New Beginnings

September is a glorious month of harvest, mums, apples, cider, and cool sleeping weather. During the early morning hours of September 1 - the day my classes started - a waning moon cast moonlight through my open bedroom window. A lone cricket chirped outside in the grass. The sweet scent of a freshly mown lawn wafted in on the cool air.

A few hours later, students strolled or strode into my classroom. They carried backpacks, phones, tablets, laptops, and water bottles or coffee cups.  I welcomed everyone, and we began the task of getting to know one another. We'll spend the next fifteen weeks writing and learning each other's stories. We'll read essays and laugh and joke and be serious when seriousness is called for and be sad if it's time to be sad. We'll discuss the values and contemporary issues of our time. We'll think and agree and often agree to disagree.

In public speaking, students will slowly shed their fear like an old skin. They'll learn about speaking outlines, visual aids, analyzing their audience, ethics, and the art of speaking behind a podium and in front of it.  They'll speak to us of places they've traveled or places they dream of visiting after graduation. Many will wait until much later when they're carrying a fledgling career in their back pocket and perhaps a toddler in their arms. I'll hear about their hobbies and their families and their goals. I'll admire photographs of nieces and nephews, sons and daughters, cats and dogs, and the occasional prized car or motorcycle.

The possibilities remain endless and exciting, and I savor the diversity. It's an honor to hear students speak about what is important to them in life. I'm left longing to know the rest of their story as time unspools the ribbon of our lives. I content myself with the memories I'll carry and wonder about during my morning walks. Each week, through the processes of writing essays and speeches, we'll examine and celebrate our commonalities and differences. Both enable us to learn and grow together and enhance our living.

Walking Through Time

Thirty-one years ago, during the summer of 1984, I started walking 3-4 miles a day for fitness. A long family history of heart disease and diabetes motivated me to lace up my sneakers that first morning and head out into the early morning air. I walked along the streets of the small rural town I lived in at the time. Soon I found myself enjoying the quiet solitude before responsibilities and chores claimed my attention. Walking settled into my bones and stayed.

 

Today I walk in sunshine, rain, sleet, and snow. My limits are fever, icy conditions, and a wind chill or temperature of ten degrees or lower. I wish to avoid a nasty fall or frostbite. In a pinch or while traveling, I'll settle for a treadmill at the local gym but I know I won't see a deer nibbling grass in a pasture nor hear a chickadee calling to its mate nearby. I won't smell wet leaves or taste rain in my mouth.

 

Walking sustains my heart, mind, and spirit. Walking centers me and clears my head for the day. My thoughts loosen and float where they will, or I plan a writing project or a lesson plan or pray or sing a hymn to myself. I'm never bored. Walking tones my muscles, and it's the most natural thing in the world to do. I don't need lessons or a trainer or special equipment. Sturdy shoes with decent tread and thick socks are my biggest investments and necessities.

 

I've walked through presidential elections, the endless war on drugs and crime, my parents' deaths, a life threatening illness, break-ups, employment changes, successes and failures, and joys and disappointments. Walking never fails to soothe or comfort or refresh or celebrate life's happenings.   

 

The anticipation of experiencing something new within the familiar pushes me out the door every morning. Spring rains turn to summer's heat to autumn's russet leaves to winter's slush. Each season offers gifts and blessings for the senses.

 

I've encountered white-tailed deer and red foxes and chipmunks and squirrels and porcupines, each of us going about our business. I've watched ducks and geese and crows and blue jays honk, squawk, and fly overhead. This morning I discovered fresh moose tracks in the roadside's damp soil. I'm still not sure whether I'm elated or disappointed that the moose and I didn't cross paths. And that's the heart of walking: to observe the landscape for surprises, to know one tree intimately, or to love the sun's slant through one patch of forest like I love my husband's face in sunlight or shadow.

 

Each morning work and chores await, but for a little while it's simply the road and me. Someday, when I'm gone, I hope the ghosts of my footsteps will remain throughout time. 

Writing Remains My Calling Card

Earlier this year I applied for a modest grant in order to "further my writing career." I worked diligently to create thoughtful replies to the required questions listed within the application guidelines. I read drafts aloud to the cat, the refrigerator, and the spider plant living near a sunny window. Members of my writing group graciously provided constructive feedback. I revised, and then I submitted my application.

Today I received - via email - a polite rejection notice that I am not the chosen one for the award. The missive also reiterated several times: keep writing, keep trying, don't give up, you're creative, you're wonderful blah blah blah...finally I tapped the DELETE key. The timeworn platitudes seemed intended to encourage; I found them patronizing. A helpful comment I might consider for future grant applications would've been more welcome.

I've been published enough times to savor the sweetness of publication. The thrill when someone sees merit in my words warms me inside like hot ginger tea. Rejection stings like a bee: swiftly white-hot. After the pain passes, rejection can motivate or shut down my writing. I'm mindful of this when I provide students feedback on their speech or essay drafts.

My proven remedy is to take a brief break to play with patterns, textures, and colors through the art medium of assemblage. According to my American Heritage dictionary, assemblage is "an art work consisting of an arrangement of miscellaneous objects, such as pieces of metal, cloth, and string. While my ego is still smarting, I tend toward the quick and simple: scrapbooking paper, stickers, and images gleaned from magazines. Cutting and pasting and discerning a pattern and motif gives the rejection release. I'm ready to face the page again. After all, one editor's dandelion is another editor's rose.

Writers commit. We practice our craft. We read widely in a variety of genres. We learn from other writers' process and work. I learn from my students' mistakes and their successes. They learn from mine. I teach what I know, and I don't pretend to know everything. I mistrust writers who do. At the end of the day, all writers, whether we're published or not, award winners or not, understand that writing is still our calling card.

Summer Wanes

Summer is leaning toward autumn and the beginning of a new school year. Outside, the last of my Black-eyed Susans are blooming. Goldenrod and ragweed fill pastures and roadside ditches. Insects and crickets chirp in the grass, seeking mates. Gardens are rich with harvest.

Inside, I'm revising syllabi, planning class activities, and thumbing through new textbooks to get a feel for their weight and content in my hands. Next week I'll begin my 14th year of teaching at the college level. I'm excited about greeting new students and welcoming returning ones. This weekend they'll arrive on campus carrying hope in their hearts and sporting equipment, pens, notebooks, laptops, and thumb drives in their luggage. For many they're the first in their family to attend college. They want to make their parents proud. It's my job to help them do so, and I don't shrug off the challenge lightly. I've learned it's a privilege and honor to teach.

Therefore, I'm tucking away summer's memories for revisiting when winter's winds howl through the trees and snow ticks against the windows. I'm applying a fresh shine to my sense of humor, positive attitude, and checking the wattage of my smile. I'm buying new shoes. Attitude is everything.

Breaking Trail

After a snowstorm drops a foot or more of snow in our rural neighborhood, I strap on snowshoes and go for a “shoe.” I set out to break trail and see what I can see in our 14-acre woodlot. Often this trek leads me to an old logging road. It twists and turns up the side of a steep hill through stands of fragrant pine, sugar maples, and hardy oaks. Occasionally I discover white-tailed deer tracks or the footprints of a red fox in search of an unsuspecting meal. These fellow creatures manage winter as best they can—just like the rest of us.

Recently I turned 55. It terrified me. Usually I savor the gift of a birthday and celebrate with chocolate cupcakes and chocolate ice cream. The day always blooms with possibilities for the upcoming year. What happened? No other milestone in my life has created such a breach of confidence. Black balloons and over-the-hill jokes started to look and sound good. Fifty-five means this is it, folks. Now I’m really a grownup. I don’t have time for nonsense—my own or anyone else’s. What are my priorities? Discerning them is breaking new trail.  

While writing a memoir, the narrative unspooled smoothly. Journals I’d kept for decades confirmed dates and facts. The emotional pulse of each scene beat with a steady rhythm. No secrets hid between the lines. The ending wasn’t a surprise.

I expected the same ease with writing a novel. I’d step right into the story; it would unfurl like the frozen oak leaves I warm between my hands while out on the trail. It didn’t work. Characters sounded stiff on the page, and who were they anyway? What did they eat for breakfast if they ate breakfast at all? What did they think about in the middle of the night when they couldn’t sleep? I didn’t know their language or how they dressed. I abandoned the well-worn path and began bushwhacking a new one. Life requires it.    

Sing Me a Lullaby: a Memoir

     As I continue to seek publication of my memoir, Sing Me a Lullaby, excerpts have been published
in the Fall 2013 issue of the literary journal Minerva Rising (www.minervarising.com):

     Sex education was serious business in 1973.  All freshman students at Skowhegan Area High School were required to take a health class whether we wanted to or not, though I seldom heard anyone complain about it.  I was no exception.  Being pregnant didn’t mean I knew all the facts.  It just meant I had experience.

     Our class gathered in a cramped cubicle adjacent to the gym and locker rooms, which always smelled like damp sneakers.  After lunch, while our bellies digested the cafeteria’s mystery meat of the day, we watched black and white filmstrips about our changing bodies and the menstrual cycle.  My mother never told me about having periods. She simply handed me a box of Kotex when I told her I’d started bleeding “down there.”  

     I endured diagrammed explanations (excluding intercourse) of how a baby ended up in my womb as if I didn’t already know the details. I could’ve shared a few more with the class but no one was asking.  I knew how the baby got in.  I worried about how it was going to get out, but childbirth wasn’t part of the lesson plans. 

     Mrs. Pratt never called on me in class which made me nervous.  At any moment I expected her to point one of her stubby fingers at me, order me to stand up, and then she’d caution my classmates:  “Watch out!  Or you’ll end up like her!  These are the years for football games and cheerleader squads, braces and acne medications, not baby bottles and diaper rash cream!” 

     I chewed my nails down to their quick because she barked facts at us as if she feared having

them linger in her mouth too long.  I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to have sex with her.  She

looked too sharp around the edges and too lumpy in the middle.  She reminded me of the broken pieces of peanut brittle my mother kept in an old cookie tin for when she craved something sweet.

     Sometimes we could hear gym classes dribbling a basketball around the court on the other side of the wall, or the sharp whistle of the coach while he refereed a game.  In our confined quarters we sat in stiff rows, not one giggle amongst us.  The dim classroom hid our hot cheeks so no one could witness our embarrassment.  We knew this was important stuff.  We were being initiated into the mysteries of womanhood, and we didn’t want to miss a moment of it.  We stared straight ahead at the screen as Mrs. Pratt used her wooden pointer to draw our attention to the uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and vagina.  The clitoris wasn’t mentioned at all though its sole purpose is to provide pleasure, but pleasure wasn’t the point.  Mrs. Pratt explained menstruation using careful, clinical terms like hormones, ovulation, and cervix.  This information would make our grandparents squirm, our mothers blush, and our dads stutter, but Mrs. Pratt never broke stride with the delivery of her lectures.  We memorized every word so we could whisper about them later in the library during study hall.  Even me. 

     Many times, I hated myself because I had risked becoming pregnant.  It wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done.  I wondered why I’d been so quick to place my destiny into the hands of a horny guy who didn’t care about me.  I could’ve prevented his sperm from waltzing with my egg by just saying no, but I didn’t think things through to their biological conclusion.  After the shame cooled on my cheeks, I wished that someone, anyone, had provided me with the

guidance I needed long before I removed my panties and engaged in sex.  Sex was for grownups, not us.  That message came a little late for me.

--------

     When my pregnancy couldn’t be hidden any longer, Bert Dumais, the assistant principal, called me into his office over the school’s intercom.  He frowned toward my belly, motioned me toward a straight-backed chair, and took his place behind a desk littered with stacks of documents and file folders.  Gray file cabinets lined the wall behind him, and framed photographs – I assumed of his wife and kids – looked ready to topple off the edge of the desk.  I imagined that somewhere in the mess lay a folder with my name on it, stamped:  PREGNANT.  I had never been called into Mr. Dumais’ office before, and I waited:  eyes downcast, tense, afraid, and hot with worry.  I sneaked a quick peek at Mr. Dumais’ neatly combed hair, starched white shirt, and paisley tie.  Shuffling papers around his desk, he cleared his throat as if he didn’t quite know how to begin.  Finally, he suggested I stay home for the remainder of the school term.  I could return the following fall and begin my sophomore year. 

     “I can find a tutor for you,” he said, clearing his throat a second time.  “The District will pay for it, and that way you won’t fall behind in your studies.” 

     “I don’t want to stay home.”  I stared past his left ear at a calendar hanging on the wall.  October’s jaunty picture of jack-o´-lanterns piled around an old-fashioned hay wagon seemed silly in an office full of discipline and rules.        

     “Well, yes, I can understand that, but you’re a potential health risk for the school, and a poor example for the other girls.  We can’t be held responsible in the event of a medical emergency because of your, uh, condition.”  He scratched a quick note on a notepad as though part of him

dealt with me, and another part had already jumped ahead to the next task on his day’s agenda.  

     “My doctor said it’s okay for me to be in school,” I said.  “I don’t need a tutor.” I couldn’t imagine a stranger walking into our kitchen and explaining math problems over the cup of instant coffee I knew my mother would offer.  I didn’t want to sit at home all day twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the baby to be born.  I was pregnant, not contagious.  As for being a poor example to the other girls, I would bet a dollar that I wasn’t the only one having sex.  The difference was that no other girl had gotten pregnant – that I knew of.    

     “Any kids giving you a hard time?”  Mr. Dumais scratched another note on his pad.  “Because if they are . . .” His voice softened with the promise of punishment if anyone had been out of line. 

     “No.  No one is bothering me.”  I watched dust motes float in a wedge of morning sun falling across the carpet and avoided Mr. Dumais’ eyes.  He didn’t look like he believed me.  He was right.  This wasn’t the whole truth.  Alan Chouinard passed me a grimy slip of paper in English class when Mr. Gallagher wasn’t looking.  “Are you prignant?” had been written on the paper in a blocky, boyish script.  Blushing, I had nodded, ignoring the twitter of smirks among the boys clustered around Alan. 

     “You wouldn’t feel more comfortable studying at home?”  Mr. Dumais pushed a stack of files to a corner of his desk.         

     “I want to stay in school.”  I ignored the urge to chew my fingernails; tucked my hands into my lap instead. 

     “Very well,” Mr. Dumais said, “we’ll see how things go for now.  But I don’t want the school

held responsible for any medical problems.  Bring me a note from your doctor confirming that it’s okay for you to attend school.”  He picked up his pen again, dismissing me.

     I had won with another partial lie.  I hated the students who whispered about me behind their hands in the cafeteria, and the others who gawked when we filed into the gymnasium for pep rallies to cheer the football players before a game.  Five months along, I stood out against the backdrop of skinny girls like a chicken in a stationery shop.  Nevertheless, I needed the sense of normalcy school provided me.  School was where my friends—the ones who hadn’t abandoned me—and I griped about teachers and homework. We never discussed my pregnancy but giggled over our lunch trays and journeyed together toward that magical day in our future: Graduation.  Hiding at home wasn’t an option.  Neither was dropping out.  I planned to graduate on schedule and attend college.  

     I clutched my books against my chest and escaped to class.  Though I had declared confidence to Mr. Dumais, inside I didn’t feel so sure about completing the year’s academic work.  I had six classes to worry about:  English, French I, Algebra I, Physical Science, Geography, and Health. Good grades would prove that being pregnant didn’t mean I was dumb or a loser.    

     When my alarm clock rang every morning at six, I forced myself out of bed and my pajamas and stood naked for a few moments in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom.  I stared at my round belly as if it belonged to someone else – a borrowed outfit that didn’t fit quite right – and then I hurried to get dressed.

     As for the teachers, they left me alone as long as I did my work.  Their faces, when they called on me in class, wore neutral expressions lacking disapproval or interest.  Only one cared.  Thornton Moore taught French; at first glance, he didn’t look like a likely advocate for a pregnant teenager.  He was a tall broad fellow with a white beard, mustache, and thinning dark hair that entertained streaks of gray.  Whenever a student annoyed him, he loomed over their desk in his black suit like a great black bird and said:  “Patience is a virtue of which I am exceedingly short.”  He didn’t have to speak twice.  His habit of sliding his glasses back and forth along the bridge of his nose amused me.  Every morning before the beginning of class, while late students dilly-dallied in the hallway, he took a moment to stand by my desk – no one else’s.  Lowering his voice, he asked, Comment allez-vous, Mademoiselle? 

     Bien, Monsieur, I would reply, basking in his attention and reviewing the vocabulary words I had memorized the night before.  Speaking French tasted like vanilla ice cream – a sweet break from pimples and blood pressure checks.  French was safe too.  It was a language of reciting verbs and nouns without expressing my thoughts and feelings:  Bonjour, Au revoir, Quelle heure est-il? C’est dix heures.

     Mr. Moore scribbled encouragement on my exams – tres bien fait, tu fais de tres bon travail, excellent – and smiled at me in the cafeteria.  I knew by the way he looked me right in the eye that he didn’t think less of me because of the baby.   

--------

     One frosty moonlit night in late October, around eleven o’clock, I lay in bed reading by the light of my bedside lamp.  Occasionally the furnace ticked on and off; otherwise the house was quiet.  Still.  Upstairs, my parents slept.  And then it happened, just as my doctor had promised it would:  A fluttering.  Butterflies playing tag in my belly.  Once.  Twice.  Again.  The baby was moving.  A baby.  Alive.  With fingers and toes like mine. 

--------

     Lady Luck favored me with a gift.  I was browsing the high school’s library shelves for something good to read over the weekend.  The neat stacks of books surrounded me like cherished friends, and the clank and clang of the heat registers provided a cozy backdrop for studying.  Whiffs of pungent ink from the mimeograph machine behind the checkout desk reminded me of grade school – a time when I didn’t have anything to think about but recess and skipping rope.

     My stomach clenched with surprise when the bold black letters spelling ADOPTION along a book’s spine caught my eye.  Pulling the slim volume from the shelf, I headed for a table in the back corner away from other students.  I had thirty minutes before my next class.   

     Arranging my algebra homework around me for camouflage, I opened the adoption book and scanned its Table of Contents. Quickly I turned to Chapter Two: Giving a Baby Up for Adoption. Flipping pages, I rushed to read everything at once.  According to the book, if I gave the baby up for adoption I would have to give my voluntary written consent to surrender and release all of

my parental rights.  I paused.  I didn’t feel like a parent.  Parents were adults like Mum and Dad and my teachers; grownups who always knew what to do.  I didn’t know what to do. I flipped more pages.  Once I gave away my rights, the Department of Health and Welfare or a child-placing agency would then assume full responsibility for the baby.  All I needed to do is sign my name on a dotted line, and I could leave the hospital with empty arms.  It almost seemed too easy.     

     It surprised me to learn that mothers weren’t encouraged to see or hold their babies after giving birth.  Even a glimpse might make them question their decision and delay the adoption process.  The mother couldn’t even know whether her baby was a boy or girl.  How, I wondered, could I live my whole life without knowing?  Without saying hello or good-bye?  It didn’t seem fair.  Also, I wouldn’t have any say in who adopted the baby or where they lived.  I would have to trust someone else’s judgment in choosing a good mother.  And father – something I couldn’t provide.  

     I stopped reading.  Giving the baby up for adoption was tempting – and scary.  Nine months of sharing blood and air and then an uncertain future filled with wondering what the baby was doing, whether it was sick or well, cold or hungry, happy or sad.  I wouldn’t see its first tooth peeking through its pink gums or celebrate its first steps across the floor before toppling into my arms.  How could I turn my back on these things?  I wasn’t sure I could if the time came to sign my name. Good girls stepped-up and owned their mistakes.  Isn’t that what Mrs. Merckens had taught us in first grade?  Good girls apologized.  They did what they had to do to make things right.  Giving the baby away would be cheating – getting away scot-free.  

     Keeping the baby would mean dirty diapers, spit-up, and drool.  No more free time to skip rocks across the frog pond or pick blackberries out behind the barn.  No trips to the beach with my friends. Curling up in bed with a good book and reading a rainy Saturday afternoon away?  Not with a baby in the house.  Every day there would be feedings and burpings, baby bottles to sterilize and formula to mix, and piles of dirty diapers to wash.   

     I might be up half the night rocking the baby to sleep if it had colic or the sniffles or sore gums from teething, and we didn’t have a rocking chair in the house.  My sister’s yawns and bloodshot eyes didn’t look pretty after a sleepless night when my niece started cutting teeth.  I often comforted Laurie myself with a chilled teething ring Joyce kept in the refrigerator.  Many times I changed Laurie’s diapers too.  However, baby-sitting didn’t make me a mother.  What magic would?   

     How could I stay in school and care for a baby too?  And then there was the issue of money.  My parents were already paying for my doctor appointments.  No telling what the hospital bill was going to be, but I assumed it wouldn’t be cheap.  Too young to get a real job, I didn’t even have a driver’s license.  Baby-sitting Laurie on the weekends wasn’t nearly enough money to support a baby.  

     I couldn’t imagine giving the baby away.  I couldn’t imagine keeping it either.  I wanted to do the right thing, but what was the right thing to do?  I found comfort in books, but this one offered little for my tangled thoughts.  I tucked it back onto the shelf. 

    Likewise, the book hadn’t told me how to approach the idea of adoption with my mother.  I needed to do it – soon – but I kept putting it off.  Mum could be grouchy, and I was afraid of how she might react.  You never knew with her.  We didn’t discuss the baby beyond my monthly checkups.  Mum read Good Housekeeping in the waiting room while Dr. Jones examined me, noting my blood pressure and weight gain.  He measured the height of my belly with a plastic tape measure to determine how much the baby had grown.  “Good,” he always said, stuffing the tape back into his pocket.  “Good.”  I half-expected him to pat me on the head for a job well done.  Sometimes I wished he would.   

     Afterwards, in the car, Mum always asked the same question:  “Well, what did he say?” She turned the ignition key and, looking over her right shoulder, backed out of the parking lot and into the street. 

     “He said everything’s fine.”  I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. 

     Hearing this reassurance, my mother turned her attention to navigating the slippery, snowy roads in the afternoon’s fading light.  An invisible door slammed shut between us.  I didn’t know how to open it.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to.  It might mean talking about why I had been having sex on the sly.  I couldn’t do it.  We rode home in silence.       

     My father didn’t accompany us to my doctor appointments.  He pretended the baby didn’t exist; the larger my belly grew the less his eyes ventured below my chin.  I had assumed that once Mum announced I was pregnant, Dad would take charge and make the father accountable – make me accountable – but he did nothing.  If my parents discussed me at all, I never knew about it.  Instead, Dad became formal and polite:   

     “Don’t slip on the ice.” 

     “I won’t.”

     “How was school today?”    

     “Good.” 

     As December slipped into January, Dad started going to bed right after the evening news. I wanted him to remain downstairs with his hands loose in his lap and feet crossed at the ankles.  I needed his forgiveness, any sign that I was still his little girl who had followed him around the farm like a puppy. His absence in the room hurt. He doesn’t love me anymore, I thought, brushing away tears before my mother could see them.     

     The rest of the time silence seeped into the spaces between Dad and me until we looked at anything in the room – the couch, the clock, the TV – instead of each other.  When the silence stretched into seconds, then unbearable minutes, one of us turned away, suddenly remembering we had something important that needed to be done right that minute.  Another door slamming shut.   

     “I’m thinking of giving the baby up for adoption,” I finally informed my mother. We were folding clean bath towels at the kitchen table.  My father, recovering from a bad chest cold, snoozed upstairs in bed.       

     “You’re giving that baby up over my dead body!”  Mum paused, mid-fold, frowning at me as though I had gone crazy.    

     “I didn’t say I’m going to.  I said I’m thinking about it.”  Already, I regretted saying anything at all.       

     “There’s nothing to think about.  You got yourself pregnant, ole girl, now you can damn well

raise the baby.”  Mum dropped a towel, leaving it in a heap on the floor.     

     “But – what about school?”  I picked up the towel, still warm from the dryer.  Smoothing it flat with my hands, I fingered a loose thread instead of looking at my mother.   

     “You should’ve thought about that before you went out and did what you shouldn’t have been doing.”  Mum folded the edges of a washcloth together with short, angry strokes.   

     “I don’t want to quit school.” 

     “Then you’d better find someone to baby-sit.  I’m not quitting my job to do it.  Now, I don’t want to hear any more about it.”  Mum grabbed the last towel out of the wicker basket.  Pressing it into a neat square, she tossed it onto the growing pile between us.  I fled.

     In my room, I stared out the window at the snowy field behind the house – bare acres of white and cold – and hated my mother.  What kind of mother was SHE?  I needed her help, and the best she could do was throw a hissy fit.  How could I bring a baby into the house to live with her?  Perhaps giving it away was best – for everyone.     

     My answer, as many important ones do, arrived when I least expected it:  in the middle of a geography exam on a blue-skied morning.  I couldn’t remember the capital city of some foreign country, so I watched out the window as a crow flew across the football field.  I longed to place my head down on the desk’s cool surface and sleep.

     When the baby kicked against my ribs, I shifted in my seat and stroked my belly.  Then, the whisper of a tiny foot brushed against my palm.  Heat spread throughout my body until I tingled with certainty.  I would keep the baby, stay in school, and earn my diploma right beside my friends – no matter what.  I would find a way.  I may have flunked this particular geography exam, but there would be others.  I would do better next time. 

     After school, I told my mother right away.  “I’m keeping the baby.” I wiggled out of my coat and tossed it over the back of a kitchen chair. 

     “Hang up your coat,” she said, and kept peeling potatoes.   

--------

     Two days past Valentine’s Day – my due date – my mother became impatient with waiting.  She snapped over the smallest things:  snow tracked across the living room rug, a chipped coffee cup, and the TV Guide moved from its customary spot by the television.  She hovered around me as though my belly might crack open like an egg and drop the baby out onto the linoleum.  How she survived six pregnancies without having a nervous breakdown was a mystery. I hid behind homework.  Dad took long naps. 

     I didn’t like the waiting either.  My ankles swelled, and my breasts spilled over the cups of my bra like overripe fruit.  The baby’s nighttime gymnastics kept me awake most of the night. Any twitch or twinge within my body made my heart race, and I froze, certain that the baby was coming at last.  When I realized it was just the baby kicking again, I didn’t know whether to sigh with relief or cry with disappointment. At school I waddled from class to class. Afternoon backaches protested the baby’s weight resting against my hipbones. Frequent trips to the bathroom earned teachers’ frowns.         

     Childbirth became the latest taboo topic creeping about the house alongside my parents and me.  My preconceptions of giving birth came from watching old westerns on television. Pioneer women in labor sweated profusely and contorted their faces in agony.  After a commercial break, a squalling infant wrapped in sheepskin would be placed into the weary mother’s outstretched arms and she’d smile.   

     Finally, just past midnight on February 17, I awakened when a mild cramp rippled through my lower back and belly.  Dr. Jones had mentioned that the beginning of labor might feel like menstrual cramps.  He was right.  When it happened again, and then again, it didn’t take me long to conclude that I must be in labor.  Hurrying out to the kitchen in bare feet, I switched on lights and an outside lamp.  The weatherman on TV had forecasted snow.  Sure enough, it was snowing – hard.  Snow buried the front steps, and it lay like a wooly white blanket over my mother’s car.  The road hadn’t been plowed either.  Pacing the floor, I timed my next two contractions like Dr. Jones taught me.  They were fifteen minutes apart.  My mother, tying her bathrobe’s sash tight around her waist, appeared at the top of the stairway in the kitchen. 

     “What are you doing up?”  She squinted against the light.   

     “I’m having contractions.”  I winced with the beginning of another one.   

     “Oh, my god.  Let’s head for the hospital.”  Mum whirled back into the darkness behind her. 

     “It’s snowing.” 

     “We’d better get going then.” We had an hour’s drive ahead of us.  

     My mother’s face looked grim in the dashboard’s greenish glow as she hunched over the steering wheel.  She had wrapped an old flowered kerchief around the pink curlers in her hair and knotted it tightly beneath her chin.  It looked like a miniature bow tie above the collar of her navy wool coat, which would have made me laugh in different circumstances.  The car shouldered the storm as best it could as the wind blew snow gusts across the road.  We didn’t speak the whole way to the hospital, as though our silence would keep us out of the ditch.

     Gripping the plastic handle of my small suitcase with both hands, I mentally checked off everything I had packed:  a flannel nightgown, a borrowed robe from my sister, terrycloth slippers, underwear, a sanitary belt, Kotex, a hairbrush, a toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, a novel, and clothes for the baby.  Whenever a new contraction clamped down on my belly, I focused on the windshield wipers whipping back and forth to clear the glass.  The warm air pouring out of the heater’s vents kept the car too hot, but without it snowflakes would ice up the windows.  I wiped clammy sweat from my forehead and repeated a silent mantra to myself and the baby:  We’ll be there soon.  We’ll be there soon. Fear of what might or might not lurk behind the next contraction made my stomach queasy.  I distracted myself by musing:  What will the baby be like?  I hope it’s a girl.  Is Dad thinking about me?  He hadn’t gotten up before we left the house.  What if no one ever loves me because I have a baby?  I want my body back.  I have a math test tomorrow.  What will it feel like to be a mother?  Like playing dolls?  I remembered Susie, a Christmas doll I had treated horribly, butchering her hair with scissors and abandoning her in a mud puddle.  What kind of mother will I be?

     The hospital’s brightly lit parking lot finally appeared through the trees. My mother fishtailed through a slippery four-way intersection, and the hospital, a six-story brick building, came into view.  Driving right up to its entrance, Mum honked the car’s horn.  A night watchman, wearing a black cap and bulky black overcoat, shuffled out through the snow while my mother rolled down her window.  “Hurry up,” she yelled.  “My daughter’s in labor.” 

     “I’ll get a nurse.”  The man trotted back inside, returning with a wheelchair. Gripping my elbow, the man ushered me into the chair despite my protests that I could walk just fine.  Mum parked the car while a nurse wheeled me toward the elevator. It finally hit me:  the baby really was on its way.  The elevator stopped at the maternity ward, and the nurse took me to a small room.  “Get undressed and make yourself comfortable,” she said, handing me a plain white johnny.  “You’re going to be here a while.” 

     I had barely tied the strings on the johnny into loose square-knots before another nurse arrived to take my temperature, feel my pulse, check my blood pressure, draw tubes of blood, and, horror of horrors, shave my pubic hair and give me an enema.  No one had prepared me for that, and I wondered if other nasty surprises lay ahead.  Folding back the top sheet, I settled my weight onto the edge of the bed so I could take stock of the room.  There wasn’t much to see:  cream colored walls, heavy drapes, a bold-faced clock, a shiny tiled floor, two straight-backed chairs, and a bathroom I already knew too intimately. Snow pattered against the window. 

     Every fifteen or twenty minutes a cheery nurse strapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm and checked the IV-drip delivering glucose drop-by-drop into one of my veins.  “You’re doing fine,” she reassured me each time with a motherly pat to my knee before bustling back out into the hallway. Minutes ticked the morning away.  My mother, standing at the window, wrung her hands and fretted about the weather.  A nurse finally sent her out to the waiting room to watch television.  I timed my contractions.  Dr. Jones stopped by on his late morning rounds to check on me.  “Still a ways to go,” he said.  “We’ll let Mother Nature work her magic.”

     Magic?  Nothing felt like magic to me.  I tossed and turned until the stiff sheets chafed my elbows.  Contractions gripped me tightly in their fist, and I climbed out of bed seeking relief by pacing the room.  A nurse coaxed me back into bed and gave me a shot of pain medication. Pulling up a chair, she rubbed my back and murmured encouragement:  “Relax into the contractions.  They hurt worse when you fight them.”  She reminded me that each contraction brought the baby closer to being born.  

     At three-thirty, urges to push the baby out grew intense.  Dr. Jones arrived with smiles and efficiency.  “It’s time to go to the delivery room,” he said, touching my arm.  A nurse wheeled me into the hallway, past my mother’s panicky eyes, and into a room where my feet were strapped into cold stirrups.  Dr. Jones urged me to breathe-push-rest-breathe-push-rest-breathe-push-rest-breathe-pushpushpush until I feared my insides would gush out along with the baby.    

     Nothing happened.

     “We’re going to give you a little gas,” Dr. Jones said, “so we can help you and the baby.” 

     A tall man wearing a white lab coat fit a small plastic mask over my nose and mouth.  “Count backwards from 10 to 1 for me,” he said.  I got to 8 and then – oblivion.

     I woke up to an infant’s cries.  “You have a beautiful baby girl,” Dr. Jones told me.  “A nurse will bring her to you as soon as she’s cleaned up a bit.” 

     A girl!  Groggy, I absorbed the news.  It seemed like hours before my baby was placed into my arms.  Swaddled in a soft pink blanket, she was the color of a bad sunburn.  Pale, damp fuzz covered her scalp.  Her eyes and fists were scrunched tight.  She felt lighter than I had expected – no heavier than a housecat – and was a warm bundle against my chest.  She wailed.  I didn’t know what to do.  “Hello,” I said.  It was a poor greeting but all I could manage.  A nurse whisked her away so I could rest.   

     My mother, anxious to return home, appeared in my hospital room to say good-bye.  “Your father will want his supper,” she said, lingering near the foot of the bed for a moment.  “I’ll see the baby next time.”

     “Don’t forget to call Mr. Dumais at the high school,” I reminded her.  “Tell him I’ll be back

in school as soon as Dr. Jones says I can go.” 

     “I’ll call him first thing in the morning,” Mum promised, kissing my cheek.  “I’ll see you in a few days to bring you home.”

     After she left, a nurses’ aide brought chicken noodle soup and toast on a tray.  I swallowed a few bites, but soon tears dampened the front of my nightgown.  They may have been a side effect of anesthesia.  Mostly though, the knot of anxiety I had carried for several weeks loosened with teary relief.  We had made it – my baby and I – over the first hurdle of our lives together.  Now my body, and life, could return to normal; whatever normal would be with the added responsibility of a child.  I pushed the soup away and slept. 

Oak Tree

This majestic oak tree along one of my walking routes marks the eastern corner of our 14-acre woodlot. It seems like a treasured friend each time I walk past it.