ll serve you well in this program.” I keep telling these student to picture themselves walking across that stage at graduation. Everything between here and there is just details and determination.
I turn the corner to the meeting room where the first few students mill around, big-eyed and jumpy.
At the end of the session when they ask about failure rates (as they always do), I answer like a true politician. “Every one of you has the capacity to pass this exam.” The program director reminds them that all they have to do is put their analytical skills and and writing abilities to work. They already have what it takes to finish this program and write a dissertation, so they have what it takes to pass the exam. We would not have admitted them otherwise.
This is true, to an extent. They have the right stuff when we admit them. The big unknown is how they use it once they are here. They will make it if. . . If they sharpen their research skills. If they build strong, collegial relationships with their mentors. If they organize their time, accept criticism, improve their writing, and make tough choices. If they keep their eyes on the prize. If they do these things and take care of themselves along the way, they will have done all they can and more to walk across that stage and go home with a degree.
They have to take it one semester at a time. One course, one qualifying exam, one field statement at a time.
Once again, I learn to swallow my own medicine.
As I walk out into the late afternoon light to head home, I let my mind lift off again and find myself dizzy with the possibility of a home. I picture myself standing on the doorstep of my new place, fitting the key into the lock. Lush vines spill from a hanging plant by the door. Shoes litter the foyer. Afternoon light from the back window greets me. A crock pot on the counter bubbles with cumin and garlic. Bug and I sweep aside the mess of paper scraps, scissors, and tape on the table so we can share our dinner and talk over homework.
In my job, I can stand before the group of incoming students and see clearly what they cannot. They wobble under the weight of the program requirements, the student handbook, the course textbooks, the research expectations, the administrative paperwork, and the 90 new colleagues to whom they have just been introduced, while I am picturing how they will progress from Day One to graduation. This is my small area of expertise, such as it is. “All this material is a lot at once,” I tell them on that first day. “Take it one step at a time. Remember that my job is to stay on top of the details of this program. I will send you reminders and updates all along the way. When you get lost — no, before you get lost — come to me. I will help you find the answers to any questions you have.”
Just because they (I) can’t see the way forward (yet) doesn’t mean the sky is not open and waiting.
And just because they (I) are not experts on this process (yet) does not mean expertise is not here for the taking.
How am I any less a student than my own students? I have what it takes to fly this thing to its destination. The only unknown is what I choose to do with the questions, talents, and momentum I bring. Will I engage my skills as a researcher? Will I organize my inquiries and build my vocabulary? Will I keep clinging to the misconception that I have to (or even can) go it alone? Like my students, I must seek the help of professionals and enthusiasts. Those smart, experienced friends who understand housing dynamics are offering their guidance. They are mentors. I bet if I ask, they will help me stay on track. They don’t want me to get two years and $200,000 in only to discover I am saddled with a junk heap.
Also like those students, this undertaking was all just an abstract idea about two months ago. First comes the impulse, then a little investigating, then an application, then the acceptance. One mile, then another. Refer to the flight manual. Follow the itinerary. The clouds will part. The destination will make itself known.
I lay with Bug in his bed, reading three books and singing three songs. After he drifts off, I walk out onto the back deck and take in the sky, the light from the neighbors’ windows, the hum of traffic. I stretch my neck and then my toes, letting the full weight of myself settle into place.
If you can see it, you’ll make it happen.
There it is, right there, just on the horizon line.
Home.
Into the Deep
“Mommy, I’m swimming!”
“Yes, baby, I see.” I am distracted by my phone as I stand on the pool deck and bicker with Tee about things that only might happen. I have my suit on but I have not yet ventured out. Bug is already drenched, goggles magnifying his eyes to frightening dimensions.
“Are you talking to daddy?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Tell him, okay? Tell him I am swimming!”
I tell Tee that Bug says he is swimming. Satisfied, Bug turns and bounds back into the shallows, but not before shouting, “Come on Mommy! The water feels really good!”
Since he could first form the words, Bug has been convinced he is a swimmer. “I can swim, Mommy. I can!” His confidence can be a little frightening when he is dancing around on the concrete by the deep end. It is something of a comfort to watch him shift into low gear and take things one inch at a time when he makes his way in. He checks the depth. He plays on the steps. He asks for help.
I can’t count the number of YMCA pools in which my boy has splashed, nor can I remember the names of half the lakes. He has lived in water since birth. Since before, actually. He and I swam through my third trimester in a camp pool under the cloudless San Gabriel sky. I first took baby Bug into the water in the Colorado Springs Y when he was four months old. A blink later, he was in lessons. From making bubbles to holding the edge to draping himself over a noodle, he has crept his way ever closer to total immersion. At a few months shy of his sixth birthday, he is still hanging back.
I stash the phone in a cubby and follow my son out to the 4-foot part of the pool. There, he can just barely touch the bottom if he bounces on his toes. His head goes under, up, under. He no longer sputters, scowling into the air when his head slips beneath the surface. He simply dips in and leaps back out, cheeks bright, already on his way across the expanse of blue. Over near the wall is an underwater bench where he can stand firm. He makes his way there, bobbing along.
“Here I come!” He stands, crouches, and then flings himself across the surface towards me. With his legs out behind him, he kicks and simultaneously paddles his arms in a great churning frenzy. His head is under. In 5, 6, 10 strokes, he roars toward me until he stops and lets his feet fall to the bottom. His head pops up and he looks up at me through those googly lenses, water streaming down his face. His grin is as big as the ocean.
I am stunned into a rare moment of silence. Then I catch my breath and begin clapping like a seal on crack.
“You’re swimming, buddy! You’re really swimming!” I reach for him and he hops over to me.
“I told you!” His voice is wide-awake happy, and he climbs up into my arms for all of a tenth of a second before squirming out.
“Again!” He says. He hops over to the edge and grabs on. He shoos me back. “Further,” he calls. I take a step backward. “No, further.” A few steps more and he stops me. “That’s far enough.” His fingers clutch the lip of the pool. He is almost vibrating out of his skin with contained momentum. “Okay!”
He lets go, turns, and pushes off the edge. My boy swims across the water to me.
How does he know it is time? What changed this week, this night? For all of his life, this child needed solid ground. He needed a place to be planted. Then, in one moment, he trusted. He sensed, or maybe somehow knew, that his body would hold him up and that he could carry himself through water that might have been 200 feet deep.
The idea of being “ready” has been rolling around in the noggin for the past few months. When is a person prepared for whatever comes next, and how does the moment make itself known? When does it become clear that it is time to let go or to embrace? To work harder or to step back? To trust? To push off from the edge?
Beginnings leave permanent impressions on the internal chronology. Just try forgetting the moment you heard the words “divorce” or “malignant” or “we’re sorry, but we have to let you go.” Despite the branded scar of the start, transitions rarely have clear endings. The head-down, eyes-front posture into which a person enters in order to move through the sharp-toothed rapids of the in-between can become the normal stance even when the danger passes. After a period of emotional turmoil, the mind braces for the next blow. The simple act of looking up is almost too much to bear. I suppose a person can live this way for years. For the rest of time.
My own personal holding pattern is, for good or ill, unsustainable. The long-term prospect of raising a child on an inadequate income while living with my folks is enough to force me to change course. Because of this, I have started to hazard glances up and out. Oh, how big and improbable all the options seem! Even just fiddling around with the idea about a writing project, a career move, a relationship, or a class can make me feel out of my depth. I grip the wall. I want everything to stay the same, even though I don’t really and it can’t anyway.
I think of Bug there, just all of a sudden letting go. It seems “all of a sudden,” but of course, it is not. Bug is not landing in open water for the first time at 5 ½. His intuitive knowledge comes from immersion (pardon the pun) in a setting that has become almost as familiar as the earth itself. All those visits to backyard pools and lakes and YMCAs provided the vocabulary. Constant exposure allowed him to make sense of the grammar. Then, one day, a phrase rolls off the tongue. Without thinking, he bypassed the water-wings of translation. One day, he is simply speaking a language.
Practice, then, is key. This I try to do for myself by writing daily, avoiding avoidance at work, and faking glee as I take on bike commuting or designing a workshop. Reaching even in the presence of fear seems to be a good way to develop new habits. New postures, even.
Practice alone, however, only carries things so far. A person can rehearse for a hundred years and never make it to the recital. It is also necessary to understand something about one’s capacity to cross the divide.
Bug may be an astute dabbler, but he has a handier trick up his sleeve and he doesn’t even know it. It is this: my boy never believed himself to be a non-swimmer. The language of limitation was unknown to him. He did not need to unlearn anything in order to make room for a new self-concept. He simply needed to embody a truth that he had already accepted, and let his skills catch up with his confidence: “I can swim, Mommy. I can!”
So, once again, the familiar and achingly simple lesson washes up onto shore. First, picture the dream. Then dip the toes into its rippled surface. Immersion, one inch at a time, and keep the senses alert to the currents. Eyes up. All is possible, and more.
Where do I want to be? What do I look like when I inhabit the skin of my most potent self? Do I let myself believe in the truth of my limitlessness?
Hold the edge, sure, and practice the strokes. As you grapple with gravity, do not let your inner gaze linger on anything but that image of you, surging into the open sea. You never know where or when it will occur. Then, suddenly it does. The shift. The moment of knowing you are ready to take the plunge. Let go, turn, and push off the edge.
Care Benefit
You fantasize about leaving. You will yourself into staying. When indecision presses itself against your eyes and forces them to face the cavernous night, you see no path through the knot of thorns. As you wander deeper into the thicket and feel too imprisoned to make any decision at all, you are choosing. Every moment, a choice. Every choice, riddled with unknown consequences.
Here is one more to consider: You choose to act with civility. Through the difficult conversations and the planning for life as a split family, you hold the best interests of your children close to your heart. You and your spouse put aside your own wild fantasies of fleeing, and you remain living close to one another. You share custody through a complex arrangement that attempts to shield your children from the upheaval of a divided life.
You split most expenses right down the middle. Without a fight, you take on the extra burdens of time, meals, finances. You forego activities that could further your own prospects due to the intricate inter-dependency of the fragile threads weaving together each month’s calendar. You breathe through your disappointment with the unchanged patterns of your former spouse (and, to be fair, yourself). You surrender short-term control for the sake of long-term peace. You drive further, and let the other parent be closer to the school or the day care, and pay extra for the gymnastics lessons your ex claims he cannot afford. You keep spreadsheets of health care premiums and soccer fees and co-pays and preschool expenses.
You trust, even in the presence of overwhelming doubt.
In your parenting agreement, you hash out how each holiday and year will unfold. You make plans for paying for college and for putting money into savings accounts and life insurance to make sure your children are cared for even if one parent decides to give it all up and hitchhike to Vancouver. You agree to review the plan every year. The judge stamps the whole thick tome. With that act, the state holds you far more firmly to a family arrangement than a marriage certificate ever did.
You are never rid of anyone. Do not be fooled.
Tax time comes, and you believe you have prepared yourself for this. Only one parent can claim the children as dependents in any single year. You were so very thorough. You made sure to write into the agreement that you will claim the children in the odd years and your spouse will take the even years. Every other year, you will receive the tax break.
The first year is no problem, because you were still married for most of it, and you are still on speaking terms with the ex. It is easier simply to stay married for filing and split the burden. Then, you begin to organize materials for the year to come. As you sort and sift through tax law, you pull the lid off a foul-smelling bit of news.
Only the parent who claims the dependent child can claim the childcare tax deduction. So, even though you will be spending thousands of dollars to ensure your kids have safe care while you are at work, you can claim none of this as a deduction. The government simply assumes all your income is yours, and you are single and carefree. Does that injury need an insult? Well, here you go: because your strained income has no chance of covering a mortgage payment, you also do not receive a tax deduction for home ownership.
It’s okay, though. You can start a flexible spending account to pay for dependent care. This is what your HR office tells you. By using a pre-tax FSA , you can reduce your taxable income by the several thousand dollars you will be paying to the day care. The income the feds see as your own will be a few thousand less, and they will come at your wallet with a moderately smaller shovel in April. Knowing the exact amount you will be paying for childcare for the upcoming year and tracking every single expense by way of receipts are tasks you can handle. You have learned through the divorce that your mastery of administrative minutia rivals that of the Queen’s personal secretary.
Alas, fate and the IRS have not exhausted their arsenal of gags. Just when you have completed your page of calculations and are about to fill out the paperwork the nice lady at HR sent you, you dig down a little deeper into the tax law. It turns out that you cannot use an FSA for dependent care expenses if you do not claim the dependent children. Even if you are responsible for those children, and even if the state has given its stamp of approval to a legal document indicating you must pay 50% of all childcare expenses, you are still not able to use a flexible spending account.
Every other year, from now until your little ones outgrow after-school care, the feds will haul back and punch you right in the gut. It does you no good to see it coming. Your armor is strong, but the smack will still rattle your bones.
You spit a few curses into the ether, toss the paperwork into the recycling bin, and take another deep breath. This is an even-numbered year. You will simply need to prepare yourself to get slammed with the tax rate of a single, unencumbered person. In order to do so, you will need to live as if you are anything but.
You must remember this: a family is not the arcane configuration prescribed by the church, the court, or the congress. The laws were written by people who believed in the binary relationship between victory and defeat, between innocence and guilt. They also are charged with protecting those who cannot protect themselves. This is not you, your ex, or your children. You know your immeasurable power rests within the bond you continue to cultivate in this new arrangement of your life.
You do not need to win in order to win. No one needs to lose more than has already been lost. Remember you and your children’s other parent were able to craft a bespoke agreement that will hold all of you in its intricate folds. Because of your willingness to draw your own pattern upon the fabric of your family’s life, your children will never need to know it cost you every bit of currency you had in your pocket to create it. They will only know the reward from this complete commitment of resource. They will only need to enjoy the true, simple riches of what this unfolding version of family provides them.
Yes, your children will believe they have been wronged. From time to time, your former spouse will try to convince you of that same half-truth. Maybe in April every other year, you will yourself indulge for a day or three in fear and doubt and self-immolation.
It is okay. Trust will win out. Soon enough, you will open your eyes all over again to the bright, beautiful gift of this new life. Your children will have two civil, loving parents living near each other and adapting to changing times together. This gift will be theirs to cherish and squander as they see fit, as is the privilege of all children who grow up rooted in abundant love.
Learn your Stripes
When the foal is born, his mama positions herself between the other zebras and him so she can imprint him with her stripes. Pressing her unique fingerprint into his awareness is a necessary precaution fir those moments when a lion leaps from the grass. During the ensuing melee, the baby can zero in on the correct adult.
I wonder, though, if she is also memorizing him. It is hard to tell from pure observation if mares also imprint during those first moments. Mama zebras do not say “What beautiful stripes!” You do not see them clapping their hooves together and crowing, “You look so nice with that design. Awesome!” They are more dignified in the scrutiny of their young. The pattern is itself. Her foal, himself. Zebras do not waste their time taking the measure of the being. Seeing is the only act that matters.
Maybe it is time to bring a little Serengeti to our house.
Bug pads into my room on weekends just after sunrise, singing, “Good moaning, Mommy!” In his rumpled, happy daze, he climbs between the sheets with me. We read through his schoolwork from the week. I unfold a page covered in dots. “Tell me about this,” I say.
“It’s a marauders map. See? There is the Gryffindor common room, here are my footsteps, and Zee’s are there. . . “
“Oh. You drew footsteps.”
“Yep. And rain. Here, this is lightning,” he points.
Next is a picture of bunnies with an arithmetic problem in thick scrawl. I read it. “Two plus eight equals. . . ?”
“Ten. See? And there are two bunnies there. And that’s the Easter Bunny’s house.”
“I see dots inside.”
“Those are all his Easter eggs.”
We go through like this, a dozen papers in all. I am learning to quiet the impulse to declare the things “great” or “cool” or “well done.” I simply ask, “What is this?” I describe what I see, or ask Bug to explain to me what he sees.
Part of the game change around here is to begin mirroring my kid without judgment. This involves stilling the urge to assess his actions in any way, either positively or negatively. No more tepid, knee-jerk praise. “Good job” has overstayed its welcome. I send it packing, along with “awesome” and “nice work.” My preferences and my assessments need not be factors in my son’s pursuits. What matters first is what is happening, and second, the thing that follows. My job now is to put names to these occurrences and help the kiddo link chains of events. He and I can work through correlation and causation. As I help him see and reflect, I aim to let go of judgment’s illusion of control.
This approach to parenting may be so cock-eyed that it will backfire on me. Without giving my son a pat on the back for appropriate behavior, how will he be able to navigate the complicated choices before him? I do not have a clear answer to this. All I have is a sense that it is time for me to right the balance. My capacity to be critical and demanding is so well-honed, I tend to cut off parts of people who venture too close. Bug is never going to suffer as a result of my lazy discipline. The standards I lug around are exacting enough, thank you very much. It is time for Bug to tend to the cultivation of his own.
Let’s be honest. Bestowing and withholding praise are both well-meaning (if ill-conceived) attempts to shape my son to believe what I believe and like what I like. As most kids do, he is apt to learn both to crave my approval and recoil from it. Both are dangerous motivators. Do I really want Bug to be at the mercy of my capricious tastes and mercurial moods? Surely, I do not want to set my son up to swing between chasing down his parents’ admiration and rebelling against it. I want to protect him from, not make him susceptible to, peer pressure, charm, the controlling impulses of the more self-assured, and abuse. I am all too familiar with the tendency of approval -seeking children to grow into acceptance-hungry adults, clutching at wisps of praise as insubstantial as sugar floss in a sweaty grip.
Self-reliance and self-awareness are muscles requiring a steady buildup over time. My kid has to decide for himself how he will read the landscape. As he grows more independent and spends more time away from the brood, he needs the wherewithal to calibrate his own moral compass. Have I taught him to see clearly? Does he know how to assess his own developing stripes, to read his own moods and feelings, to sense in his own gut what is right and wrong?
Here comes the zebra, wandering back into the frame. She pauses to graze. One eye is on the distant field, keeping that tiny foal in her sites.
Her approach is worth a shot. I step back. I gaze at my offspring gazing back at me. He is both of me and separate from me. I release him to the grasses, surrender my grip, and just pay attention.
-“You put your shirt on by yourself.”
-“You threw a fork and it hurt mommy. I shouted. Now your body is curled up. Your face looks like this.”
-“You shared your grapes with that little girl, and she is playing with you.”
I only need to confirm what is already occurring, and try to help Bug’s developing brain consider his state of being. I can help him orient towards his own body and mind, the impact his actions are having, and the (possible) cause and effect of each choice. I can do all of this without pinning on the gold medal. By simply mirroring my son, rewards intrinsic to his behaviors resolve into view.
I believe in my child. I am actually learning to trust him. This is our journey together. As I resist the urge to judge, I allow Bug to watch and learn from my actions, speak his own perceptions, and draw his own conclusions. I also allow him to really see me, and to notice me noticing him.
When someone bears witness to our story, it lives more fully than it ever could when it is swimming inside of us. Because of this, the gift of attention confers both energy and serenity. I want Bug to be seen and known, exactly as he is in this moment. I want my son to hear his experience called back to him across the wide open spaces. I want him to see my pattern and know I am here, always, to help him orient himself. We hold each other, yes. Also, we are free to follow the unique angle of the wind to the source that calls us.
Propagation
It creeps down the side
of the credenza, spilling onto the shelves below
before climbing again, gaining purchase
in minute crevices where paint
appearing flat
is not.
The vine spawns more
vines, fat leaves
unfurling from a ration of soil
I dumped in the pot
a year ago.
I have trimmed it back
twice, down to the nubs,
sure if I allowed it to grow unfettered
it would burst its seams
and shrivel
in this dim office
cut by a narrow fraction of glass
facing north.
Yet it keeps coming back.
Curling around corners, heedless
of borders, it feeds off that old handful of dirt,
flaunting its green like the Amazon
canopy, thirsting for nothing
but sips from the tap.
Barring my scissors,
it would carpet the floors
drape the walls
drip from the ceiling
and steal down the back of my chair
until it could slip
inside my collar, whispering
against my throat
its secret
for licking at nothing
and still swelling
with a bellyful
of yes.
Shannon E. Williams 