Come live with me and be my love... ~ Christopher Marlowe

Tonight, with the spring breeze blowing gently through the windows and Adela running wildly in circles, exuberant over being let in on the secret, my best friend asked me to marry him. There was nothing triumphant or cathartic or particularly memorable about the moment -- it was just another moment in our lives. But that's what made it so beautiful and so precious: after I said yes, Adela came up behind Rodney and hugged him while he hugged me, and then we went on with our night.

In thinking about this marriage and this life, and in navigating the undercurrent of change that runs through each one of our days, I am constantly amazed by the sense that there are already deeply defined footprints in the sand ahead of us -- indications that we've been here before, perhaps in my dreams, and have carefully marked our course.

We've traveled this path together. We've been here before, and we're okay.

Last year, as Rodney and I recovered from our loss, we had to find new ways to share our love and trust and vulnerability again as our grief receded. It was a more difficult journey for me; his pain came from my unreachable isolation. But gradually, as I was able to tuck the miscarriage into the folds of my mind and my heart, safe and protected and authentically mine, I let our friendship lead us forward. We know what we want, we're in this together, and we're up for the challenge.

What I love about this life is that even though he's just asked me to marry him, we're sitting side by side in the living room, next to the open window with the darkness outside, both silent and content. There are no bells and whistles here. Adela is sleeping soundly in the next room and soon we'll be off to bed. He knows I don't need anything fancy and he knows, as I do, that this is an ordinary night that will eventually blur into the busy chaos of our lives. And that's okay.

What he's asking for, and what I want to give us more than anything, are as many of these nights as possible, filled with the craziness of our days on the fray and the friendship and love we feel for each other right in the center of it all. It will take work, as anything worth having does, but it's work I've always wanted to do...and work I want to share with him.

We didn't do anything spectacular tonight -- we simply cemented what already feels solid and whole: our family. Tomorrow will be another day much like this one, packed with work and school and the familiar juggling act we'll never quite perfect no matter how hard we try.

But it's our life, and I can't think of anything worth having more than that.

~ Katie

Twilight drops her curtain down, and pins it with a star. ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

Yesterday at dusk, Adela leaned over and rested her head on my stomach. We were sitting in the very center ring of an outdoor observatory, staring into the wide and darkening blue.

The concrete seat, cold at my back, reclined enough that I could watch blackbirds streak across the sky like the tailends of blooming firecrackers, trailing shadowy wakes of negative space.

Quiet for a moment, Adela lifted herself and in warm green apple breath asked me to count to five by sixes. We discussed the possibility of this, her brown eyes comprehending, then she announced in a loud stage whisper -- appeasing the falling night, I'm sure -- that it was time for us to go.

The sun, now hastily tucking into its own raspy silence, ignited the sky with pink as we drove home.

I emailed a friend tonight who, like me, works full-time and raises a daughter. I shared that the hours between 5-7pm are the loneliest of all and wondered if she finds this to be true. For me, this shift marks a turning point in the day when all activity must gradually grind to a halt. It is the frustratingly impossible stretch when I squeeze evening meetings, errands, homework, dinner, bath, and bedtime books into the sleepiest part of my daughter's day. It is the solitary juncture when sunlight fades, the lights come on, and the front door closes for the night.

It is the time of day, for me, when everything left unsaid usually remains unsaid.

These are the hours I wish someone was here with me; sharing the load, loving the journey and, sometimes, showing me the way. But then, like now, my daughter rushes over and stands at my shoulder, bringing sprightly vitality into my tired, seated space. Her hair smells of playground and classroom and I can feel the buzz of youth under her skin.

She wants to know what I'm doing and reaches for my book with little pen-marked fingers, turning its heaviness over and over, her purple nail polish glinting and worn. Her interest is as solid as her energy in this moment and, for the time she is near, leaves no room for anything more.

In the overpowering felt splendor
every sane mind knows
when it realizes--our life dance
is only for a few magic
seconds...
- Hafiz

Last week, she came looking for me as she was getting ready for bed. "Mom," she said, rubbing her eyes and standing there her pajamas, "I feel like I need something....but I don't know what it is."

She is just a child, I remind myself, when the spark of wisdom I see flashing in her eyes floats airily out of her mouth. And I know she's got a lot of ground to cover on foot before her wings unfurl and take her into the sky. But in these tiniest of instances, when time hangs suspended between day and night and it's just the two of us drifting in the transitional space, I know exactly what she means.

~ Katie
Poem from The Gift, by Hafiz, p. 259

For my friend, Alice...

Come on mothers, let's go down, down in the river to pray. ~ Alison Krauss

Only once, and then in a dream,
I watched while secretly
and with the tenderness of any caring woman,
a cow gave birth
to a red calf, tongued him dry and nursed him
in a warm corner
of the clear night
in the fragrant grass
in the wild domains
of the prairie spring, and I asked them,
in my dream I knelt down and asked them
to make room for me.

From Ghosts, by Mary Oliver

Last month, before my surgery, the nurse came in and told me it was time for one final ultrasound. The doctor wanted to be sure, because I wanted to be sure, that we were doing the right thing. I knew for certain, because I'd seen it with my own eyes and dreamed it as soon as the miscarriage started, that the baby wasn't alive. But, surgery is a scary thing and having waited two weeks in agony, hoping my body would let go of what couldn't live, I was tired, lost, and needed reassurance.

But, as she prepped my bed to wheel me upstairs where they'd run the wand along my stomach one last time, I couldn't do it. Stop, I cried. No, I pleaded. I cannot look at another screen and NOT SEE A HEARTBEAT! Please don't take me, I begged, I can't do this. Please. Just take me to surgery. I need this to be over.

Then, I was left alone. My boyfriend was sick. My parents were out of town. My dear family friend had left my bedside to pick up my daughter who, blessedly, had no idea her mother was howling and bleeding in the hospital.

Three hours of solitude unwound, filled with unfamiliar smells and rough linens, voices and stories I didn't want to hear but that slipped, eventually, from the periphery of my mind as I faded in and out of sleep. The painkiller was working. The contractions had stopped. And, from time to time, the nurse discreetly pulled back my curtain to lay a hand on my leg and change my sheet.

I was moved twice as the rooms closed and space was made for others, and then it was my turn. In they came, took hold of the bed railings, and spoke quietly to me as they rolled me away from my curtained nook and into the hallway, carefully folding over the soaked-through sheets to protect others, I suppose, from seeing my body's most public display of loss.

The doctor came in and addressed the family sitting to my left, assuring them that I was going to be okay. It was just a matter of time, he said, this was routine. They, and I, corrected him -- I was alone -- and he need talk only to me, which he did, as I cried and told him how wretched I felt but how at peace I was with the decision we'd finally made.

The rest of my team came in, wrapped my legs, checked my IV, whispered their deepest sympathies, and took me away. Moments later, I was asleep.

My aunt arrived to care for me and to guide me through the next couple of days, gently urging me to eat and picking me up off the floor when I lost consciousness. She held my elbow, helped me in and out of the car, and made me laugh with threats of further injury if I wouldn't SIT DOWN ALREADY.

Weak from the ordeal, I did little for three days. Adela went to her dad's house, my aunt brought me home and, like the tolerant family member she is, cleaned the guinea pig cage. I sat on the couch and ate toast while she drank her soda and let me cry.

The following Monday, life began again. I went back to work and within two days' time Adela started first grade. My energy was low, my patience was thin, but my love for her and all of her youthful sweetness was heart-bursting. I felt gratitude for her sleeping little body splayed pinwheel-like on her bed, and I looked into her dark brown eyes, feisty and sharp, and found a sense of wholeness and completeness.

Where, I wondered, shall I store this loss?

A few weeks later, I dropped in on my parents. It was a Saturday night and they were home, just getting ready for bed. With all the force of a volcanic eruption I exploded, surprising even myself. Standing in their doorway and feeling like a stranger, I screamed my loss into the silence of the room and into the silence of the neighborhood. I wept as my anger surged, stewing and boiling and forcing its way out. With shocked white faces, they tried to put my feelings into perspective -- lots of women have miscarriages, it's not your fault -- but I couldn't bear the easy slotting of my pain into everyday tragedy. Not just yet. And so I yelled and heaved and cursed my challenges at them and then....I walked out. Back into the night. Shaking my head and making a beeline for my car, refusing to come back.

And this, the violent pushing away of everyone who should have HELPED, who should have STOPPED IT, who should have HELD MY HAND, began, clear-cutting a path through the pillars of my life for one stated reason or another, felling them one-by-one and leaving me alone with my pain.

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

From In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver

I'm learning that it's okay to let certain fields of my life burn; to let flames blacken whole sections, curling and crisping every little thing in their path until there is nothing left. I'm learning that it's okay to let these fields lie fallow, charred as they are, in await of the rain and the goodness that the earth and sun will eventually bring -- elements that give life its first breath when it's time. I tell myself: it's okay to hurt. It's okay to be angry and to feel loss and to tread, ever so tenderly, around each new corner. It is okay.

This isn't over entirely but it is now tucked deeply within, wrapped in ribbons of peace and softening memory. And even though life has barreled forward in its blissful, bull-like way, I'm still a bit raw on the inside and ragged on the outside, grateful my decisive shoving didn't yield too much loss that hasn't been regained. I'm disappointed and I'm hurt, but I will not inflict any further loss on myself or on the people I love.

In my hand this morning, I hold a small shiny stone. It is brown, flecked with gold, and sits lightly in my palm. I bought it among other tiny treasures for Adela when I visited Bend, Oregon, this summer during the earliest weeks of my pregnancy. I've been holding the stone all morning, sliding it into my cycling glove during a ride, placing it on the bathroom counter while I showered, and tucking it into the folds of my shirt while I write.

In a few moments, I will ride my bike to the park while holding the smooth warm stone in my hand. I will find a spot by the river, bring the stone to my lips, and let it slip into the water.

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

From At Blackwater Pond, by Mary Oliver

~ Katie
All poems from New and Selected Poems, Volume One, Mary Oliver, 1992.

Epilogue: These stories aren't for everyone, and I'm not even sure why I share them. Please be gentle with me...and thank you for reading :)

Now comes the long blue cold and what shall I say but that some bird in the tree of my heart is singing. ~ Mary Oliver

This week, I am reminded how often our bodies carry secrets our lives are able to shield from the dozens of eyes upon us, and how thickly masked our grief can be, even from those who search our faces with compassion.

I never intended to have another child. In fact, I hadn't even left the hospital with Adela before I'd decided one was enough. Perhaps it was the stress of my pregnancy, or the difficulty of delivering her, but it was true and certain in my heart and mind that one child was all I'd have.

So when I found myself pregnant again, my mind instantly re-wired with a whole new set of realities and I prepared myself to love and learn about this second little being. I felt the same peace I had while carrying Adela, my worries hiding a sense that everything was going to be ok. I knew that this time, too, my body was strong and ready -- everything was in check.

I went straight into preparation mode, knowing full well the impact a baby has on a life. I told some of my closest friends and my parents so I wouldn't have to hide the daily turmoil of early pregnancy. My boyfriend and I ricocheted from one conversation to the next, looking for ways to balance our excitement with our fears.

I made doctor appointments, did the necessary blood work, began eating a variety of different foods, and shared the news with my employer. I slowly started putting the building blocks in place for this next life-changing adventure.

And at night, while I lay in the dark, I listened to my body with an ear that hears only the inaudible sounds of the universe working its magic. I felt pride in that sense of creation that comes when a life is nesting deep and sheltered within. Everything felt safe.

Mary Oliver, in her poem Sometimes, writes:

I don't know what God is.
I don't know what death is.
But I believe they have between them
some fervent and necessary arrangement.

Last week, as I embarked upon the agonizing journey of miscarriage, I settled in close to the space where life and death meet within the body. My senses, which had been so attuned to the profound process of knitting together a life, switched into helplessly monitoring the unraveling and undoing of a death.

At first I found that tender sweet spot inside of myself where I knew all would eventually be well. I knew the universe was caring for me, even while dismantling my pregnancy. And I knew that the baby, unknown to me for good, was following its own path and that its intersection with mine, though brief, was meaningful in some way. Despite the sharpness I felt inside and out, I saw the roundness of things I know to be true and I repeated to my mother in a voice message, "It's over, mom, but I am good. I am good. I am good."

And then, as if my ethereal harnessing of sorrow wasn't enough, that tender sweet spot cracked as the physical manifestation of this next phase took hold and the visceral grief began filtering in, slowly at first, and then as a rush of anger and desperation. "I didn't even have a SAY in the MATTER!" I screamed to myself as I did the dishes one night, shocked by the overwhelming force of an emotion I rarely feel. And just tonight, as I got Adela ready for bed and wished again for the bodily pain of this loss to subside, I suddenly realized that when the pain stops...it really will be over. All of this will be over. There won't be anything else to hold on to or feel. It will be gone.

And yet, in moments, I feel an odd sense of communion with the nature of things. This giant secret now ravaging the usual peace of my body, carving deep troughs through my every thought and emotion, is a devastating yet alarmingly sincere reminder that life goes on. Friends are traveling...colleagues are working...strangers are smiling...the world is turning. And whether it is life coursing through our veins or some sort of mutation of death, these very veins are meant to carry the current wherever it may lead.

I'm not ready, as Mary Oliver instructs, to put my lips to the world and live my life, but I am ready for tomorrow. I'm sorry that I won't meet this baby, and I'm sorry that my body continues to spike with the kind of pain that bears right down into the soul, and I'm sorry that this path I was excited to walk down with the people I love has disappeared into the wild. I'm sorry, too, that this grief sits deep in the center of those who have come forward to take my hand.

While Adela sleeps soundly in my bed tonight, transitioning gradually from one household to the other, I am grateful as ever that she's my daughter. And now more than before, watching her weave her way through her own young life, I am astonished by how persistent her little spirit must have been to have found its way into mine.

And so, as this next tiny life passes quickly through, pausing only long enough to bundle my affection and my commitment into a temporary home, I feel blessed to experience the range of wonders meant for me.

Thank you. Goodbye. I love you.............

~ Katie

Mary Oliver, Red Bird, Now Comes the Long Blue Cold (pg. 69); Sometimes (pg. 35); Mornings at Blackwater (pg. 57)

For a long time, she flew only when she thought no one else was watching. ~ Brian Andreas

At 22, with the engine of my profound unhappiness grinding into gear, I spent hour upon hour lost in daydreams. I imagined surviving my heavy depression by picking up trash on the streets of Berkeley, sleeping in a friend's double-door closet, and spending a year in total silence. This was at the point, of course, when my meals were rice cakes and I passed the time studying nude black and white photographs in dusty neighborhood bookshops, searching for my body in print.

I couldn't understand the world or my place in it, and knew full well that the spinning earth would not stop for me. And so I decided I would stop myself for the earth -- to breathe and be still. The streets, I figured, would offer up lessons I needed to learn; the closet would cramp and confine me, keeping me safe; and silence would allow me to decipher the thick clatter in my head before it came tumbling out, embarassing me.

It was during this time that I roamed the moonlit streets of Berkeley testing my naive yet vacuous state of being. A friend who waited tables at a local hole-in-the-wall would let me in after hours and steam milk for me, carefully pouring it into a tall clear glass and straining everything out but the foam which I'd eat with a spoon. He would offer me left-over berry pie which I'd fervently decline, choosing instead to walk back out into the night to measure my footfalls against my shallow breath.

Looking back, this was not my best time. Clearly, I was lost. Fresh out of college and reeling from a disastrous relationship, I was back in my hometown with nothing more to do but cope quite destructively. I read Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf; wrote long, never-mailed letters to friends; and meandered down wooded paths searching for just the right hillside to carve a nest in. It occurs to me now that I was more animal than girl back then. If I could have used my hands to dig myself a home, I would have disappeared into the earth.

Years later, searching for myself in yet another bookstore, I found Anne LaBastille's memoir, Woodswoman. I was in recovery at the time, fresh out of the hospital, and looking for some sort of grounding. Entranced, I read how this woman's disappointment and displacement led her to build a cabin in the Adirondack wilderness. She was lost and then found, building a life for herself in an unfamiliar place. It was she who became more animal than woman, surviving in the dense and distant woods for 10 years, persisting on the wisdom that, "the forest remains; the skies keep twinkling; and human beings keep striving."

Shortly after reading Woodswoman, I became pregnant with my daughter and my wandering woodsy dreams galvanized into something else entirely.

For reasons I have yet to understand, these two distinct lifetimes keep playing over and over in my mind: months of quiet hibernation and literary trips to the forest. I must have something in common with these young, searching selves.

In the last couple of months, I have watched myself slowly slip away from friends, ideas, habits, recreation, ways of communicating, passions, even my sure-footed, hard-earned okay-ness. It's almost as though I have willingly sacrificed the walls that hold me together in order to fall completely apart. But why?

Another memory recurs -- sitting at a table with six women: four eating disorder patients and two counselors. On this day, I vascillated between the two roles, pleading with my fellow patients to let go in order to hold on. I remember saying, "Sometimes you have to say goodbye to everything in order to find the one thing that will keep you going." I went on, "I've lost my home, my relationships, my friends, everything...and I'm still okay." Their resistance was the same as mine had been once: if I lose everything, surely that will be the end of me, too. Not true, I said. Lose everything and find yourself.

Lose everything. And find yourself.

It's hard being a mom and remembering at the end of the day that I matter, too. It's almost as if I battle with my own life, fighting even the people around me just to hear myself speak. I constantly wonder: is anyone listening? Does anyone care? The good news is that the loneliness that once sliced through me like violent lightning is now nothing more than a ghost limb, itching and burning with distant sensations every once in a while. I am wounded but intact, surprised sometimes by how balanced I've become.

The feeling of being lost within my own life, though, has returned with a ruthless force, only now the paths I once imagined might deliver me back into my body and my mind are blocked. A vow of silence is no longer practical: how would I cajole Adela into bed at night if not with a frustrated tone? Disappearing into the woods is no longer an option when kindergarten Open House is this Thursday. Voluntarily collecting trash, no matter how meditative, isn't going to put food on the table. And sleeping in a closet, while womblike and warm, will -- let's face it -- alarm my daughter. Even nighttime walks, as necessary as they once were (and still are, damn it), aren't possible after bedtime if no one else is around to bear the responsibility.

What I've decided, after ample afternoons of weeping, is that my lost self isn't just going to reappear. There is no way it can. I haven't taken a wrong turn or misplaced my map. No, I've gone far beyond a simple misstep or navigational error. I'm lost, well and good. The woods are dark, I have no idea how I got here, and the sunlight that once streamed brightly through the trees, illuminating my way forward, has dimmed to a shadowless blur.

If I had any energy at all, I might cry out or send up a flare through the canopy overhead. But right now I am too tired, too broken down, too mired in discouragement to call for help. I shall wait this out instead and hope that the people who love me -- and there are many -- will still love me when I find my way back.

Tonight, after wringing my soggy self out over the phone with a friend, I wearily picked up Adela from daycare. Sensing my exhaustion she said, "Let's play the quiet game, mom." And so we did. All the way home.

~ Katie

Woodswoman, Anne LaBastille, 1976, page 276

And for no reason, I turn into a leaf that is carried so high I kiss the Sun's mouth and dissolve. ~ Hafiz

February was a month of madness, a wounding time I am nudging behind me with this big wet stretch of March pouring in and storming down. With a few weeks of distance, I can now distill those 28 days into 28 words, better than fleshing them out into skin and bone and watching them lurk around again: skunk deaths and skunk nightmares, biopsy for me, strep for her, the uprooting of things and people and friendships, a sad sort of alienation, and too many medical bills. And then February moved on.

I think I finally broke through it when I turned to a friend and said, "I am not ok."

Since then I have wrapped myself in work and in tea parties and in the lovely little musings of my daughter who starts and ends each day earnestly singing to herself in the mirror. To look out into the world through her loving and trusting eyes is my secret weapon when morning bears heavily down. And sometimes, in cavernous moments still echo-y from sleep, I see myself as she does and I breathe. And begin my day.

This month, with this latest batch of oddities disappearing behind me, I am grateful for the rain and the wind and the hail that stings my face. And for the great combustion of storm-blackened clouds and the adrenaline sheeting down in slick slivers from the sky. I am alive, the weather reminds me. I am here.

And
For no reason
I start skipping like a child.
(Hafiz)

I read recently that the onset of adulthood brings with it the unfurling of a permanent sort of ambiguity. In my mind, this indefiniteness is a thickening layer of maturity spread grout-like between the tiles of life's untouching squares, binding them together while keeping them apart. It plagues me now, this sensation that I can't find space within myself to store these bits of my past for good, airtight and out of sight. Have I run out of room already? I have learned not to sweat the small stuff, but the big stuff gleams from my skin, obvious and loud. There is no settling into this growing and raucous uncertainty, it seems, when life folds into itself.

I wonder why I choose to feel so responsible, then, positioning myself directly on one side of this indivisible expanse and leaving the other side blank and clean. Why am I so quick to forgive my favorite friends their mishaps and my sweetpea her tiny yet pitched indiscretions, but not myself these bumbling decisions year in and year out? I wonder when I will be free of this when it is already so free of me. And there, in that question, lies the burden of my own responsibility staring quite frankly back.

And yet, life goes on, no matter what I pause to consider or improve. In an instant, March will be April and April will be May and May will deliver us into summer. Tomorrow there will be work to do, and I will feel relieved for it. Adela will awaken with her feisty fire stoked and burning and I will fasten my mood to her spirit. I will cut strawberries for her lunch and pour cheerios into a bowl. I will search my calendar for breaks in the day and plan my ride around lunch. I will drive us up the hill; she will sing and I will smile and sip my tea. I will work, shift into reverse as the day reaches its tipping point, and do it all again.

If I am glad for anything -- and I am glad for a lot -- it is the simple, stunning wonder of a day lived in the best way I know how to live it. I may not know my heart from my mind or from my soul, and I may spend too much time chasing away my circular sadness, but I know how to love. And that is something I do marvelously well, in spite of it all, day after day.

~ Katie

Title quote from The Gift, Poems by Hafiz, 1999

Life is eternal, Love is immortal, and Death is only a horizon, and a horizon is only the limit of our sight. ~ from the collection, Apples of Gold

While writing my grandma's eulogy last month, I marveled at how this woman, who had for years been a fixed entity of grandma-ness in my mind, was now coming alive and taking on sights and sounds and colors and resonances I'd never associated with her. She was, right before my very eyes, becoming somebody's mother, somebody's long-lost lover, somebody's life-long friend...someone who would find a way to give her family the gift of her life even after her death.

My grandfathers, all three of them, passed away several years ago. When I leaned over to kiss my last grandfather goodbye, my unborn child kicked and squirmed within me, reminding me that life has a shape - and it is round. I've lost an uncle, friends, neighbors, a childhood crush. I've said goodbye to some and why to others. And sometimes, when the clouds part and join above me, I look up into the windy sky and say hello.

Losing my grandma was different. Sharing pictures of my daughter's birthday party with her, passing chocolate truffles around her hospital bed, and finally, blowing kisses into her darkened room from the hallway, my family and I weren't shepherding her toward the end of her life but letting her know that her life would go on. And in writing our memories and public goodbye, selecting just the right psalm to print on her memory card, and sifting through her neatly hung clothes to find the outfit she would rest in at last, I found a woman I wished I'd known all along.

After her funeral, as we sorted through her things, removing them carefully from places they'd belonged for years but would never be again, I found a book of poems and quotes sitting on a shelf in the corner. I opened it and read, "A mistake is evidence that someone has tried to do something." I closed my eyes, hugged the book to my chest, and told my family I'd be taking it home because I realized, in that moment, grandma wasn't done speaking to me.

Just tonight, ready to write a bit about her life and our loss, I picked up the book again. The inside front cover reads, "Wishing you every special joy, today and every day," and just below these words, "From:" followed by a blank space. She didn't have to sign her name to let me know that this collection of life's lessons on love and loss and faith and goodness is from her. She knows I have a lot to learn.

And so, grateful for the quiet moments this little volume of wisdom and pencil scribbles will bring me as my life goes on without her, I thank my grandma for showing me that grace is a choice, faith is a gift you give to yourself, and chocolate is as necessary as breathing.

~ Katie
Quotes from "Apples of Gold," compiled by Jo Petty, 1962