This summer, exactly one month before I got pregnant, I had a conversation with a girlfriend I’ve known for forever. There’s nothing quite like an old friend, is there? Not just because they are a constant, despite how frequently or infrequently your conversations might be but also, maybe most importantly, because they are there to remind you of who you’ve been and who you are deep down. While I’m glad to have lost touch with the party girl this friend knew me to have been, the one who was ready on any given Monday through Sunday to shut down our local bar, our conversation this summer brought me back to a me I had forgotten about.
Love you, E.
As we talked about our lives that day, she reminded me of the Julia I once was: confident as all hell that I would be a mother of as many kids as I wanted. I had forgotten that my stock answer back in my 20’s to the question “Do you want kids” was always “Kids? Hell, I want a whole soccer team!”. 15 years and one miscarraige plus a year of “trying” afterwards, after watching countless friends “breeze” through (no, I know it still wasn’t easy) getting pregnant and countless others struggle deeply, that level of abundance we desperately waning. But hearing that reminder struck me. I texted her afterwards:
“Man…hearing you talk about how I always used to say I wanted a soccer team…that did something for me. I needed to hear from that youthful (albeit ignorant) Julia who was so damn confident. I’ve been stuck in a bit of scarcity thinking (‘Please just let us have one! Please!’) and that feeling of abundance, of openness is gone but today, I saw it again. Thank you. I love you.”
What to Expect When You’re Expecting or Trying #1: You Never Know Who’ll You’l Be
Whether pregnant or trying, you just never know. 20 something Julia would have told me not to worry, that I was destined to be a mother. 34 year old Julia felt each month’s passing, each grey hair popping up as a sign that maybe I wasn’t destined to be anything. I had watched friends go through similar situations to ours, joy, heartbreak, trying again and from the outside, it looked so simple. I just knew it would all work out for them but translating that optimism to us wasn’t as easy. Imagine wanting something so incredibly badly for your entire life, having it, losing it and starting back from square one again, never to know where you’ll end this time around. Like I said before, it’s a game of Chutes and Ladders.
Sunrise, sunset. Start again tomorrow.
The first time I was pregnant, I knew exactly who I would be. I had been planning for her for decades and that optimism (though tainted by not getting pregnant on our very first try) was there. I’d eat perfectly, exercise every single day and power through any feelings of nausea of hormonal rage. I’d be the perfect pregnant woman. Reality looked a little different, a little more like sleeping fitfully for 3 hours a night and waking up at 3 am to eat 7 packets of fruit snacks while manically organzing our medical supplies. A little more like feeling so nauseaous that the idea of exercise was laughable and just the idea of something sweet broke a tears dam I’d apparently built inside of me. I was exactly as I’d planned: perfectly pregnant.
This time around, I gave up my idea of perfection and just went for good enough. I ate what I could stomach which ranged from fruit to…fruit and carbs. Bread on bread with a side of bread? Yes please. My pants were tight within a week. The only time I felt a semblance of the nausea giving up was when I was eating so, I was often eating. Still, I was lucky enough to be sleeping like a damn rock for 8+ hours a night and felt OK enough to do a little exercise every day. Until we hit the road and all semblance of routine flew out the window of our tightly packed car. Donuts for breakfast? Yep.
The healthiest it got. Cheese sandwich.
Looking back now, yes, I wish I would have been “better”. Less sugar, more vegetables but when I put myself back in that place, the idea of a salad made me want to vomit so I have to be proud of any vegetable I got down, even if it was in pickle form. You never know who you’ll be once you get to whatever stage you’ve anticipated. I thought I’d be cool while “trying”. I was not. I thought I’d be “perfect” while pregnant. I was not. I was me, both times, and always. So, do your damndest not to judge others or yourself. We are all just doing our best.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting or Trying #2: There Will Always Be a Next Thing to Worry About
Like I said, I was anything but cool once we started trying. I’ve never been someone who can just sort of care. I’m all the way in, once I’m in and like a dog circling it’s bed for the perfect spot to snooze, it took me a moment to decide if I was truly ready for this thing I’d been wanting all my life. I am an overthinker extraordinnaire but, once we really sat down and made sure we were sure, I was ready to become a mother right then and there. It doesn’t quite happen like that. Enter: worry. Am I fertile? Is he fertile (something that took me WAY too long to ask. I immediately assigned blame to my reproductive prowess, or lack thereof. In the end, everything was assumedly fine on both ends BUT I encourage you to equally investigate both sides of the equation, should need be)? After becoming pregnant, the worry of fertility fell away and I felt completely at ease.
No, no, that’s not right.
I felt worried again. Was that twinge I felt OK? Was I working out too hard? How out of breath is too out of breath? When do I sleep on my side? What about the wine I drank before knowing I was pregnant? Did I ruin everyting??? Miscarrying fulfilled all those worst case scenario fears. It checked all the terror boxes.
This time around, for reasons I can’t explain, I did feel an incredible, overarching calm come over me once I knew I was pregnant. I knew deep down that everything was OK. When we went for genetic testing, I knew it was OK. When we went for our anatomy scan, I knew we were OK but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been completely terrified many times in between (and during each of those experiences).
Like when I was in the hospital, all alone, round two
In fact, about 1 week to the day before our next appointment (they are scheduled one month apart right now) I start to panic. Each appointment seems to bring us up to a milestone. First it was the first time we saw the heartbeat. Next it was hearing the heartbeat. Next it was entering the second trimester. Then it was the first kicks, felt on Christmas morning. Next it was seeing the baby in 3D (terrifying. The babe resembled more of a melted baby crayon since they were partying so hard in there). Next it will be entering the third trimester in the coming month.
With every milestone, I tell The Chief “This makes me feel better now” and with every milestone, he knows it’s only a certain amount of time before it wears off and I need another for comfort. The baby kicking has been utter magic. The baby not kicking as often lead me to tears, tears comforted by our midwife who reassured me the baby has plenty of room to head towards my back where it’s harder to feel the kicks for a while. Still, the worry, it’s constant and it never goes away (or so I’m told). Not when the baby is born. Not when the baby sleeps through the night or becomes a toddler and walks on their own or becomes a teen and drives away for the first time. If nothing else, this process has taught me that I am officially in control of…nothing. I think I feel the nausea returning.
What to Expect When You’re Expecting or Trying #2: Nothing Stays the Same
Before miscarrying, my cycles were a little wonky but overall, consistent enough. After miscarrying, they were utter insanity. Nothing stays the same. Once we conceived this time, my love affair with strawberries was constant for one month. Daily baskets of berries were my bounty of choice. I haven’t had one in months. The day my pants first felt snug, I felt enormous.
Huuuuuuuuge. Ha!
Now I look back at those pictures and laugh a big big belly laugh (which, I’m sure in a few months, I’ll think is laughably tiny again).
Yesterday my belly button looked like it was yelling a wide open-mouthed yell. Today, it’s starting to stick out its tongue as my inny, overnight is becoming an outtie. In month one, I couldn’t recall what a microwave was called (I called it The Thing That Makes Things Hot. Thank goodness my husband and I rule at Charades). I’d be mid-sentence, mid-meeting at work and suddenly pull all blanks, watching my co-workers stare at me from their screens. Now, my brain works pretty well, or perhaps I’ve adapted. Either way, nothing lasts forever. The fear, the peace, the certainty, the uncertainty, the pain, the calm, the worry, the wonder. None of it is constant, none of it is always or never. It simply is.
Wherever you are on whichever journey towards whatever your goal may be, know this: you’ve got this. You do. All of these lessons, they’ve been hammered into me by way of this specific journey, but they radiate out into all veins of our lives.
You never know, so don’t judge yourself or others. Worry is a part of life. You can let it rule you or you can let it be. Everything changes, good bad and in between.
Be kind to yourself along the way, it makes the path a lot easier to walk.
So many cliffhangers lately, eh? But if you’re here, reading this, two wonderful things have happened: one, you’ve subscribed (thank you!) and two, you’re finally about to learn the truth.
The truth?
Have I been lying to you, sweet reader? Never. Have I been leaving one huge part of our life out?
This morning, as I sat down to write, The Chief handed me my morning lemon water in a different vessel. This one:
I picked it up without recognizing it and was about to take a sip when I noticed the dust. Dust it held from hanging, waiting, undisturbed for a year. My grandmother Gam’s cup. I had avoided the cup since her death, memorialized it, for if I was drinking from it, certainly she was not and if that was the case, she truly was gone. She is gone. That simple action of handing me her cup brought that reality forward.
Sometimes, it takes someone shaking you up to see what’s right in front of you. That seems to be the theme lately. So, as I sip from my Grandmother’s now clean cup, I’ll tell you another tale of a shakeup.
A few weeks ago, I went to Town to see my new niece.
As you might remember, I had gone in last October to get my girlfriend settled and cozy in anticipation of my niece’s birth. I told you all the sweet details of preparing for the baby, the moments we shared together, the honor I felt to get to be there. What I didn’t tell you was this:
I too was pregnant.
After our lovely long weekend together, The Chief swooped me up and we switched gears towards the reason he had driven in: our first prenatal appointment. We had found out we were pregnant the day after our first wedding anniversary. This was a gift no money could buy, the best we had ever received (no offense, paper) and we were excitedly jumping into our new roles of Mom and Dad. It was finally happening.
Soon after we found out. Even my bun looks nauseous.
We were going to be parents. On the way to the hospital, you could feel the excitement. Even Leto was charged by it. We arrived and bid him adieu, telling him we were off to meet his baby (I’ve never met a dog more into kids than him so, from the get go, the baby was “Leto’s Baby”. Even our friends call their kids “Leto’s baby. It’s amazing). The excitement continued as we entered the OB’s office. Everyone was smiling, congratulating us, laughing with us as I answered their questions.
“Nausea?” “Constant” “Tender milk jugs (OK, they called them “breasts”, obviously, but milk jugs is far funnier)?” “Like balloons ready to pop!” “Any other changes?” “Well, I pee 4 times a night and can’t sleep in between. ‘Mom-somnia’ I’ve dubbed it. The other night I woke up at 3 am and organized our medical supplies then ate 7 packets of fruit snacks, which I’ve never liked and I can’t suck in my belly to save my life. So, no, nothing’s changed.”
Organization in progress…
We all laughed. Pregnancy had turned my world upside down. The day I found out I was pregnant, I laughed when I saw the test. Pregnant?! Couldn’t be. It took me 7 more tests (What if they had frozen last winter? What if they were faulty? What if I was hallucinating?) to be convinced and one walk by myself to know for sure. As I strolled along the river we were married next to that bright Fall morning, I suddenly felt as if my belly had sun rays coming straight out of it. There was a glow inside of me, a little light to let me know that I was finally a mother. My whole heart smiled. It was a tranquility I’d never known.
That first walk
Every night after that, I slept my with my hand on my belly, feeling the warmth of that little light and the deep peace I felt for the first time in my life. Now, almost 10 weeks into our pregnancy, after months of bonding with our little beam, we were set to meet them.
The nurse began the not-so-fun-but-who-cares-we-are-having-a-baby-so-poke-and-prod-as-you-will process, all of our excitement building. We had all talked so much that The Chief was about to be late for a dental appointment so we did the ultrasound first. The whooshs and whirs whisked about until finally, the image became clear. The Chief excitedly said “Is that it?! Is that our baby?”. The nurse and I were silent. I squeezed his hand and hoped I was wrong. I prayed I was wrong. When next the nurse spoke, she confirmed I wasn’t. There was no heartbeat, just a sweet little being floating within me. Tears erupted but I kept my pain quiet, turning only to The Chief to tell him I needed him to skip his appointment. “Of course, baby.”
Baby.
I’ve read about miscarriage, heard stories and lore. None of it prepares you for your own or for the added insult to injury you’ll endure.
“I’m sorry but I need to take some measurements now, if that’s OK?” the nurse said, the ultrasound probe still inside of me. “OK” I whispered. And so I lay there, The Chief and I squeezing one another’s hands, holding one another’s gaze, tears steadily streaming, until she was done and we could be alone for a moment. The door latched behind her and I broke. The Chief went into savior mode, a role we’ve traded countless times in the last three years. He told me it would be OK, we would have a baby, just not this time. I was numb. I cleaned myself up and dressed, my actions mechanical. The nurse returned, telling us she thought our babe had been 8 weeks but wanted to verify. I’d need another ultrasound. Could I go right now? I agreed, not knowing I’d agreed to spending another hour looking at our babe with its perfect arms and legs and fingers so tiny. Our dead child, embryo to be exact, if that matters to you. It doesn’t to me.
On our way out, I handed the nurse the New Mom Gift Bag they’d given me as I’d walked in. So much happened in that small gesture. Motherhood, stripped away.
We spent the rest of the day in appointments amongst pregnant mothers, pregnant phlebotomists (she was on her 3rd but her husband wants 5), everyone, pregnant. At the second ultrasound, they confirmed the baby had been dead for almost two weeks. My body, once a place of light and love, a growing garden, had become a graveyard.
The first frost
At the second OB appointment that day, they explained I’d experienced a Missed Miscarriage. This is where the growing babe is no longer alive but your body fails to miscarry. Fails. I felt my body had failed me. That I had failed me. That I had failed our baby. Without me saying a word to hint of my feelings, they immediately assured me there was nothing I could have done differently, that this happens, that it’s very common for first pregnancies. That it happens to a lot of women. None of that matters. It truly doesn’t. Not to me at least. I don’t want anyone to feel what I felt and to know so many do only broke my heart more.
I felt as if I’d been playing a brutal game of Chutes and Ladders and suddenly, I found myself back at the start. All I had focused on was making it through the first trimester, making it safe, getting to home base and here we were, struck out. The worst part?
I knew.
A few weeks before our appointment, the day of the baby shower we threw for my girlfriend, in fact, I started spotting.
In the middle of all of this goodness.
I panicked. I rushed inside and asked my girlfriends if they had experienced that. I’ll never forget the look on their faces. It was gone in a flash: fear. It was probably the same look on my face. They immediately assured me it was probably fine but something to keep an eye on. The next morning, I awoke, hand on belly, ready to greet my babe and I felt…nothing. The light had gone out. I rolled over to The Chief and told him and thus the mindfuck began.
Excuse my language, but pregnancy is a mindfuck. I have seriously good intuition, like intuition so good that I’ve been called a witch (thank you) on many occasions. Premonitions, gut instincts, call it what you will, I knew the light had gone out. Yet pregnancy, even the getting pregnant part of pregnancy is all about positive thought. Even the straightest arrow, least woo woo type of woman will tell you that. You have to just move forward, assuming things are fine. It never stops, or so I’ve heard. Not when you pass the first trimester, not when your baby is born, not when you baby becomes a toddler, teen or adult. I once heard someone say that having children is like having your heart living outside of your body. So, despite knowing that something was wrong, and after a day long uphill attempt to get medical care to check if I was right, I finally gave in and gave myself up to positive thought. I’d wait for the appointment and hope I was wrong, despite what I deep down knew to be true. See, pregnancy is a mindfuck.
Next on the list of Terrible Things To Do was to decide how we would have our miscarriage. Oh joy! Would we like to take a little pill? Go under the knife? Wait it out? The third option was mentioned and then immediately taken away, given our proximity to medical care were we to go home. So, two options. The pill which causes cramping so severe that you expel the baby, or surgery.
As with most choices, it wasn’t that cut and dry. The pill cost somewhere around $5. It promised pain and a 48-hour long window in which the miscarriage would occur, who knows exactly when, like a sniper laying in wait. I’d be up close and personal with the blood and byproducts of our child. The surgery was the polar opposite. So sterile, so…surgical. I’d go to sleep as a walking grave for our babe and wake up hollow. Both sounded terrible but when the quote came in for the surgery at over $2,000 (this is with insurance, mind you), the choice for me was made. Plus, I think I wanted to feel pain.
The Chief kept asking about the surgery, in fact, he was the only one asking questions. I was in a haze, a daze of disbelief. The nurse suggested ice cream. OK. Ice cream, for being such a good girl. We got ice cream and went to the dog park, two surefire fixes for a bad mood (for me). I cried the whole time.
The wildest scoops
I went home with the pill that night and took the dose. The bottle warned of horror stories, of the slight chance of irreparable damage. I swallowed bitterly.
The cramps started 15 minutes later. I put on my game face and prepared for the worst and all through the night, I writhed in pain but still, nothing. 20 hours later, I realized they had never given me pain meds for the true pain that was set to arrive any minute. 5 hours later, after countless phone calls, The Chief was finally able to pick them up. I waited at home, a shadow of myself. Unable to read or write or watch TV, fielding phone calls like a secretary for my body. I just stared into nothingness. The following day, back at the doctor again to discuss next steps, I decided I wanted the surgery. My body was holding onto this baby and I knew it would never let go unless it was ripped from its grasp. We scheduled my COVID test and pre-op appointment and put down the down payment of $1000 with the warning that our quoted price of $2000 didn’t include anesthesia and they had no ballpark figure to give us. “It just depends on the person.”
That night, after two days of cramping and anticipation and fear for what was to transpire, I prayed for my body to wait until the surgery. I was beaten down and exhausted from lack of sleep, from building myself up to handle the pain each time I thought the time had come. I couldn’t summon the strength to miscarry. I slept for the first time in a long time, through the night. The next day, as I signed the forms stating I knew the risks and to whom to distribute my assets should the risks become reality, I held back tears. The staff were all so kind, so gentle. They wrapped me in a blanket that pumped warm air and slowly I counted back from 10. It felt like I had just been on 7 when I woke up again.
The tears I had held back before came pouring out as the nurse asked me how I was. Her next question was a saving grace. “Would you like a hug?” Despite COVID, despite what might be considered appropriate, that woman saw my pain and offered all she could to help me. I’ll always be grateful for her. She told me later, after The Chief had arrived that the first thing I had said after coming out of surgery had been that “At least the place we are staying has a bed on the ground floor so our dog can cuddle with us. He really loves that. So that’s good.”
Leto, his hedgehog and Dad
So, that’s good.
The next day, in pain and exhausted again, I had my post-op appointment. We had scheduled it in person the day before at our pre-op but the computers had been down and it got lost in the technological swap between the handwritten analog and the digital brain. We waited. Finally, a nurse came up to me and asked if I really wanted a vaginal ultrasound because she didn’t think it necessary, in front of the entire room, full again with happy couples ready to burst and babes newly born into this world. Want? Hell no. I’m here because I have to be. It only got worse from there as she escorted us into the farthest room in the office, the room I dubbed The Crying Room because it seemed to be the room bad new was dealt. Safely within the privacy of The Crying Room she told me point blank she was “Sorry that our appointment had gotten confused. You see, the appointment was marked as a prenatal appointment, but you aren’t pregnant anymore, so we canceled it.” I broke again the moment she left the room. Our doctor came in soon after and we wrapped up the story of our short time together. She promised me again it was nothing I did that caused this and that, contrary to what I’d always heard, we “could start trying again as soon as I felt ready”. Those words have floated around my head ever since. So have these.
Ruin. Failure. Breakdown. Miscarriage.
Mis-carriage. I was the carriage for my baby, the safe vessel. Adding mis-, meaning “mistakenly, wrongly or badly” to this word, how do we not somehow, even subconsciously assign blame? I think it’s time to call it something different.
The day of and after surgery, we shopped like mad, gathering supplies for months on end, since we would no longer be coming in for monthly doctor’s visits as we had planned. In between aisles I would rest on the cart, faint, bleeding into a pad the size of an adult diaper, cramping and dizzy. Despite my need for rest, I didn’t want to be alone and so I slowly followed The Chief through our chores.
Thousands of pounds, ready to roll
Since we’d been gone for a week longer than planned, our friends had to keep our house from freezing in the deepening cold of October. The drive home was lonely and solemn, minus the time where somehow Leto’s window started to open, nearly catapulting him out of the car into oncoming traffic as we careened down a deep decline.
Riding high
The Chief pulled over and I wailed. Everything felt so precarious, like all things I loved were in danger. I felt I was losing my grasp on sanity and a part of me felt like just letting go, surrendering.
We returned to a house in disarray, quiet and austere. The Chief had installed flooring and painted the living room while I was away, since we hadn’t wanted me around the fumes (something we didn’t have to worry about now) and thus, the house was in boxes. My plants, a pure luxury in Winter and now over a year old, were holding on by a thread, despite a neighbor’s attempt to rescue them.
The next day, the plant shriveled to nearly nothing.
Everything felt dead. Nothing on the walls, no books, television for distraction, no comfy setup and all of the reminders of what was. Prenatals. The foods I had been craving. The pregnancy test I kept in my underwear drawer to pull out and smile at from time to time. The names we had brainstormed, the plans we had made. Everywhere, everything reminded me of what wasn’t.
Granola for days, a cravings leftover
And so, we set to distract. From the moment we landed, it was work. Work to put the home back together, work to unload and assemble and organize all the newness we had brought home. Work to ignore what had just happened.
Let’s just rip a new hole in the house, shall we (in Winter, mind you)? That will distract us!
And that was that.
After all we’d already been through, losing our Cinda, The Chief’s Mother, Grandmother and Father, my Godmother, and Grandmother and our friend, Jason (less than a week after our wedding), I wasn’t going to let this take me down. I wouldn’t be “that” woman who couldn’t get past it. Oh the disdain we have for her. So, after all the housework was done, fully unrested, back to work I went. Case closed. Start again.
“You can start trying as soon as you feel ready.”
We started right away. I was fine. We were fine. Everything was fine. I ran through the stages of grief, collecting badges along the way. Denial? Check! Anger? Check! Acceptance? Fuck yes! I gave myself an A+ in grief and a gold star to boot. Done. After two weeks of prescribed abstinence due to the risk of infection, we were back in the game. Square one. Home base and up to bat.
So far, our stats are 0 for 4. We aren’t exactly getting called up to the Big Leagues and for once in my life, at least in retrospect, I’m glad to have failed because a few weeks ago, I broke. For real this time. Like I said in the beginning of this entry, sometimes, it takes someone shaking you up to see what’s right in front of you. That clarity came by way of a trip to meet my new niece.
Views along the way…
Leona is her name, born exactly one month to the day after my surgery (we’ve had a lot of painful parallels like that) and she’s perfect.
Told ya 🙂
The last night I visited her, we held a ceremony for my girlfriend to honor the journey she’d been through.
Good job, sweet mama.
After describing the massage we’d give her to recalibrate her body my friends turned to me and offered to do the same. Honor what my body had been through and help to recalibrate. Me? I said, as if we didn’t all know why they were offering. I accepted, hoping this would be the saving grace to make the creeping up sadness vanish. The moment they started, I let out a wail I could no longer contain. I wanted so badly to just fall apart. I promptly stopped myself.
The reality is, rather than put me back together again, that massage, that sitting in the house we both had been pregnant in together, holding my sweet neice who was to be my babe’s buddy, that focus on my body, my womb that never came to be, broke me instead of mended me. I needed that.
Two preggy ladies
I couldn’t be put back together until I had fully fallen apart and finally, I fell the hell apart. Fully. Awkwardly. It was messy and bitter and angry and it’s not over but I am so grateful for it. That visit made me realize I was not OK and the only way to get closer to OK again was to go through it. The girlfriend I had traveled to Town with saw right through my veneer and before we knew it, we were both sobbing over Pop Rocks Jell-o shots (because we are amazing like that). “I see your pain. It’s right there, Julia. Ready to bubble over. You have to let it out.”
For the first time in months, I could breathe. I didn’t have to pretend I was OK. I wasn’t. I’m not. I will be.
That night we purchased an armload each of candles and went home, lit them and laid on the floor melting along with them to music. The next day, we both bought flowers on our way out of Town. Homeward bound. When we reached home, after driving 300 miles and braving road glaciers, we parted ways with a promise.
Road glaciers. Still always a surprise to me. Isolation increased tenfold.
A release, we would help me find a release. As I walked in the house, The Chief could tell all was not right and I confessed it was true. I couldn’t pretend I was alright anymore. I spent the next few days comatose, unable to make the simplest decisions. Tea or coffee? I don’t know. I don’t care. Grief makes you numb, dumb to your needs.
A week ago today, as I write this, my girlfriend and I had the release. A ceremony. In preparation, I had reached out to all the women (plus my Pops) in my life who knew about the miscarriage and asked them to light a candle between during our ceremony and then, to blow it out afterwards, a letting go. As the clock struck two we packed up our witchy goodness, candles, sage, crystals, the flowers we had purchased, into a sled and made our way down to The River. The river that has held so much happiness and so much pain for me here. I wore a flower crown my girlfriend had made me and a flower jumpsuit under my winter bibs. She wore a flowered dress over her warm clothes. We were bringing rebirth to the darkness.
You. I love your eyeballs.
For the first time ever, Leto didn’t follow his Dad when he left that day on the snowmachine. He instead stayed right with us. He knew where he was needed.
We found the perfect spot, out in the middle of The River and set to it, our brains working in tandem without words, laying the flower petals in a huge circle, facing the West.
My sweet Leto, watching over me.
As the sun set that night, we bid farewell to the little being. The babe who had kept me up all night partying in the womb, who had surprised the hell out of us by arriving just when we had decided to stop trying so hard for a baby, who had been such a bright light and then, so dark.
“Goodbye, sweet soul.” I whispered and then, as we looked up, the sky broke into light. Beams shone through in a dance only the Earth knows how to perform. Leto snuggled into both of us as a single bird flew overhead and chirped a goodbye.
Goodbye.
That night, we made a necklace and looked at beautiful pictures friends from all over had sent of their candles, their love. When my friend was preparing to give birth, she had asked everyone to bring a bead and from it, she had strung her birth necklace. This was my miscarriage necklace, to honor the journey. It was built of healing stones. Quartz for the heart, a piece she had tried to use many times before and always felt that the person who needed it hadn’t yet come into her life. Serpentine to ground me and Tiger’s Eye to release fear and anxiety. The moment I put it on, I felt a warmth in the coolness of the stones. A comfort.
Thank you, loves.
Since that day, I hear that sweet soul in the whispers of the trees, the songs of the birds and the dances in the skies.
A prism to the left of the sunset saying “Hello”
As I write this, one week later, I’m fully healed. Call it a wrap.
No. Not this time. One week later, I am moving through grief, a grief nearing four months old that I’ve only just admitted to myself exists, that I’ve only just now let myself feel. I tell you this story, not so you’ll feel pity or sadness for me. I tell you this not as a rulebook to follow, some universal truth explaining what all women feel. No, it is my own, individual experience. Instead, I tell you this in case you need to hear it, in case someone in your life needs you to hear it. I tell you this to bring to light a bit of the secrecy, guilt and shame around miscarriage and to help us, together, recognize that they are not helpful.
I should be over this by now. It was only two months. Maybe it was my fault. Don’t be hysteric. Don’t be jealous. Don’t be an asshole. Will I ever be a mother?
Champagne cheers and tears on our second month of not conceiving
We have all heard about miscarriage. I had steeled myself against it, hoping we’d skip past its grasp. I didn’t make it and so many before me didn’t either. So many more will follow. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard every single time.
We know about miscarriage, but we don’t know the depths and the shallows of it, not until we’ve swum its waters. We don’t think of the small injustices that pull you back to your grief when you’re fighting so hard to stay ahead of it.
We don’t talk about how you’ll need to update your pregnancy app to say “No longer pregnant” and how because of that, you’ll be bombarded with miscarriage articles, despite your letters to the app developer.
Or how your next shipment of prenatals will arrive a few days after you get home, reminding you that you don’t need them in the same way anymore.
We don’t talk about how you’ll have to explain over and over and over again, phone call, after phone call to medical providers you don’t know, what happened and still, despite your grief, summon the strength to advocate for yourself to get the doctor on the line to get the help you need.
We don’t talk about how your social media will still be all baby ads, all the time or that your body will still think you are pregnant for weeks afterwards. How your boobs will still be swollen but now, without reason. That you’ll have the weight gain, the symptoms and none of the reward. How you’ll still be nauseous. How you’ll feel hollow and full, all at once, like a coffin.
We don’t talk about how unbelievably expensive a miscarriage can be. How the bills will roll in for months, coming in on just the days you were starting to feel solid. All said and done, our miscarriage cost $4000 and we have insurance. How is it that one must have privilege, be it on one’s own or with the generous offer of a parent as in our situation, in order to be able to have surgery when the other options don’t work?
Bills on bills on bills
We don’t talk about how convoluted sex becomes, from something that brought life to something that could again bring death.
We don’t talk about how, suddenly, you’re able to eat anything, drink anything and if you’re anything like me, you drank because you could, and you got drunk because you didn’t want this paltry consolation prize in the first place.
We don’t talk about how some days, all you want to do is talk about what you went through and other days, you can’t even admit it happened.
We don’t talk about how being around children, no matter how much you love them, can make you feel like you’re dying inside, falling behind and how at the same time, you want to prove to everyone that you’re OK with kids for fear of being outcast or avoided. How you’re simultaneously so genuinely happy for them and so sad for yourself and how that’s hard to manage at times.
We don’t always talk about these things, and like I said, not everyone experiences these things the way I have, but I did and I think we should talk about them.
I hope as you read this it’s your first time being so close to miscarriage but chances are, it’s not. I hope that wherever you are in life, you can take a moment to pause and realize that we never truly know where someone is in life which is why we should do our damndest to be kind. I hope you never have to go through something like this but that if you do, you know that I see you and I’m here for you, always, whoever you are. And I promise you, you will smile again.
The first time I really smiled (and laughed), post-miscarriage
To everyone who has been there for me, reminding me it’s OK to not be OK, thank you. Thank you from the deepest part of me. I will always be grateful. To my husband, my moon, thank you. It has not been easy, I have not been easy. Thank you for your steadfast love and support. I love you.
For those of you who are reading this, learning of it for the first time, know that I didn’t hold it from you because I don’t trust or need you, rather that for the time we talked, I got to just be me. The old me.
Just me and you
Not Julia who has had a miscarriage. Just me. Thank you for that, always.
And so, after all that, I leave you with this: be kind to one another. You never know where someone is in life, what they are struggling against. Hell, as in my case, they may not even know. Sometimes that kindness will break someone open, sometimes it will help them heal their wounded heart. Either way, we are all a part of one another’s process. May you have peace in yours.
With love,
from Alaska
The snow-covered ceremony the day after.
P.S. If you want to share your thoughts, experiences, anything, please do so. Leave a comment or send me an email (beneaththeborealis@gmail.com). I’m an open door, an open book. That being said, please be gentle. If reading this was hard or uncomfortable, I get it. Writing it was hard. I hope that in doing so, in sharing this, I can help shed a little light on this historically hidden, uncomfortable subject. Like her.And her. And I’m sure countless others I’ve yet to stumble upon. I’d love suggestions.
P.P.S I’ve written this post dozens of times in my head before taking pen to paper, fingers to keyboard. There are things I’ve missed, resources I haven’t used, groups I’ve not yet joined. I’m at the beginning. I’m sure there are things I’ll come back and add but if you take away one thing, take this: your pain is your own. You don’t have to justify it, rush through it, bury it. It’s incomparable to someone else’s. Be gentle with yourself in your pain, be gentle with others in theirs. I’m learning this, slowly. I think we’d all be better for it.
You are not alone.
P.P.P.S Here’s a playlist I made on Spotify, same title, Carriage Ride, because this miscarriage has been just that. A ride. It’s filled with everything from serious to silly, all the songs that have helped me through, held me down and brought me back up again. Enjoy.
After the last two loss-filled years we’ve experienced, one lesson has climbed above the rest: everything changes.
Everything.
However, despite its claim to #1 spot fame for me in the Top 100 Lessons of Grief, I have tried to ignore it, despite its shouts.
Shout it loud, but we ain’t listenin’.
Everything changes.
The impermanence of it all has not left me in some zen-like state of acceptance. Quite the opposite. Rather, the worry that the potential for change has brought for me has left me in a sort of Henny Penny “The Sky is Falling” frantic permanence. Towards The Chief, towards our family, our friends, our little Leto. I considered all of the potentials for loss and tried to make every interaction left on good terms. Live each moment like it’s your last, etc., etc. you know the drill. I thought that perhaps my worry would safeguard us from more loss. Yet this had always been measured outwards, away from myself.
And so in all my worry, I had forgotten to fret about one thing: me, specifically, my face.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done a great deal of worrying about my face, I did, after all, attend middle school and high school in which I’d say more often than not, that people were unfortunately judged first on the constructs of their face rather than the content of their character. I did my best to dodge the disses and watched as beauty unfairly bargained the way for those she bestowed herself upon to the front of the line. Yet, as the years went on, I felt a flip of the switch.
In my 20’s, the first thing one of my boyfriend’s mother said about me when she met me was “She’s so smart.” It made me cry. I realized the tables had turned and I was in a phase of my life where the content of one’s character actually did come into play. It made me want to be a better person, smarter and kinder.
After moving to Alaska and Falling in Love Naked with Cauliflower Armpits I found a further reprieve from the standards of beauty I still (despite smarts or kindness) felt confined by. Although I enjoyed the routine of putting on makeup, I no longer felt required to do it. The choice became mine.
And so, these last few years I’ve worried less about my face. I’ve aimed to embrace my “sparkle lines” as my girlfriend calls my smile lines that ring my eyes and watch the changes that take place as marks of memories rather than the marring of time.
Smiles lines, for good reason.
I guess I didn’t worry quite enough.
Early this Summer, after a lovely night planning our wedding menu with friends over probably a little too much champagne, I decided to impress my husband-to-be with a little acrobatics. We were headed home and after crossing The River, we approached The Gate.
My last picture of the night. On The Bridge, leading to The Gate.
The Gate.
This gate is one I’ve opened and closed countless times. We all have. Early in the morning, late at night, multiple times a day. It was high time I spiced it up. “Riding The Gate” is a term my fellow friends are quite familiar with. It refers to when one is opening The Gate and jumps on for a ride. The arm swings open and once it hits its full extension, the gate post sends you back as the car drives through.
Yet I had something different in mind. Something reminiscent of elementary school and flips on the parallel bars.
I took a running start at The Gate and by the time I hit The Gate’s full extension, my speed was such that I didn’t do a flip as planned but rather catapulted myself forward…
Straight down some feet below into a boulder below.
My body went limp and I came to as I felt the reactionary force dragging me and my open mouth backwards through the gravel. I stood up long enough to feel my mouth fill with a metallic taste and the sides of my face grow warm and then cool and decided that I should probably lay down.
I said out loud, to no one in particular: “I’ll just lay down for a moment.”
Needless to say, I hadn’t stuck the landing.
The Chief rushed to my side as I tried to comfort him.
“It’s fine” I promised. “I just needed to lay down for a moment.”
He went into full WFR (Wilderness First Responder) mode, checking my vitals and my comprehension. I went into full bravado.
“It’s no big deal. I just need to spit these rocks out and I’ll be fine” I said as I started to get up.
“Julia, stay where you are. You are not OK. There is blood everywhere.”
At that moment, looking at him looking down at me, eyes wide with fear, I started sobbing. The bravado melted away. It was bad. I knew it was bad.
Other friends and acquaintances crossing the bridge pulled up behind us and ran in shock to our side. From the stifled gasps I could hear as they approached the scene I knew it wasn’t good. The Chief called the head Ranger of our park for backup and once he cleared me for a spine injury we decided to go back to our house to reassess. The entire group followed, all helping, all concerned, all planning our next steps.
We got home and I was determined to clean the wounds to see how bad it really was. The head bleeds a lot and I was still certain that a few bandaids later, I’d be on my way to bed. Our friends helped me warm water for rags. I wetted them and started to try to clear the embedded gravel from my face. The pain was excruciating. I kept trying but within seconds I started to feel like I was going to pass out. I was sick to my stomach from the pain. The Ranger offered to try as well and I sat on my hands on our couch so as not to bat him away in automated self-defense. He kept apologizing as silent tears rolled down my face. It was all we could do. We had reached the limit. We were done for the night.
Or so I thought.
“I’m calling the 24-hour hospital, I’ll let them know you’re on your way.”
The Chief nodded.
Huh?
Before I knew it, someone was making tea for me, another making coffee for The Chief as he fired up the truck and off we headed for a 5 hour trip into the wee hours of the night. Off to the hospital.
Well, this was certainly unexpected.
I waded in and out of sleep, the pain increasing with each opening of my eyes.
We arrived around 5 am to a team readied for our arrival. After trying for over an hour to numb the area (I am apparently one of those people who doesn’t respond to topical pain medication) I submitted to feeling more than planned for. Again, I planted my hands firmly under me as the doctor picked and scrubbed and irrigated everything from rocks all the way down to the glacial silt out of my face. Tears streamed, my stomach seized but a few hours later it was done.
The Chief took a 30-minute catnap as the doc finished the liquid stitches, leaning over me to spread the “good word” as he held the two halves of my face together while the glue dried.
5 more hours later, we were home. The Chief helped me into the shower and gently washed the blood and rock from my matted hair. He tucked me into bed and when I awoke, I thought for just a moment that perhaps none of it had actually happened.
My reflection proved otherwise.
Good morning, sunshine! The morning we got home. Pre-shower.
A split second had changed everything. The face I had come to know and embrace would forever be changed though how it would be changed, I didn’t know.
Everything changes, even your face.
The next morning. Swelling ensued.
About five weeks after the accident, the final stitches melted away, the final scab fell and I stood face to face with my new reflection.
Well, hello new me.
My first look. Not so worried about those sparkles now, eh?
When I first saw the scars I thought “That’s pretty badass” and that has been the overwhelming response from the crowd as well (another is that I look like the ultimate Harry Potter/David Bowie fan). It looks pretty tough and while Alaska isn’t a bad place to look like you can handle yourself, it’s not always the me I want to present. What if I want to look gentle or kind? My blank slate had been slashed. Or has it?
I’ll be honest, my road to acceptance has taken some turns and I don’t think I’ve arrived yet. In truth, it’s been a lot like the road of grief. Apparently, the universe wasn’t fond of my Henny Penny self and felt I still hadn’t learned the Everything Changes lesson, the lesson of impermanence and gratefulness and grace. I’m trying. Some days I love my scars. Some days I forget that they’re there. Others, I’m bombarded with Yikes! What Happened to You’s and it makes me remember.
Sometimes, they fill me with regret, with frustration and self-punishment. Sometimes, I wish I could just wake up and I would be the same old me. Sometimes.
Mostly, the scars make me remember to be gentle with myself. To remember how fast everything can change in an instant. To be grateful that more damage wasn’t done, that my eyes and nose and teeth are safe, that my brain wasn’t too terribly shaken. Mostly, appreciate my scars for what they remind, what they warn, what they promise. Mostly.
Always, my scars remind me that this too will change, as does everything.
The other day, my first Icelandic Poppy bloomed. It was brilliantly, joyously red. It unfurled, beaming with brightness, hope, youth. By the next morning, the colors of the petals had ever so slightly faded. A few days later, the last petal, still beautiful but more muted in her brilliance, fell.
All good and bad come to an end. What is to follow, we won’t know until we get there but chances are, you will be better off for it. And, if you don’t listen and learn the first time, the lesson won’t fade but will instead find new ways to tell you:
Everything changes (even your face).
With love,
from Alaska
// May you be gentle with yourself and not require too extreme of reminders. May you be gentle with those you love and those you encounter. May your last words to those you lose be words bred in kindness because it all can change and it will, in a moment. Let us aim not to let the fear of the future freeze our present. //
Two years ago, although occasionally mired by a rainstorm or two, our life was pretty much rainbows and puppies, sunshine and ice cream. I’m not going to lie, we had it good.
A Sunday kind of love.
I had somehow happened upon the life of my life, despite being tucked in the woods as he was, and we fit together seamlessly. I felt like the knight who had rescued Rapunzel (or however that went) and off we had ridden into the sunset.
Olive grove sunset
And then the sun didn’t come up.
Two years ago in August, we lost our dog Cinda Lou in a terrible, and preventable accident.
Cinda’s Kingdom
Eight months later, the Chief’s mother died suddenly in a car accident the day before his 40th birthday.
Donna, Chris, The Chief & Mychal
Less than two weeks later, his grandmother Jane passed.
Sweet Jane.
A few months later on a cold morning this Winter, I received a call that my godmother Ellen had passed away suddenly. She had gone in for routine surgery and never come out. She was a beautiful jeweler and we were designing the wedding rings she was going to make for us. Suddenly, she was gone. The news hit me so hard it took my breath away. I sat there catatonic as a meeting for work started. I just stared forward, numb.
Times were dark. It felt as if the world had closed itself off to us, as if we’d hit our limit on happiness. We had been so lucky. Maybe too lucky.
We waded through the pain and stumbled as we reached its new depths. We tried to hold one another close but felt alone. We fought endlessly, our anger at the world had nowhere to go in a tiny wintry cabin and so it found its way towards one another. Still, we remembered how it once was.
And then, a ray of sunlight.
Sunshine morning on the olive ranch
Somehow, almost suddenly, The Chief and I came together again. The anger lifted. We softened. I hadn’t realized how far we’d gotten from one another, how cold our new normal was. Grief has a way of sneaking you away from yourself, away from your loves without your even realizing. It leaves you alone.
Yet we could finally see we weren’t alone. Our sun was back. We cuddled again, sat entwined on the couch again, lingered in one another’s embrace again. The sadness was still there but for the first time it wasn’t blinding, we could see past it. We could find the beauty in what remained and the excitement for what was coming.
LIke this new family member
Leto Beast
The Chief’s dad, Christopher was part of that beauty. We grew very close in the month and a half we spent together in California after Donna and Jane’s passing. His consistency made me feel so safe in a time where it felt like our world was collapsing and again he was there when Ellen died and it felt ready to collapse again. Despite the immense pain he felt in the losses, he always found a way to be kind. When issues would arise or plans would change he would simply, softly say “Ok, dear” in a way that made my hardening heart melt ever so slightly. He was a steady port in the storm and I clung to him.
Christopher’s Kingdom
Two months ago, he died of a heart attack.
The anniversaries of Donna and Jane’s passing had hit us hard in the week leading up to his death. One year gone already. Gently, we navigated through the reminders, trying to remember the good instead of fall deeply into the pit of sadness. Two days after Jane’s passing anniversary (which also happened to be her birthday and Cinda’s birthday) the call came.
The man who had become a beacon of hope for our newly blossoming family, who had tied us all together when the seams started to fray was gone.
He was a man full of surprises. As an ex-military man, full of discipline and prestige, I was intimidated by him at first. I would set alarms just to make sure I woke up “early enough” because I feared he’d think me lazy if I slept in. When I did manage to get up, the payoff was wonderful as I’d get to accompany him on his walks. Every day he walked the property to check on his thousands of olive trees and despite his love of solitude, he welcomed my presence to become part of his norm too.
One of many family walks in the orchards.
He was methodical and principled and repetitious to a T but just when I’d think I had him pegged, he would surprise me again. He would send me random texts to say “Hi” or “What’s your weather like today?” with a picture of a bluebird morning at the farm. I once received a text from him with a picture of himself, sweaty as can be, in front of a hot yoga business. Since it was pouring rain, he couldn’t be outside and get his exercise and so, he tried something new. I loved that about him. He didn’t care what anyone thought, he didn’t have to stay put in any idea others had about him. He was his own person, through and through and I will forever wish he were with us still.
Despite his ashes in our living room, his death still feels unreal. I still expect a text from him to remind me not to worry, that he will do all the cooking at the wedding and to offer other help I didn’t know I needed. I still wait for a call to randomly check in and tell us he loves us.
C.E.K.
These days, the simple ringing of a telephone strikes fear in my heart. I feel fear constantly and picture death and destruction in even the safest situation. I fear for the family and friends I have, for our Leto, for The Chief, for myself. I fear for the worst for I know it’s face, I’ve stared right into it’s eyes and still it doesn’t back down.
Yesterday, the phone rang again, this time to tell me that my grandmother Gam had died.
I had just worked up the nerve to tell of the loss of my father-in-law, to write about him here, to tell his story and what he meant to me. I was not prepared to write two obituaries. It feels odd and unseemly to group two of the most important people in my life into one post, yet they are interwoven, all of our losses are.
My Gam is the reason I feel comfortable calling myself a writer at all, and only because she called me one first. She was the person I was most afraid to tell I was moving to Alaska because I was afraid she’d think I failed her. I was so wrong. She beamed at my choice, prized my passion and applauded my leap of faith. She once told me that if I loved The Chief, I had to love all of him. I hadn’t realized that this was how she had loved me, all along. She was smart as a whip, did the crosswords every day and could hold a conversation with anyone. She was an avid reader, a teacher, a lover of art and nature and jazz and a constant help to those in need. She stood up for herself in a time when women were expected to be quiet and continued that strength until she passed. When she had had enough of you, she would tell you “I’m ready for you to go”. She adored The Chief. He was the only man I ever brought to meet her about which she said “I like him”, with a special emphasis only she could put on “like”. I can hear her say it now. That was a very high regard. She gave us her blessing and when she found out The Chief was planning to propose, she immediately offered him her wedding ring. I wear it now and forever.
Giving her blessing. Don’t mind the black eye, apparently it runs in the family.
I adored her. She was a force to be reckoned with and I will deeply miss her.
I hope, ever so much that these are the last obituaries I write for a very long time and that instead this place holds happiness in its tales of the Last Frontier. I hope with all my might that a phone ringing won’t always make my heartbeat quicken and that in every way I won’t always fear for the worst. I hope The Chief and I can continue in kindness and gentleness and hold tightly to the even keel we once had and that our wedding in September can move us forward, together in love and lightness. I hope our ancestors gather around us to celebrate in spirit. We love you.
I wish for you that you and yours are safe and sound.
A giant wish.
With love,
from Alaska and a couple of hand holding, “don’t embarrass me, Mom” pups to make you smile.
Last night, in the early evening just as the dinner rumblings began and reminded me we had nothing thawed and nothing planned, the phone chirped an invitation:
West Side dinner party?
There’s few things more magical to me in the Winter than an offering of food cooked communally. Sometimes I forget that for months on end, every meal we eat, every ounce of sustenance we obtain would be purely from our own hands were it not for our friend family. Every dish dirtied and recipe rendered would be by our own doing. The Chief and I break it up so that at times just one of us makes dinner and the other gets to dine without any output. But the restaurant effect doesn’t last long after one peek around the half wall from the living room to the kitchen at the greedily multiplying pile of dishes.
So, when the offer comes, you can’t help but get giddy.
Giddy as Goldenrod
For me, our neighborhood feels like an embrace and on this particular night, I longed to be held.
With one question, “What to bring?” the planning began. I found my best produce. My most alert lettuce and least wrinkled peppers sat welcomingly in the baking pan I was using to transport them. In went my tip top tomatoes and a some limes that only had one or less brown spots. Only the best for my neighborhood loves.
Off we went, tromping the 3-minute walk through the crystal clear starlit night. The constellations were out at play and Orion and the dog we are dogsitting put on a show for us to guide the way. We arrived to what I can only describe as dinner heaven.
Potlucky.
I felt this happy, to be exact.
The spread took the entire counter. Taco night. There was brown rice steaming away in the pressure cooker, beans bubbling their earthy goodness into the air and halibut, shrimp and pork all ready to be cooked. I made a design of my freshies and my girlfriends and I grated a mountain of cheese (which we simultaneously began depleting via quick “tastes”. We take quality control pretty seriously).
Dinner was served.
At home that night, minus the invite, we probably would have made something far less regal with far fewer options. Perhaps a chicken veggie stir-fry with meat pulled from a chicken we’d roasted the night before or a pasta something or other. And don’t get me wrong, it would have been great but this was another level altogether. Like going to a restaurant in the middle of the woods. It was as if our reservation day had finally come up. What a feast.
Satiated we sat together, shooting the breeze. My mind had been a flurry of thought that day and it felt good to let it fade into the conversational calm.
After a few deep full belly breaths, the thing that takes me longest to motivate for at home was a breeze. The Chief and I tapped in halfway through and before long, 4 pairs of hands had done away with the mess. Normally, at most restaurants, at least with wallet intact, you don’t end up doing your dishes, and in truth, it was a rarity. Dishes aren’t always something we let others do around here. There’s a know how that’s different for each kitchen here, a different system and perhaps a sense of pride in being able to do them on our own. Yet the intimacy of dishes done together warmed my heart that night.
The embrace tightened.
Eventually, I made my way home but not without a hug and an “I love you” with each goodbye. What a beautiful rarity to find in the middle of nowhere.
To find a family of friends willing to let me in. A hodge podge mix of lovelies for whom I’ll always go to bat and always pick the best produce to share with.
Potlucky.
With love,
from Alaska
Sunset preparations
Dedication
This morning, I awoke with an urge to make something. I started with kombucha (with a scoby from a girlfriend) and made my way to an apple crisp (with a can donated long ago) and hardboiled eggs (brought in by a friend) all before The Chief came down from the loft. Midway through my burst, realizing I’d need to thaw more butter for my next round of food goals, I stopped and felt the embrace again, but this one was older. This one was familiar in a way that made me feel childlike and my eyes welled with tears. This one was my godmother, telling me to feed the ones I love, even from her recent and devastatingly unexpected move to the other side of the living. She was my first introduction to friend family, to pulling together every last person you know who needs a warm plate of food and a kind word around one table. To always being able to squeeze in one more. She rooted me on with unfailing love, she had adoration for me even when I felt I least deserved it. She blessed my gifts and made less scary my shortcomings. She adored me when I didn’t adore myself. She’s the reason I went to Italy and changed my life after my heart was broken, the reason I know what a wishbone is and save them every roasted chicken and the reason I’ve ever even thought to whisper myself an artist.
She was a beautiful soul, artistic as can be with a masterful way of pulling all of the pieces together and last night, on the night of her funeral, I needed to feel those come together more than I knew.
Thank you, Auntie El for your presence, your reminders and for your love. You were and are a driving force in my life and I thank you for visiting through busied baking hands today. I miss you dearly, think of you daily and love you always.
Sunset date with a girlfriend, tea toasting to you.
If your current state is anything like most of the people I know, your honest answer is probably something along the lines of “good, mixed with some bad and some ugly”.
I hope this isn’t true for you, but for me, it seems every person I know has been touched by the tougher realities of life as of late. From health to happiness, a lot of basic standards of living for those I love have been put to the test lately and it seems we have found ourselves in a sort of communal hardship.
The fires that broke out early last week in both Northern and Southern California have truly brought that hardship to the forefront. Our skies have been smokey enough to obscure the sun. We’ve been relegated to the indoors, to our own locales, to hunker down and hermit our ways through this. And in those times, when the sky shines its ominous, apocalyptic orange light, it’s easy to feel alone.
But we aren’t.
In all this bad and ugly, we can still find the good.
Today, I found myself wanting just that: good. Just wanting a moment of reprieve. I found myself hoping to write to you about something uplifting, to take a break from the heartache and feelings of doom around us.
I tried.
I took myself on a walk, despite the smoky skies to get myself into my writing rhythm. Since the beginning of this blog, each post has been born while walking. Like a dog circling to find the perfect spot to lay down, I too circle around the ideas circling me and this little dance always sorts itself in my strides. Once I return home, the ideas have settled and I too can settle into my perfect spot.
So, today, I took myself on a walk to sort out what I should say. However, unlike my normal walks, I spent the time trying to dream up other things to write about instead of acknowledging what was actually happening. I tried to block out what was there, ready to be said. I wanted to write something happy but my mind had already made her mind up.
And so, we made a compromise: yes, we could acknowledge the bad and the ugly and we also would lump on a little good.
Because the good is always there.
So, since I think we’ve sufficiently acknowledged the bad and the ugly, here’s a little good. Even they are a little silly, a little surface, here are some things, happenings, and reminders that have brought me joy this week. I hope they bring some to you too. Here we go, happiness train, okay? All aboard!
This look on our friend’s dog Atari’s face as he finally gets to get into The Chief’s lap:
Feeling absolutely loved by a kiddo you’ve known their whole life when she makes your coming to her house a calendar event (in hot pink, no less):
Seeing a little hint of blue for the first time in days:
Spending a night with life-long girlfriends that ranged from feeling very satisfyingly adult (we had an olive tray, you guys) to very satisfyingly juvenile (pop music sing along), to very happy and very sad. We ran the gamut and it was beyond healing to be around you loves (fun times/sad times not pictured as we were too busy eating olives, crying, laughing and singing. Oh how I love women).
Coming up with the best band name ever, and then having it immediately embodied in whiteboard drawing form by our young eavesdroppers:
Remembering full blue skies and full, deep breaths:
Cactus ears from your sister-in-law. ‘Nuff said:
Nature, in all her glory:
These ridiculous and adorable slippers my brother gave me:
Learning to make jam for the first time:
Laughing at the awkwardness of this toilet brand name (First Impression):
Laughing too hard to be able to take the photo:
Those kind eyes.
I had to acknowledge the hard, the bad, the ugly today because it’s what’s real for me and so many others right now and I’ve always tried to be real with you. As for you, I hope you are in the good but if not, I hope this brought a little sparkle to your day. Let’s try to spread it around. There is always good to be found.
Wishing safety and so much love to you and yours,
From Alaska by way of California.
P.S. Want to help? California and Californians would so appreciate your support. Please donate if you can. There are so many wonderful organizations out there but one quick way is to text “Red Cross” to the number 9099. When you agree to the transaction, your phone company will add $10.00 extra dollars to your phone bill this month. It’s easy (it took me a total of 10 seconds) and every donation, no matter the amount is important. Thank you.
P.P.S. Thank you, a million times over for those with boots on the ground. Firefighters, volunteers, citizens. You all are amazing and we so appreciate you.
Growing up, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by horses. I spent hours in the stables chatting away with my beloved friends, sharing stories and carrots and sometimes just a wee bite of their oat mix. They were my world and to answer the burning question I know must be on your mind, yes, my birthday parties were pony themed and I’m so sorry we didn’t know one another then so that I could have invited you.
Riding horses was my life. However, as any lady or gent of the pony parade knows, riding horses isn’t always about riding. Sometimes, it’s about falling.
From the first time I set foot in the arena to the last, emphasis was always placed on preparing to fall. We practiced finding a safe landing to the inevitable via what my instructor called Flying Dismounts, a special surprise situation we would find ourselves in at least once a lesson. There I’d be, focusing on doing a flying change (where the horse, in mid-air, like the magical beasts they are, switches which foot goes forward first in a canter. Try it, I dare you. I’ve never tripped myself harder) when all of a sudden, my teacher would crack a whip while simultaneously yelling “flying dismount”. The whip would hit the horse in just the right way to break his concentration and buck he would and, ideally, off I would fly, totally in control, landing gently and effortlessly on the ground in one, unharmed, piece.
Ideally.
More often than not, the Flying Dismount looked less like a flight and more like I’d been shot from a catapult aimed straight at the ground. I’d flail through the air and meet the arena soil before I even knew what had happened. Dazed, I’d stand up, find my horse, listen to my instructor’s critiques and pop back into the saddle. I was like those clown faced blow up therapy punching bags that just pop right back up at you after you give them your hardest hit. Pop! There I was.
The closest picture I can find of me on horseback, at present. Back in the studio saddle.
Now, this may seem like a rough lesson for a kiddo but the thing is, riding really can be just as much about falling as it is riding because if you ride enough, you’re bound to fall and when you fall, a little grace never hurt. And so, fall I did, gaining a small bit of grace as the years went on. Back then, the ruling was that in order to be a great rider you had to have 7 non-instructor induced falls and I was quickly making my way towards that magic number.
Once, in a moment lacking, perhaps, my best judgement, I decided to ride a horse in a nearby field whose owner I neither knew, nor consulted. Obviously, the room for disaster was minimal. What could go wrong? A nearby bee heard my confidence and decided to sting said unknown pony in the rear. Ah, I forgot to mention too that it wasn’t just myself I entered into this surefire sob induced drama. I was also “babysitting” a neighbor who was a few years my 8-year old self’s junior. She rode in front of me and for the few minutes we trotted about, it apparently didn’t occur to me to mention the old Flying Dismount maneuver.
Bee in play, horse in panic and us bouncing around uncontrollably like a bunch of pre-teens in their first mosh pit, the outlook wasn’t good. The horse was at deadspeed (as fast as it can go), which for a moment was thrilling since I’d never before reached that elusive speed, until I realized I was not exactly in control of the situation. It was time. “Jump!” I yelled.
It didn’t go well. We both ended in rocky thistle patches and walked the mile home with bloodied knees, elbows and faces, crying at the top of our lungs. Truth be told, I was crying mainly out of fear as the repercussions of my not-so-bright idea came to full clarity and the screams of the kiddo that was my responsibility got louder. I competed with her cries, dead-set on not getting in trouble.
It did not work.
Yet, even that fall, I think perhaps it was number 5 or so, didn’t bother me. It was all part of the game. I was racing towards number 7, hell-bent on getting that badge of honor and fearless in my endeavor.
Pop up, poppy Page
Until…
the next fall.
The next fall was unintentional, non-teacher induced. It counted and I was closer to my 7 but I didn’t jump for joy because this time, I was unconscious. I had been riding one of the bigger horses, a departure from my favorite white pony named “Killy”. My Thumbelina stature made me feel look like a mouse on an elephant but the power of the horse made me feel powerful too. I went for it, full-bore.
And so did he.
Spooked by something only he could see, he reared up as we rounded one of the four corners of the arena. Feeling very brave, I aimed to stay on. He, aimed for me to dismount.
He won.
Bucking his hardest, I finally lost my grip and went flying into the air, landing headfirst into one of the 16-inch by 16 foot logs that created a barrier in the arena. The last thing I remember was my helmet cracking and the visor snapping off and then?
Darkness.
When I finally came to, the first thing I did was laugh and the first thing I heard was “Time to get back in the saddle. Every good rider has to get back on”.
“Pop on up, buttercup”, I thought to myself as I nervously laughed my way through the pain, but a therapy doll I was no longer. My body wouldn’t let me.
I was terrified.
Thankfully, Mama to the rescue, the lesson ended early. I promised to get back on as soon as I felt better. I just needed rest, I reasoned. But the aching in my head was not what was holding me back. I’d been stepped on and bounced into the ground more times than I could count from lessons and unintentional lessons of falling but I’d never felt that fear. And I’d never failed to get immediately back in the saddle.
Eventually, shortly after, I made my way back in. I rode the horse that had bucked me and made my peace with the fear, but it didn’t leave. It sat beside me, monitoring my movements and dealing me visions of doom. I was back in the saddle, but I had seen the other side and I was changed.
The past few months have dealt The Chief and I more bucks than I thought possible. Every time something else would happen, we’d say “Well, it can’t get any worse than this” and then, it would. Don’t try that tactic, it doesn’t work. And so, we stopped saying it and as thing after thing after thing piled on, we eventually had to laugh our ways back into the saddle. We laughed, not because of the humor in the situations, of which there was none, but because of the sheer shock.
The exhibit I unintentionally went to during the ups and downs. Well, that pretty much pins the tail on the donkey, Anchorage Art Museum.
The Chief and I lost two family members back to back, so fast that we found ourselves in the same funereal attire before it could make it back into the closet. After that, we were continuously kicked while we were down, financially, physically and emotionally. The small things didn’t matter compared to the loss but they made it feel like we would never come up for air. If that horse had trampled me while I had been on the ground, that might have been a close second to how we have felt these past few months that I haven’t written. It’s been a haunting hiatus but also one filled with immense love.
Our little neighborhood has been hit hard this year. A surge of sadness abounds in such a small area and our love for one another links us so that our pain, is theirs and theirs, ours. Yet, we’ve been able to lift one another. While we were gone to California in the familial tailspin, our neighborhood came together to hold us from afar. They tended to our seedlings, watering them and keeping a daily fire in our house to protect them from frost.
Bell pepper from Ali. When a friend brings you a pepper gift, why not try to make her one too?
They kept our freezer frozen by running our generator. They kept our hearts from splitting from our chests when the struggle to keep them in felt far too great to bear. Those whom we love, from here, from near and from far have found us when floundering and steadied our stride. To our friends and family everywhere, we are forever grateful.
Like that fall off the horse, these blows too tried to force fear and for a while, it worked and sometimes, it still does. Every time the phone would ring, I would panic. Every moment felt like an opportunity for disaster because disaster was all I saw. Yet, that fall wasn’t meant to teach me fear and neither was this, it was to teach me respect. Respect for that which is greater than me, that which I cannot control and perspective on that which I can. Respect for the relationships I value and the beautiful story we all lead.
Respect for life.
What hides behind? A double yellow squash from the saved seedlings.
To feel pain is to know we are alive and I don’t want to live at half-mast. I was blinded to the beauty all around me while under the spell of pain but I have awoken. Let’s move through, shall we?
Thank you for your patience in this time off and thank you for joining me again, back in the Beneath the Borealis saddle. Here’s to entries of joy.
To you and yours,
to life,
with love,
Julia
//This post is in honor of the three females who raised The Chief. To Donna, Jane and Cinda, I am eternally grateful. We miss you dearly and feel you with us daily. Your touch on this world lives on.//
Grandma’s beauty still blooms.
And thank you, M for the push to start again and for the fabulous snow pants I will wear with pride. I appreciate you.
After two weeks of shuffling and switching between sleeping spots, packing and unpacking and repacking again, we’ve arrived home.
Home.
From the moment we left California, everything was different (other than shipping a case of wine for free, that was the same. Thank you STS + Alaska Airlines).
The goodbye glow.
For the first time, we returned to Alaska saying “Yes”.
For the first time, we returned with clear work plans for the Spring and Summer months.
For the first time, we traveled in our own truck with a working heater.
For the first time, we returned in late Winter.
For the first time, we returned just us two.
Once on the Alaska side of things, we were smoothly skating along.
Pre-Alaska wasn’t as easy. Our last day went a little like this: high stress, filled with rain, a broken car defroster + windows that won’t roll down = no visibility, locked out of our storage unit where ALL of The Chief’s new tools that he needs for the season were stored, soaked in rain trying to get in and then running my face into my car window in an effort to jump quickly inside, resulting in a sweet little shiner.
There were a few too many last-minute chores and odds and ends but, in the end, the skies cleared and we sat at the kitchen table, my Brother, my Nephew (the fearless, toothless wonder), my Mom, The Chief and I eating tuna salad and laughing it off. It was good and hard to leave. My heart straddles the states with neither part taking or leaving more. It’s good to arrive and hard to leave each time, each place.
The simple joys of California living: making fresh squeezed blood orange lemonade in March.
But leave we did in the smoothest of fashions and arrived just the same. We were back to our well-oiled machine Alaskan selves.
I wait for luggage, you pick up the car (already running and warm inside. Pure luxury).
You drive the icy streets, I navigate.
We arrived at The Musher & Hula’s Anchorage abode around 2 am, you know, the normal hour for guests and immediately, I felt Alaska sinking in. After being gone for so long, I was missing that connection.
The smooth continued on into the next day when we gazed upon the two lists I’d made:
List magic. The Chief is in the background pondering my superhuman abilities…
One listing everything we had at home.
Another, listing everything we needed.
The Chief congratulated himself on being genius enough to have caught such a genius fiancée.
Arriving at 2 am and leaving one day later sounded ambitious, but as we floated through our chores 12 hours later, we became giddy with the reality that we were indeed heading home tomorrow.
Just one basket!
After dinner at R&J’s with even more Alaskan friends, we were getting more and more excited to head home.
And, an early rise and a blood draw later (we had to at least throw in some medical issues) and we were off.
My moon, my man.
We’d heard tales of The Road, 60 miles of ice covered in slush and so we steadied ourselves for a tough journey but 6 hours later, as we laid our first tracks, it still felt easy, breezy.
Easy, breezy because I wasn’t driving, that is.
After a few quick inhale moments (on my part, The Chief was relaxed, as always while driving in insane conditions) crossing through some tougher road glaciers, we were home. We arrived at our snowmachine, with the sled attached, at the end of our driveway, ready to haul our goods to an already heated house with working lights.
Snow aliens.
It has never been easier.
Lordy, I love our friend family.
The hard part came in heart form when we awoke from our warm bed the morning after to the quiet. I quickly awoke, worried that I’d slept too long and Lou would be hungry. But, of course, Lou wasn’t there.
Just the quiet.
Just the two of us.
Through all of the beautiful, growing up life changes we’ve welcomed since we’ve left from and returned to Alaska, that jarring sadness still remains. It followed us through California to Ecuador and back, all in different forms, despite the thought that I might escape it. It’s smaller but it’s there.
Thankfully, so are our friends.
After a cry and a realization that we needed the house to fill up with more than just our own sounds, we heard a call. Just like that, our needs were met, as our neighbor (who had set our house up so cherry for us – which was no quite feet given the inch of solid ice under all the snow. That’s a lot of Ramp of Doom chipping…) hollered as he walked over. An hour later, another neighbor followed with his pooch and after him more and more of our family (canine and human) arrived until we found ourselves amongst half of the valley, at a bonfire in our backyard.
We’ve arrived.
My favorite spot. Patterns, much?
Home again, home again, different as it may be and same as it always was, joys and sadnesses set in balance by those we share this place with and are lucky enough to call our friend family. Thank you for making it easy, physically and emotionally, to snuggle in so sweetly again.
If there’s anything Alaska has tried and tried to teach me time and time again, it’s been the slow transition.
These past few weeks of Fall have been glorious (a word that often seems a bit over-enthusiastic but suddenly seems a Goldilocks “just right” to describe the colors we’ve seen).
Truly beautiful. The Summer seemed to slink away overnight and suddenly we awoke to a world changed. Everything. The leaves did their dance through the wee hours into new colors and the air suddenly broke into crisp and away we went from a smooth Summer and into the quiet…
The quiet.
The quiet that descends upon this Valley is one I’ve never truly experienced in the Fall. Every year before I’ve either left before it came or left just as it was settling.
Well, it has settled.
It’s a Winter kind of quiet that wraps its arms around you and tells you to dive in. It’s the kind of quiet to feel alone to, like a sad song you need to hear to feel what you need to feel.
But it’s not Winter yet. And suddenly, the Fall is no longer the Fall but the Shoulder Season into Winter because just as quickly as Fall settled in, it faded and so now we welcome the Shoulder Season of the in-betweens and the lesson it carries.
Fall fades.
The lesson that Alaska keeps hammering, time and time again.
The slow transition.
I outwitted the last slow change.
I had my last ski in March, left for California and returned in April to mush (and very little of it).
No skiing. Awkward walking. But the bulk of the slow transition has passed before I had come home and we were at the tail end of the Spring Shoulder Season just as the long Spring was just about to jump into Summer.
This time, for this Fall Shoulder Season, I decided to let it come. Let it wash over me. Historically, Fall was always an awkward time for me. I think I noticed the quieting of that which surrounded me and tried my darndest to avoid it. But there’s no escaping it. Even in a bustling city, you can hear it. You can feel it. The slow down. And it sank into my bones and made me ache for the rattling of Summer to take me away from having to dive deeper.
This Fall, I wasn’t running. I was driving. We were supposed to drive South. We were going to watch the colors change on the trees and then change back again as we drove from Fall here back into Summer down South. The “we” was Cinda and I. We had been planning it for almost a year, since before we had even gotten our first truck, round 1. I’ve always been a huge fan of road trips, especially of the solo variety. There’s no way to return unchanged. I was nervous, of course. I’d never taken the route and certainly not solo, but I didn’t feel solo. I had my girl.
We would talk about it and plan about it when we were out for walks. I would envision us with our windows down, Lou’s ears blowing in the wind with that specific smile she had for when things were just so easy, so good.
Super fuzz face
We would camp together and I’d finally get to cuddle with her (she wasn’t a huge cuddler but she would tolerate a bit) in a tent of our own like her and her Dad had done on the property when they first settled in, a decade before, to our home. It would be our first solo road trip together.
My Mom used to tell me about a road trip she took with one of my childhood dogs, I believe out to see my Grandmother in St. Louis, then all returning together to California. I pictured Lou and I in the same light and it felt like a sort of changing of the guards, a tradition passed on from my Mom and her first baby to me and mine. It felt important.
It, of course, didn’t happen.
We returned home to the end of Summer without our first baby in the Time of Plans.
Fall time foliage
“What are your plans for Winter?” which, of course, means, where are you going in the Fall and Winter and Spring until we see one another back here at Adult Summer Camp.
My plans had been set in stone and then, suddenly, there was nothing.
It took me weeks to speak what I already knew: I didn’t want to leave and at the same time, there was no place I wanted to be farther from. Cinda was everywhere, in everything. She was the bush at the Swimming Hole she loved to tackle after swimming. She was the road into Town that we would walk every Friday night to go see her Dad play Softball. She was in the flowers I had planted that were now shifting to seed, the fireweed sending its last showers of pink upon us. She was everywhere in a landscape that had shifted so much in the torturous week we had been gone. It had been full-fledged Summer when we left and now, it was ending. Everything was different and everything was the same except that she was nowhere to be found and yet everywhere all at once. I couldn’t stand to leave her and I couldn’t stand to be here without her.
And so, against my tradition of running, I decided to stay. I decided to stay in the pain of being here without her and of being here with her, in everything I do. I decided to sit through the long transition and let it wash over me.
Solo shadow.
Her death has been full of slow transitions, full of little letting-gos.
For the first few weeks I found her Cinda fuzz everywhere, she was notorious for it. Our friend used to joke that we could come over as long as I told Cinda not to shed. We would all laugh aloud as she said it. “Lou-Lou, don’t you shed now, O.K?” I had taken to one fuzz in particular and used it as a bookmark and then put it into a locket a dear friend sent me. And then suddenly, there were no more. No more fuzzes. Suddenly, I was cleaning dog hair from visits from our neighbor dogs, but not from mine.
Little letting-gos.
Last week I finally felt ready to contact a girlfriend whose dog I thought of immediately to give Cinda’s dog food to when she passed. That was two months ago. Being the super-savvy dog mom that I am, I had found a way to get her food out here for free and delivered monthly and since I like to be ultra-prepared, I had two months of dog food in the arsenal, ready for my Lou. We returned to the 55-gallon drum full of food and two months later I was finally ready to empty it. I brought a sample of it to a girlfriend’s birthday where I knew my fellow dog mom friend would be so she could see if her little lady liked it. All the dogs followed me around all night like some Pied Piper and it felt good to feel important to a dog (or 10) even if it was just because of food. Thankfully, that popularity held true for her dog as well and the food was a hit, and just like that, it was time to give it up.
Little letting-gos.
Today, I woke up ready to jump on the train of this day and ride it to the last stop. I had and have a lot of work to do but right as The Chief was leaving this morning, my phone was telling me to check it. On it was a reminder: CJ kennel.
Cinda Jones kennel.
Today was the day to give it up.
A friend had posted on the Mail Shack bulletin board that he and his fur baby were looking for a kennel for travel. It was posted right when we got back without Cinda and The Chief called to let him know he could have ours. Two months ago. Today was the day. I went to load her kennel into our truck for The Chief to drop-off when I realized that the hardware was not with it. Savvy dog mom that I am, I had put it away separately in my suitcase. I crawled under our bed and moved the various totes out of the way and pulled the suitcase out and as I opened it, I broke down. There was my baby’s travel kit. Her no-spill water bowl and her collar that she only ever wore if we were traveling and even little poop bags for the trip out of the wilds and then, the hardware. I ended up giving him everything except the collar (obviously), packing it away with love for the new generation and love for ours we had lost. The Chief and I held one another as tears rolled down our faces. He had just been telling me earlier in the morning of a dream he had about her, alive again and well and here we were, sending off her things. Time to let go.
The little letting-gos.
The little letting-gos in the grand scheme of the large letting-go.
It’s been two months since we lost our little Lou, our Tiny T, Cinda Muffinberry, Fire Marshall Jones and it has been the most poignant lesson from Alaska yet, the slowest slow transition, in the Fall of all times. This year, I welcomed the Fall, I welcomed the quiet and the time to truly take that slow transition and to feel pain. Losing Cinda has made me realize that my whole life, I’ve run from pain. I’ve seen its glimmer and have shielded myself and so, it grew. It compounded and bubbled up and started to ooze out of cracks I hadn’t reinforced until suddenly, it burst. Submitting to the pain of Cinda has opened the floodgates to truly feel pain.
I highly recommend it.
It’s awful, it’s the depths you didn’t know but it’s finally moving through you and what better time to let go than the Fall?
Sourdough Sunset
The glorious colors of Fall have faded and it would be now, in the past, that the sinking feeling would come in but there’s no need, it’s already been here. The leaves have turned to brown and fallen. The landscape is full of browns and greens again, making color a treat for the eyes instead of a constant. The rain lets up for a day of bluebird skies, only to fade away into a dreary pitter-patter pattern on the roof.
And for the first time, it’s O.K.
These little letting-gos haven’t made me feel farther from her, on the contrary, they’ve made her feel closer. The constant torture of remembering feeling the life leave her as her head grew heavier on my knee that day has stopped being as frequent and instead I tend to remember more her goofy smile when she was sleeping on the couch or her prancing dance she’d do when we got home at night (if she wasn’t already with us).
Cozy comfy
And I remember her lessons. She not only taught me how to move about the woods, how to find my bearings and my way home she taught me to trust. Cinda is the first being I’ve ever truly, wholeheartedly trusted and it was amazing to know how that felt. And more than that, she taught me to trust myself again. She gave me her utter faith and she made me feel like a good mom and then she taught me to feel the pain.
I could have asked for nothing more, except for more time but I guess that’s just another little letting-go in a land of slow transitions. I think I’m learning, Alaska.
Love to you, my Lou. Thank you for taking me through the seasons of myself and finding the quiet within. It’s not as scary as I thought.
Happy Fall to you, whatever it may look like. Here’s to the little letting-gos and to the big.
Beneath the Borealis 