The Hermit Thrushes are out en force on our hillside these days. They have come to embody the fullness of the Green Season in Vermont as well as in Maine. I love their etheric song. If home were a sound to me, it might be that. I am listening to them right now, in the woods that surround the clearing that our house sits on, and looking out at the pink-blue-purple-orange of another gorgeous late spring sunset. I can also see from this spot the new big cedar fence posts that Chris put in today framing out the new, much larger, and thankfully contained from the chickens, garden plot. It is something that we have been talking about for awhile but for me it has felt so theoretical that it wasn’t really until today, with the posts in and four yards of compost delivered, that I am beginning to feel some confidence that a space for me to plant and putz and dream and grow is actually about to emerge. It has me a bit giddy at the prospect. Like a door in my heart that I wasn’t quite sure could unstick itself open again is beginning to relax and release and finally, finally! letting a little light in.
Earlier in the week Wilfred had his six month evaluation with his speech and language providers through our school district. It was great in many regards: he is making headway. And yet what I have been digesting all week are terms and phrases such as 25%+ delay, and IEP, and disability. I do not experience him through the lens of terms and diagnostic verbage at all, and yet I understand it’s function and purpose and I do support it. But I am also concerned and pausing a little bit in my consideration of what it means for him within the wider scope of his life. I worry a bit, ya know?
He is so excellent, really. He just recently got his balance bike and is an absolute wiz on it just like Maple and Eider both were. Bold and little reckless and extra enthusiastic. Chris has been taking him some nights to the pump track out in Hyde Park and Freddy rides around and around and around for miles. It is incredible and he is beyond exhausted while at the same time never ready to quit. He was extra tired like that yesterday morning when I brought him to the weekly playgroup out in Johnson. He loves it there, and anywhere really where there are kids to play with and things to climb on. That seems to be a pretty reliable formula for Freddy Joy.
Yesterday there was a little bit of an older kid that we haven’t met before at the group. Maybe six or so years old. And right away he honed in on Freddy, grabbing things out of his hands, blocking him, pushing him. I just kept my eye on it. Wilfred is so cheerful and bright that he did a sweet job of shaking it off for the most part. Until of course he couldn’t. As I was beginning to gather our things up to head out I looked over and saw about 4 or 5 kids sardined into this little wooden train car and this kid just wailing on him. Punching and punching his chest while Freddy sat there, receiving each blow and crying. I ran over, called for the adults: Hey, its getting a little punchy over here! And his mom came over and grabbed him- I am holding wilfs at this point who is still sobbing, he sobbed the whole half hour drive home. And instead of looking at my kid, checking in with him and me to see if he is ok, apologizing for her kids behavior she instead tries to extract an apology from her son to Wilfred, which in my opinion is the exact fucking wrong thing to do. Totally useless and reinforces his shit behavior. And is such a perfect example of our aversion to connecting to one another’s humanity or taking any ownership of action. It is of far greater effect for her to reach out with actual empathy and concern for my kid, and in doing so model to her own what behavior is appropriate and necessary. She never even made eye contact with me. And her kid never really got to experience what it is to have genuine regard for someone else’s feelings and wellbeing.
It pissed me off. And I was already tender and part numb, as I am sure most of us are this week. Probably, maybe, this other mother too. Freddy cried the whole way home and I did too, for my own kid who maybe was picked on because he is such a cutie bright light or maybe because he can’t really talk in a way that other kids can understand. But I also cried, and keep on crying for all of my kids and all of the kids and all of us really who are on our own in a world that doesn’t give a fuck about our health or our wellbeing or our safety.
I know it is about guns this week. Just like every other week. I think that I am finally really beginning to understand the degree to which it is all the same thing: all of these problems, regular ‘ol atrocities that we co-exist with on the daily, are the same. At least the root cause is. Power over versus power with or power of or power for. Anti-abortion legislation, corrupt gun laws riddled with loopholes, pervasive cultural misogyny, racism, anti-trans bills, growing anti-asian and anti-semitic sentiment. The patriarchy depends on the clear and concise delineation of this versus that. They need the binary: of gender, of race, of class. It is an implicit necessity for the power over dynamic to function. It is not about regard or concern for anything other than that which lines their pockets and ensures the perpetuation of the machine that is Modern America. We have a standard to uphold, after all.
I am gutted this week. I think we all are. Jesus I fucking hope we all are.
Every time Maple hopped in the car this week, she’d flip the radio off first thing. Insulating herself from it a little bit I guess… It is so regular, you know? Just what happens in America. And we are so accustomed that even our trauma response is recognizable. We feel hopeless and overwhelmed, we feel pissed and ambitious, we feel numb. Rinse and repeat indefinitely with each passing news cycle. We know what we have to bear. She said that none of her teachers really even mentioned the shooting in Uvalde this week. I guess I understand that. How do you talk to kids about something that you cannot protect them from? They know better. No one has their backs after all. They were never promised to be kept safe in this system, only taught how to hide in classrooms and construct barricades with school supplies. So I get why this one wasn’t processed and instead is left to fester and corrode any of their hope that may, by some impossible grace, remain.
It seems that the only real space to occupy in this landscape is one of post-hope. As though that were a mood that applied to a different world entirely, one made up of summer gardens and easy afternoons on the lake, or, at other times of year, perhaps a casual winter ski. But hope is not something that can be left to apply to having a home, having a body, having a life that is ever ours to simply live. As though that might in and of itself be enough. Amid the grief of this post-hope apocalypse I am endeavoring to work a bit with following my feelings down into their dark origins and balancing that with some clear action items. Here is some of what I have so far:
Donate to Mom’s Demand Action and text ACT to 64433 to get set up with your local chapter.
Donate to the City of Uvalde’s fund for the victim’s families.
Contact your legislators to demand common sense gun reform.
Talk openly with your friends and family: if they or you have firearms at home, are they securely kept in locked and restricted access safes?
Attend your local school board meetings and make your voice heard regarding every single issue that effects the safety and wellbeing of all of our children.
Self-care in not selfish and everyone needs an ally. Motherwort tincture is an excellent plant friend for attending the particular anxiety that lives inside of grief. I find these strategies immensely important when the overwhelm and hopelessness creeps in. (and yes 100% cbd+thc and R E S T)
Do not shy away from your pain my dears. Let it stir the action that lives inside of your rage and heartbreak.
So, in an effort to not let the cultural numbing agents drip their soporific forgetfulness into my heart and soul, I am working to stay up close to our collective pain. The art and poetry coming out of this time are helpful to me in that effort. One of my best poetry buds shared the following poem this week. It hits hard and right and true.
By Katie Bogue
”It's going to be within, like 40 minutes or something, (within) an hour"
Go to the hospital when contractions are 5 minutes apart
labor for 390 minutes
push for 120 minutes
the nurses say the baby will want to feed every 60 minutes
(it feels like he’s feeding every 11 minutes)
you sleep for about 240 minutes every night, never in a row
the pediatrician tells you screen time is 20 minutes, max—but you maybe push it to 30 (or 50)
if their morning snack gets pushed back by 23 minutes they won’t take their nap (you need them to take their nap) and it throws off their whole day
it takes them 17 minutes to tie their shoes, 9 minutes to ask a question, 13 minutes to drive with you to school, 4 seconds to say “I love you.”
So, officer are you saying they were in terror for 40 minutes or 1 hour?
were they huddled together in classrooms for 47 minutes or 56?
were they bleeding their precious lives on to the sticky floor for 35 minutes or was it 37?
how do you leave a single minute vaguely addressed when we’ve accounted for every second of their lives