Happy Solstice. Or rather welcome. Here we stand in the shortest and darkest day of the year. And boy is it dark in Seattle. Record rains are swamping the land.
Living in the north most region of the western United States, we have many literal dark days. Every winter I say this is my last as I crave sunlight and dry earth. Every summer, I sink back in and stay for another. Rain typically means snow in the mountains and snow in the mountains means my greatest pleasure, skiing. Not this season, not yet. This year it’s rainy, dark and warm.
Anyway, this missive is not a weather report, well, not a literal one at least.
This past August a young woman, who Wolf taught during her educator days, texted us and asked if we would take her unborn child. She had turned twenty just days earlier, is the mother of two kids ages 5 and 2 ½, and was pregnant with another.
This was unexpected to say the least. At 51 and 52, we had locked the door on that chapter of our lives. There was sorrow in that and also peace. I had never wanted children enough to manifest them so, here we were, stepping towards our elder-ness and embracing our lives as there were.
Yet, we said YES, for three reasons.
One, we had always said if a baby showed up on our doorstep, we’d keep it. Two, when the universe opens a door that wide, you walk through. Three, we tapped into the power and desire of wanting to Mother.
We instantly took this young woman and her two children into our lives. We met several times of week for playground dates, helped her with her resume and interviewing skills, offered guidance and support where needed, and filled their and our lives with love, laughter and possibility.
We found an Attorney and began taking the steps to adopt a child and become parents. I was completely freaked out about so many things. The expectations of expecting woke up hidden or, perhaps better-stated, squashed desires. I felt an urgency to do everything I dreamed about and was not fulfilling. I looked at my and Wolf’s relationship and saw all the places untended, like a garden overgrown with weeds, as I habitually looked outside of myself and Wolf lived more deeply inside. I knew there was work to do and we needed to start immediately.
Mostly, when I calmed my anxiety and the panic of putting off dreams, I tapped into the deepest joy. Pure light rising from the depths of my solar plexus in a rush of bubbles, bigger than champagne bubbles, more like a bubble bath of giddy, raw, unadulterated, untethered joy. I was buoyant. I was overflowing. I was going to know the secret of life.
Then, she miscarried. She told us in text. The same way she told us she was pregnant. We were having brunch in Berkeley with Wolf’s family. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to run down the concrete, tree-less street as far away from everybody I was with, even Wolf. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t imagine how I would manage the flood of burst bubbles. Instead I did nothing. I sat there eating my huevos rancheros like this thing, this possibility of such a different life, had never happened.
We flew home that night and the next day sat on the sidewalk with the young woman. As her kids napped inside, we went through the various stages of grief in rapid succession. During the bargaining phase, we told her, “it’s okay you miscarried”, (she was feeling terribly guilty), “we can keep your other children.” I know. WTF. There’s no humility in grief bargaining.
She seemed to entertain the idea for a moment. Parenting has been nothing but challenges for her. Then, she went in her house and came out with her four-month-old puppy, whom I neglected to mention earlier, and said “you can keep her.”
The puppy, not potty trained, never walked, neglected more than the kids but just by a bit, came home with us. During those months of play dates and coaching sessions, we learned of a puppy and had the puppy join us on our outings. I barely remember her as Wolf was in charge of puppy and I was in charge of kids.
That night and the next day, we were overwrought. We went through every possible scenario of keeping her kids, her getting pregnant again, all of us living together and then we went on social media and discovered the truth, yes there was no hiding on her page, of the chaos of her life, the multiple fathers, the possessiveness of a paternal grandmother, and instantly went into the hole of depression, despair and ultimately acceptance.
When I came up for air, there was puppy in front of me. She needed to be potty trained, leash trained and all the other trainings. She needed a name. And wait, she wasn’t ours. We had to give her back. We couldn’t take the kids, nor could we take the puppy, as they belonged to somebody else. If we wanted these things, we would need to manifest them for ourselves.
We gave the puppy back, taking another step deeper into the hollowing. Then she gave the puppy back as truth is, the kids, the puppy and even this young woman, they are all struggling. There is resentment, emotional neglect, uncertainty, all the things when witnessed I want to fix. Instead we got a puppy. And she is an amazing dog. She is good for our elder girl Shane. She is good for Wolf who is still feeling the loss of our boy dog Ben. And I am madly in love. Madly in love. Madly in love.
And, I remain too aware that down the street from us, actually all around us, people are suffering the way this young woman and her kids are suffering. And, me too. I suffer. And yet, in my lightest moment, I knew I was made of joy. And in darkest moment, I know there is light inside of me. And passion. Activism. Deep caring. Mostly I feel attuned to the fact that this current design isn’t suiting us. We’re isolated. We’re contending with record rates of loneliness, anxiety and depression. This is not how we are meant to be. Like our two dogs, we are pack animals and most of want to be as close together as possible.
It’s funny, not haha funny but odd funny, we tell women to keep their pregnancy secret until after the first trimester in case they miscarry, as if there is shame in miscarriage. There is no shame. I miscarried over a decade ago. Nobody should suffer it alone. Nobody should have a child they don’t want. A child shouldn’t be raising children without guidance from the community. At least that’s what I believe. I wish I could invite this family into my home to be my family. I won’t because I don’t really know how and they don’t know how to accept this offer. There so much going on that I am told isn’t mine to contend with.
I have literally been told by the young woman’s mother to ‘mind my own fucking business.’ If you know me, that’s more like invitation to step in then a door slammed.
As the days get longer and brighter, I recognize in the darkness, in the loss of this possibility, that I never lost my light. I was sad. I was grief stricken. It wasn’t worst loss I’ve ever known, nor will it be. What I realized is that I didn’t lose my way. What had me off course was denying or believing certain things weren’t in the cards for me. That I had aged out. As I get older, I struggle with choices I made because I was trained to run when I felt bad. I’ve run a lot. I’m an emotional Forrest Gump. And when I couldn’t run anymore, I learned to look away. Nothing could be more inauthentic than that.
Because this blog is political in nature, I will conclude with thoughts of politics. I often wonder what would have happened had 77,000 people in three states voted for Hillary. What if voters weren’t purged from the roles (still happening), if Russia didn’t meddle (still happening) and Facebook didn’t share fake news (also still happening) and of course, what if Hillary spent time in the Rust Belt, what would our lives be like now?
And I mostly feel we’d still be blind to the sorrows and pain of our brothers and sisters, to the screams from our Earth and I’d probably still be running. I absolutely believe she would have been a remarkable President, truly amazing, yet would we have stayed in the dark longer? And in this political climate, we know we’re in the dark. These days truly do feel dark in the deepest cruelty where too many are suffering huge injustices and yet, it feels like we are learning to find and shine the light on the path ahead.
I make no assumption about your relationship with darkness, the varying coping mechanism we all have, and how we deal when we aren’t able to see what comes next. All I know is these past years have been overwhelmed in bleak and these months personally sorrowful for me and Wolf, and yet, I keep the faith by searching for my light. Mostly I see it reflected in all of you.
So here’s to the darkest day and the brightness that is heading our way.
With love, deep gratitude and so much appreciation for each of you, my Wolf, Shane America and our little (actually quite big) Bluesy Cowbell Coyote America. And of course, to Nancy Pelosi.
Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy Kwanza, joy to the world, may we exude peace, and here’s living out our greatest visions in 2020.
:: Genessa
