A Pirate Looks at Forty

I thought I would hate getting old.

My mother certainly did. She resisted aging with every fiber of her being. Face creams, anti-wrinkle serums, exercise programs, fad diets, plastic surgery, fashion choices — she was determined to stay thirty-five forever. As such, I grew up thinking that aging was something to fear, avoid, resist, and fight, and I had assumed I would wage a similar war against my own accumulation of years.

Except… my thirties were the happiest years of my life. I celebrated the Big 4-0 with a tremendous amount of gratitude and love. And now, at 42, I’m letting my hair go gray because I think the silver looks cool, I’m making jokes about buying my “midlife crisis car,” and I’m welcoming my first hot flash with the same transitional reverence as I did my first period.

The truth is… I’m not afraid of growing old. In fact… I’m enjoying it.

Don’t get me wrong — there are some things about getting older that just suck. My metabolism isn’t what it used to be, so I’ve put on a lot of weight. (And, let’s face it — the global pandemic didn’t help that, either.) I don’t feel as strong, fit, or flexible as I used to feel. My overall energy levels are much lower than they used to be. I don’t have as much patience as I did when I was younger. My carpal tunnel is getting worse, and I lose feeling in my right hand all of the time now. I know I’m not as “traditionally” physically attractive as I used to be (though honestly this probably has to do more with society’s obsession with youth than any objective truth.) It’s not as easy to learn new things, and my mind isn’t as sharp as it once was. I have to get mammograms now. And the entire world seems SO MUCH YOUNGER than me.

But even with all of that — I’m enjoying getting older. I’ve become braver, more courageous, and more authentic. I am more sure of myself, able to make decisions, and confident in my abilities. I have no more f*cks to give, so I am much more likely to take risks. I have worked hard for a level of stability and comfort that I am able to fully enjoy. I approach the world — and myself — with a lot less judgement and a lot more grace.

Additionally — I think I always feared that, once I reached a certain age, I’d stop growing and changing. However, nothing could be further from the truth for me. The past couple of years have been some of the most dynamic and metamorphic of my life. Writing, publishing, selling my work, performing, exploring, learning burlesque and drag, reflecting on gender and identity, strengthening my parenting skills, teaching myself to homeschool — there is absolutely nothing stagnant in my life. To paraphrase a line in my favorite film Wings of Desire, “I have a story, and I will continue to have one.” There is still so much to learn and do. I have not yet begun to live.

So, come at me, forties. I ain’t scared. Give me another year, and let me find another thousand ways to grow and change and evolve. It’s going to be a fantastic decade.

I like shoes! … No, I don’t. And other nonbinary adventures.

Here’s the thing: I’m a Gemini. I have a history of embodying two opposing ideals at any given time. “I like shoes! … No, I don’t.” “I love showers best… except when I love baths!” “I’m attracted to men… I’m attracted to women!” “I love Star Wars… AND I love Star Trek!”

I’m not exactly a binary-observing sort of person, when you get right down to it. Why gender should be any different is beyond me.

Of course, the truth is a lot more complicated than that; it always is.

I was raised by two strong, angry, fiery women who put the F (as in FUCK YOU) in Feminism. My grandmother, who was born in 1922, always insisted on the right to wear slacks, to work a job outside of the home, and to make sure her needs and wants were met — even if that meant walking up to her husband’s superior officer at the military base and flat-out saying “I will divorce that man if you send us someplace cold.” My mother, born in 1960, was independent, headstrong, ran away from home when she was a teenager, and decided to be a single mom in 1979 long before Lorelai Gilmore made it “cool.”

They were both amazing, inspiring women, both of whom I deeply loved. AND they scared the shit out of me.

I didn’t know my grandfather back when he was still drinking all of the time; I’ve been told he was scary then. I knew him after he’d stopped the booze, and I remember him after cancer took away a lung and, consequently, his cigarettes.

I like shoes! … No, I don’t.

And other nonbinary adventures.

I recently read a passage in a book that made me burst out into tears. It asked, “when you were a child, who held you when you cried?” My grandmother fed me and read to me. My mom talked to me and philosophized with me. But my earliest memories of being held — really and truly held — are of my grandfather hugging me into to his chest and asking me to guess which lung was missing.

Out of my immediate family, my grandfather was the quiet one. Granted, this is not saying a lot. My entire childhood is riddled with memories of shouting matches, power plays, fighting over who would take care of me, threatening divorce — I am not surprised that I loathe conflict as much as I do. But I was definitely a “Papaw’s girl” from a very early age. Reportedly, my first word, “moon,” was because he would take me outside to look at the moon every night. He let me “explore” the foothills behind the farmhouse, even though he was always ten steps behind with a pistol in his pocket. When my little brother was born, he carried him on a pillow, and I was told this was the way he held all babies because he was terrified he’d break them; he did the same with Aisling, too, when she was born.

He baked cakes, he built elaborate flowerbeds, he grew beautiful flowers, and he saved all my baby toys even though my grandmother wanted to throw them away. When I was living next door as an adult and would storm back to my trailer after a fight with my grandmother, he was the one who would come knocking on my door, asking me to come make peace, explaining that my grandmother only meant the best for me. He also, y’know, served in two wars, remodeled houses like it was nothing, and taught me how to play poker when I was five — so, please understand me — I’m not trying to suggest he was “excessively feminine.” (He was just — like me — a little bit of a peacemaker. And sometimes ridiculously conflict-avoidant. And also extremely passive-aggressive. But that’s another story.)

In fact — that’s the thing. I didn’t have the typical “binary” model for gender roles. I thought the idea of “gender roles” was a sham. People should be whoever they wanted to be. After all, that’s what my parental figures taught me. It made it very difficult for a young Devon to understand and empathize with my transgender friends as they began to transition. I couldn’t understand how being a woman was so much different than being a man, and vice versa.

Until, I finally figured out (at the ripe ole’ age of 40) — ohhhhhh. I don’t understand how being a woman is different than being a man…. I should probably explore that.

I’ve been meaning to post this for… I dunno? Six months? A year? But, today Elliot Page came out as trans and non-binary, so it felt like a good time to dish out the deets.

I’m non-binary. They/them/she/her — whatever. I’m Appalachian — if you just won’t give me a hard time when I wear boys clothes, then we good. No, I’m not interested in doing invasive surgery — despite my three c-sections, I hate invasive surgery. Yes, my kids still call me “Mom” and my siblings still call me “sister.” It’s just that the beautiful freedom of modern society has finally allowed me to slap a label on a thing that I’ve always known about myself — that I was raised in this liminal space where societal ideals of “gender” just weren’t really a thing, and I am most comfortable in that liminal space.

tl;dr - I like shoes! … No, I don’t.

Now, there are mirrors in my house.

For those who don’t know, my life partner Thomas and I spent the better part of a year designing and building our dream home, out in the country, up on “The Ridge.” We moved into this house in September of 2017. Through a comedy of errors, we did not hang a mirror in the master bathroom right away. In fact, we didn’t hang a master bathroom mirror for another fifteen months.

The truth is, I didn’t want to look at myself. Three pregnancies, their accompanying c-sections, and the inevitability of age had taken a toll on my body. It took six months for my last c-section scar to completely heal. My hair started to thin. My face broke out. My body did other gross things that I won’t detail here. In the mornings, I would shower as quickly as possible, because I just felt disgusting and wrong in my own skin. I’d throw on layers of baggy, shapeless clothes and hope that they’d swallow me whole.

Then, I took a burlesque class. Specifically, I attended the Salome Cabaret Burlesque Academy. And in the second session of that class, the amazing and powerful Rhoda Dairyheir taught me that my body was beautiful, and that I could do beautiful movements with it. She also helped me understand that I was long overdue to start loving myself, and — most importantly — I was worth it.

The very next weekend, Thomas and I took a day trip to IKEA in Atlanta, where we purchased a mirror for the master bathroom AND a full-length standing mirror for the bedroom. Suddenly, I could look at myself in the mirror again. I could love all the weird, imperfect, and changing parts of me. I could finally feel beautiful.

When I first signed up for the Salome Cabaret Burlesque Academy, I did it mostly to connect with the community I had admired from afar for so many years. I was excited to learn some things, and I figured I might perform at the graduation showcase at the end. Y’know, as part of the group number. On the back row. Hiding behind someone who obviously knew what they were doing. I never dreamed in a million years that I would fall so madly in love with this art form, that it would help me build so much confidence and so much self-love, and that I would come to see the burlesque stage as a means of self-expression and self-exploration.

I remember when I started rehearsing my solo number, John Camp mentioned how surprised he was — that I had been so shy and reserved in class, he had guessed I’d be one of the few who wouldn’t want to perform. I was surprised, too — surprised that I put together a number, surprised that I taught myself how to use a sewing machine so that I could make adjustments to costumes, surprised that I was beginning to wear makeup regularly. Burlesque had not only taught me how to enjoy being in my own body, but it had also given me a crash course in some traditionally “feminine” areas where my knowledge had been lacking. Like so many other ecdysiasts and fringe artists before me, burlesque had effectively changed my life.

This past weekend, I reconnected with the community through the Smoky Mountain Burlesque Festival. I volunteered as a “stage kitten” for one of the shows; I supported another as a loud and enthusiastic audience member. And, I took classes — classes that, once again, became powerful vehicles of self-exploration, self-love, and self-care. And I started to come out of my shell a little — started to talk to and connect with all of the amazing angels who are a part of this vibrant and beautiful “glitter family.” And the story I heard, over and over again, is that I was not alone — that burlesque changes people, and it becomes a positive and life-affirming force in their lives.

So, this is my thank you letter to all of the members of the burlesque community who have welcomed me, mentored me, and supported me on this unexpected adventure. Now, there are mirrors in my house, and you are the reason why.

House dreams.

My mother was always big on house dreams. I mean, it was Mom, so she was pretty much big on any vivid dream with interesting symbols and creative interpretations, but house dreams held a special place in her heart.

“House dreams are always about your self,” she would tell me. “You might think it’s about a literal house — a move, or a transition — but pay close attention. The house always represents you.”

Last night, I had a house dream. We were living in our current house on the Ridge, except that it wasn’t our current house — or rather, it was everything this house actually is, but then it was also so very much more, in that way that only makes sense in dream logic. There were dozens of rooms, hidden staircases and alcoves, and everything was decorated in stone and gargoyle and strange statues, like a small castle.

There was more space than we knew what to do with. I’d walk into a room and forget it even existed.

In the dream, I was showing the house to my team at work. I guess I had invited them over and was giving them a tour. My new boss, and my boss’s boss, were both equal parts impressed and incredulous at so much beautiful space and so much wasted potential. They immediately started giving me ideas of things I could do to make money from the space — rent out rooms, hold classes in the house, do creative workshops or retreats. All of it sounded amazing, and I found myself looking at all those ornate and empty rooms with fresh eyes and wistful excitement.

Yes, Mom — I know what you would say about this one. I guess it’s time to open these doors and air out these rooms.

I set a pie on fire tonight.

It’s such a silly thing — the Great Thanksgiving Pie Incident of 2018. I’d been going through the assortment of recipes I managed to inherit from my grandmother, and I thought I might try my hand at a chocolate pie. Mugger almost always baked a chocolate pie at Thanksgiving, and other times of the year, too — it was one of her staples. The recipes I have are all cut out from newspapers and magazines — many are unclear, and some are literally incomplete — and there are probably half a dozen chocolate pie recipes. One of the cut-out strips of paper, however, had an adjustment — “3 corn starch” — written out to the side in Mugger’s handwriting, so I thought that might be a strong contender for ​the recipe. ​So I gave it a shot.​

I should probably preface this story by explaining that I literally only cook one thing in the kitchen every three months. I’ve never made a chocolate pie before. I’ve never made a meringue. I’ll be forty years old in a few months, and I’ve never made a chocolate pie. But my mother was 55 when she passed away, and I’m pretty sure she’d never made a chocolate pie, either.

I cooked the pie at the temperature for the amount of time the recipe stated. 350 degrees for 15 minutes. But the recipe added the qualifier “when the meringue starts to brown.” Every time I opened the oven, that meringue was as white as Christmas. I kept it in for another five minutes. And another. Still pretty white — you could imagine that maybe it had a light tan cast to it, but it was nothing what I remembered my grandmother’s looking like.​

So I got a stroke of inspiration. Maybe I just needed to put the oven on broil and get it brown. I mean, that’s what you do when you’re finishing up casseroles and frittatas sometimes, right? So I did, and I watched it through the oven door with Kye. And it started to brown and get that weird sugar-sweat on it I could remember being on my grandmother’s chocolate pies. ​

“See, that’s what it’s supposed to do,” I said. ​“Now it looks perfect.” Thomas took the baby, and I opened the oven door to get the pie.

And the pie burst into flames.​ I’m talking, entire pie, high flames shooting out of the oven.

I squealed, or screamed, or cursed — I’m not sure what — and Thomas told me to close the oven door. He gave me Kye, got potholders, opened the oven door, blew the pie out like a candle, and took the (now completely blackened) pie outside. Smoke poured into the house, and the smoke detectors all went off. All the kids rushed into the kitchen to see what sort of disaster had occurred. And I couldn’t stop laughing, because of COURSE I would almost set the kitchen on fire trying to bake a pie.

But the adventure (or misadventure) has given me a inherent sense of peace and belonging, and might be the most perfect thing to happen to me on a Thanksgiving Eve. I grew up in a family of mishaps and missteps — we ​were determined and passionate as we did everything COMPLETELY wrong and we laughed about it anyway. My mom and her sisters would tell stories about Mugger’s kitchen fires — I think one of them was her burning a cake and the fire department coming to the apartment, if I’m remembering that correctly. Setting a pie on fire while trying to use one of Mugger’s old recipes is such a direct connection — it’s just the kind of thing Mugger would have done, and I could see her finding it hilarious (and also giving me a hard time about it — because, really, don’t you know how the “broil” setting works, Devon?) It’s such a ridiculous example of the legacy I carry, but it’s also a perfect example ​because ​​​​it’s so ridiculous — because ​we were ridiculous, ​and that is why I’ve become the woman I am.

And it’s why I’m so perfectly matched with the person I’ve chosen for domestic partner and life-mate. Because I can be ridiculous, and he ​delights ​in it. Because his family is the same way. And, in fact, the first thing we did was send his parents pictures and video of the entire debacle, which began a storm of hilarious text messages and shared laughter. (And also because he does all of this ​without ​letting the house burn down.) I’m the kind of woman who sets a pie on fire, and Thomas is the kind of man who loves me anyway — and perhaps even a little because of that fact. There is no judgment — or, at least, any judgment that might exist is alway overruled by love. 

And then I flash-forward to the future — of Aisling, Kes, and Kye, sitting around a future Thanksgiving table as full-grown, independent adults, sharing the story of that time Mom set a pie on fire. How the smoke detectors went off, how Aisling was so disappointed about not having chocolate pie, how Kes was convinced that if ​she’d ​made the pie then it ​wouldn’t ​have caught on fire (and she was sure to tell Mom that.) Kye will probably have no memory of it, but she would have been there, and Aisling and Kes will tell her the story, and she will find it amusing to hear. And, by that point, this story will probably lead into a series of Mom-almost-burning-the-house-down stories, because domesticity is not my strong-suit, and I’m sure this will happen again. It will become part of the narrative of our family, a story that is shared over and over, because it’s a story that embodies our values, and that tells a truth about who we really are. ​

​And these kinds of family stories are the best kind.

I’ve been writing online for over twenty years.

I didn’t make it very far with NaNoWriMo. Two, maybe three days? Less than two thousand words, for sure. I would sit down at the keyboard, but I would bore myself to sleep with my own story. Ultimately, I don’t think the story will be boring. Ultimately, the story will be told, and it will be raw and real and red-eyed, and it will come out of me screaming like a newborn baby.

But I’m not ready to tell that story just yet.​ That story is going to be a story about grief, and pain, and loss, and quite frankly I’ve spent the better part of three years living that story, and I’m just now getting to the place where I can get through an entire day not reliving the grisly details of my mother’s death. I’m not exactly eager to conjure up those images again.

That’s part of it, at least. The other part is a surrender to vanity and sloth. I’m out of the habit of writing, and my composition skills show it. It would be the same if I tried to run a half-marathon in my current physical state with no training — I wouldn’t make it past the first mile. My words are messy and clumsy, and I second guess every metaphor. I know the talent is still buried in there somewhere — or, at least, as much talent as I ever had — but I need to exercise these muscles, as they have greatly atrophied. ​

Instead, I try to make some sense out of my life. I work to build a routine. I hope I stick to it this time. I try to focus on getting my house in order. I start up a weekly accountability program with my dear friend in a different time zone. I read. I make sure everyone in my family is vaccinated against the flu.​

And I think, “You know what used to help me exercise my writing muscles? ​That stupid blog that’s been my on-again, off-again mistress for over twenty years.”

So. Here we go again.​

What koala bears do.

Kes has this thing where she “becomes” whatever she’s wearing. If she’s wearing a Supergirl shirt, then she’s Supergirl. If she’s wearing Incredibles pajamas, then she’s Dash. (If you are curious as to where Kes goes when Supergirl or Dash or Catboy is around, well, apparently Kes goes to the Moon.)

Tonight, Kes was wearing her koala pajamas.

Kye’s been really grumpy off and on for about a week now. I *think* she’s teething, but it’s hard to say for sure. She’ll just have bouts of crying and clinginess and waking up for no discernible reason.

Tonight, I was trying to help Kes fall asleep (which is a new routine — I no longer lay down with her in bed, but instead I sit beside her bed and read my own book to myself while she reads or “writes in her journal” until she’s finally sleepy enough for me to turn off the lamp and rub her back and tell her a story that will put her to sleep.) Kye woke up, and needed attention, and was not very good about going back to sleep. It took several times of me returning to her bedroom, singing her songs, and laying her down for her to finally quiet down.

Kes doesn’t like to be in her bedroom alone at night. It scares her. That’s why bedtime is still a bit of chore for all of us. But tonight, when I was calming Kye down, she would lay calmly in bed, and “read” or “write in her journal,” and when I’d come back, she was still in bed, seemingly unworried about anything, and just patiently waiting for my return.

“I’m so very proud of you being such a big girl tonight,” I told her, “staying in your bedroom all by yourself.”

“Well,” she said, and sighed pointedly. “That’s what koala bears do.”

Kye's birth story.

It has been a long year. A good year. A year full of major shifts and changes. A year punctuated by trial and error, tears and frustration, laughter and love. It has been a year that has taken me away from the keyboard more than any other, so while my first two daughters have had their birth stories and first-year milestones well documented on public display and for their eventual review, my first year with Kye has been quiet, and private, and full of a deep personal richness I’ve been too selfish to share. After all, this is going to be the last time I have baby. Each one of her firsts has been a last for me — the last time I give birth, the last time I see a first smile, the last time I breastfeed, the last time I celebrate a baby sleeping through the night (okay, we’re still working on that one.) On the occasion of her first birthday, however, I want to give her the story of her birth — because stories are important, and birth stories are the first stories we have. This one is Kye’s.

A year ago, I was putting a few finishing touches on some projects at work for my last day before going on maternity leave. Specifically, I was fighting for space I was holding for one of our classes, and I was losing the battle and stressing about where we would hold the class. I had a new team that would be taking on my responsibilities while I was gone, and I wanted to make sure they were set up for success in my long absence.

I felt a few contractions, but that was nothing new. I’d been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for months.

I left work, and picked up some Bang Bang shrimp from Bonefish Grill. My c-section was scheduled for Monday morning, February 27, and Thomas and I were looking forward to using the weekend as a couple of days to celebrate being a family of four, relaxing, and getting together the last few things we needed for the hospital (such as installing Kes’s old car seat.) This would be my third c-section, and I was feeling pretty confident. I knew what to expect, and my pregnancies always went full term and beyond — apparently my womb was so awesome all my kids wanted to take up permanent residence.

Those annoying contractions kept on. They were beginning to hurt a little.

I decided to go on to bed. I was hoping if I would just lay down, the contractions would stop. I dozed a bit, but it was difficult to sleep. The contractions were getting more intense. I watched episodes of Bob Ross on my iPad and began timing them. I would fall asleep between contractions, but they were regular, and painful, and picking up in intensity every single hour.

I was going into labor.

I put in a call to the OBGYN. They told me something — honestly, I can’t remember now. I think it was to wait until the contractions were less than four minutes apart, and then to head to the hospital. So I breathed, and squatted, and rocked my hips, and walked around, and did gentle yoga moves — anything to lessen the pain. I’d never had a normal, gradual labor before.

It was early in the morning — four? Five? — when the contractions got intense enough to warrant driving to the hospital. Thomas’s parents came and picked up Kes, and Thomas and I went to the hospital. (Aisling was in Chattanooga visiting her dad.) They hooked me up to machines, monitored the contractions, and the doctor on call finally came to talk to me.

“It looks like this baby doesn’t want to wait for Monday,” she said.
“Yeah, that was what I figured,” I said.

They prepped me for a c-section. We didn’t have a huge birthing suite this time, but our nurse was ridiculously nice, and the anesthesiologist was equally friendly. I don’t remember much about the prep, other than trying to keep myself calm. I didn’t have the benefit of meditation and preparation and sleep this time around, and I didn’t want to panic.

They put up the curtain, and the surgeon got to work. They were also going to tie my tubes while they were in there, so it was going to take a little longer than usual.

Kye came out screaming. I mean, it sounded like she started screaming before they even got her out of me. She was pissed as hell.

I didn’t actually feel her leaving my body, but as soon as I heard her loud cries, I started sobbing, “my Kye! My little Kye!” When they brought her around, she was opening and closing her mouth, and looking wildly around — she was hungry, and she wanted to nurse!

Then, the medical team did something no one had ever done for me before — they put the baby on my chest and let me hold her *first*. When Aisling was born, my mom held her until me moved into the recovery room. With Kes, Thomas bundled her up and snuggled her right after she was born. But Kye — I got to hold her right away, shaky hands and all, and she snuggled close to my heartbeat with that mouth opening and closing and was pretty adamant about needing to eat as soon as possible, thank you very much.

I only held her for a few minutes, and then I asked Thomas to take over for me — I was terrified I would drop her — but that moment was incredible, and I was so, so grateful to have that.

She weighed 8 pounds, 13.9 ounces, and was 20.75 inches long. Slightly bigger than Aisling, and about a pound smaller than Kes.

When we moved into recovery, Kye immediately started nursing — there was no trying to get her to latch, or trying to get her to stay on. She nursed like a champ right away. When Thomas first brought Kes back to visit us, Kye was latched on and very focused on her first meal. She hadn’t been bathed yet, so Kes was a little disconcerted by how gross she looked. Later, after Kye had taken a trip to the nursery and been cleaned up, Kes was able to hold Kye for the first time, and it was The Best Thing Ever — so much excitement, and so much love.

That love has only continued throughout the year. Kes has been an *amazing* big sister, and my heart melts on a daily basis watching the two of them together. I know it won’t always be so perfect — just wait until Kye can run into Kes’s room and steal her toys! — but so far, so good. Hopefully they have a strong foundation that will help carry them through the rougher patches together.

My recovery was much easier with Kye than I remember it being with either of my other babies. It simply may have been because I knew I needed to keep moving, and I started pushing myself to get up and around even the day of her birth. It may have been because I had an awesome surgeon and a great medical team. Kye’s ease into breastfeeding certainly helped. But I was walking up and down the stairs pretty easily within the week. By week two, Thomas came down with the flu, and I had to care for both of the little ones completely on my own. I felt capable and resilient. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to do it. And I had help and love from family, friends, and people from church.

Maternity leave with Kye was beautiful and fun. Kye struggled to sleep, but outside of that, she was a very laid-back newborn. She would lay and play, or she would happily be carried around in my Ergo baby carrier as I ran errands or did chores. I really focused on enjoying every minute I could with her, because I knew how quickly those weeks would go by. And they were easily some of the best months of my life. Ever since my mother had passed away, there’d been this looming sorrow over every aspect of my life — in fact, when I found out I was pregnant with Kye, it was right before I journeyed to North Carolina to visit my grandmother and to grab the last things I needed from my Mom’s house before trying to put it on the market.

Kye was marinated in so much grief that I was afraid it would all have a very negative effect on her. Instead, she was born with a calm, peaceful spirit, and she became a balm for my wounds and a shining light of hope in my life immediately. There was so much joy to be had. And shortly after she was born, we began planning and building our dream house.

Kye, when you’re older and you read this, you’ll probably think to yourself, “wow, I thought my mom was supposed to be a really talented writer, but she couldn’t even make my birth story concise and powerful!” Be patient with me — I’m out of practice. I’ve been too busy delighting in every minute of you. There will be time enough later to practice editing, to sharpen my skills, to learn to tell amazing stories again. In the meantime, my dearest Kye, on the occasion of your first walk around the sun, let’s celebrate the light you have brought to this family and the light you have brought to my heart. I am so excited to watch you grow, and thrive, and become your own little person. I am so honored that I get to be your mom.

Happy Birthday.

Goodbye, Mugger.

My grandmother, Lucille Wilhoit, passed away on Saturday afternoon, quietly and peacefully in her sleep. She was at her daughter's house, in familiar surroundings and the comfort of family and love, at the amazing age of 93.

The last time I saw her was a week prior to her passing. I'd spent several days at my aunt's house, helping where I could, but mostly just doing my best to be present for her. She'd come a little back to consciousness while I was there, and we were able to have a few beautiful and treasured conversations. I went in that morning to say goodbye, to let her know I needed to go home to my husband and children. The morning sunlight filled the room and threw patterns across her blankets. She smiled at me sadly, and she played with my curls like she used to do when I was a little girl.

"I wish I could come with you," she said.

I told her that I wished she could, too. I promised I'd come back as soon as I could, but I think we both understood we were saying goodbye for the last time.

I, my brother, and our children have always called my grandmother "Mugger." It was a name I assigned her when I was a toddler. The family lore was that my mom called her "mother," and when I tried to imitate the word, it came out as "Mugger." I could not have given her a more appropriate name. She was the practicality to my mom's whimsy, the domesticity to my mom's free spirit. She cooked me meals, sewed my clothes, did my hair up in braids, packed me lunches, took me to the library, did my laundry, made sure I was ready to get on the bus, drove me back and forth to my first job. And I took all this for granted with the blind, unappreciative love of a child until I was in high school, and my art teacher pointed out what an amazing woman my grandmother was, and how much she must love me as evidenced by just how much she did for me every single day.

She bought me a guitar and tried to teach me to play it. She gave me a sewing machine and tried to teach me to make clothes. We wandered the hillsides together picking blackberries. I'd help her snap beans in the kitchen, and watch her cook and can them for the winter. We'd go hiking in the mountains together. We'd drink blackberry wine and giggle like schoolgirls. When I came home a young single mother, she helped me take care of Aisling so I could finish college. When I got married, she walked me down the aisle.

And all of this was such a small sliver of her life. I only remember my grandmother after she retired with my grandfather to Tennessee. The rest of it - the myriad of adventures across the United States and England, accented by her fiery, passionate, stubborn spirit - were stories shared in the kitchen, at the table, on the couch, or over an open photo album. Stories which, in recent years, were often repeated, sometimes with little regard to version control. I always treasured them, and I'll continue to do so - because now the stories are all I have left.

And I can only hope that in 56 years from now, I'll have even a fraction of those amazing, incredible stories to tell my own grandkids. I can only hope that I will live my own life with even a quarter of the passion with which she lived hers.

Goodbye, Mugger. I love you so much. Thank you for everything. 

Things my mother said.

I always believed everything my mother told me.

When I was five years old, she would catch me misbehaving even when she wasn’t looking at me. When I asked her how she knew what I was doing, she told me she had eyes in the back of her head. I’d climb up on the couch behind her and comb through her hair with my fingers, checking her scalp and the back of her neck for those elusive eyes.

When I was six, my mother told me that if I drank pickle juice, I would learn to whistle. I’m pretty sure I drank a quarter of the jar before her cackling laughter clued me in to the joke.

When I was ten, she told my brother that the liquid center bubble gum he loved so much was made out of the blood of bad children. We anxiously read the ingredient list, trying to figure out what “xylose” meant.

On May 4, 2016, she was beginning her 4th day in the hospital. My mom was hallucinating and delirious. The cancer that had ravaged her body had spread to the last bastion beneath her skull. The radiologist said that at a quick count there were at least 14 to 16 different metastatic areas in her brain.

“I accidentally erased your face,” she told me. “I’m sorry. You’re my daughter. You should have a face.” I walked into the bathroom just to make sure it was still intact. Because I always believed her.

My mother asked, “What do you want me to bring? Since I’m leaving here early.” She hadn’t eaten anything substantial in at least a week. She spent most of her time asleep, and the rest of it easily agitated. Her pulse rate had been high for a few weeks. Every single checklist on the Internet had tried to prepare me for the inevitable. The doctors were discharging her to hospice care because there was nothing more they could do for her.

So I held her hand, choked back tears, and told her she didn’t need to bring anything.

She rolled her eyes, and barked a frustrated laugh that told me I was being ridiculous.

“Damnit, Devon,” my mother said. “I’m not dying!“

I believed her.

That was 1:27 PM. Around three hours later — in the corner of my living room, with the ancient painting of the family guardian angel watching over her, and the pink psychedelic blanket on which all of us had crawled around as babies at her feet — my mother would take her last breath.

*

In her book The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion writes:

“If the dead were truly to come back, what would they come back knowing? Could we face them? We who allowed them to die? The clear light of day tells me that I did not allow John to die, that I did not have that power, but do I believe that? Does he?”

It’s been 16 days, and I’m still blaming myself for everything. I’m still second-guessing the choices that I made on her behalf, and I’m still wondering what exactly I could have done differently to create a different outcome. Despite the fact that there was a team of amazing people supporting mom every step of the way, and despite the fact we discussed our few options at length and came to a unified consensus — I still think it’s my fault. It’s my fault for not listening to my intuition and getting her to the hospital earlier. It’s my fault for not getting more information from the doctors earlier on in the process. It’s my fault for not encouraging her to theorize about the afterlife back when the shock of the terminal diagnosis was too fresh for me to accept. It’s my fault for not asking for an additional dose of morphine before we left the hospital that day. It’s my fault for not being more prepared and educated on how to care for her. It’s my fault for not forcing her to eat more or drink more. It’s my fault for sending my brother out to get the morphine prescription filled so that he wasn’t there with her at the very end. It’s my fault for making her ride home on that goddamned ambulance.

Halfway up I-75 on the way to my house, the ambulance pulled over so that I could climb in the back with Mom. They weren’t supposed to do that. They said she was highly agitated. I held her hand, explained to her where she was, what was happening. I told her to think back on her mindfulness meditation practices — to breathe in deeply through her nose, to be present and aware of her body. I told her I was there with her. I told her where we were. “We’re on Emory Road — we’re almost to the elementary school. In two minutes, we’ll be at my house.”

“I’m not sure I’ll make it,” my mother rasped. She was convinced she was having a heart attack.

“I don’t think you’re having a heart attack,” I said.

Thirty minutes later, she was gone. The hospice nurse hadn’t even arrived yet. I’d collapsed, wailing and sobbing on the floor beside the hospital bed my husband had set up for her earlier that day — and apologizing to my mother. I’d obviously done everything wrong. Otherwise, she would still be alive.

*

Grief is strange in the digital age. My mom is still on Facebook. I still send her messages from time-to-time — it was, after all, one of our preferred methods of communication, especially in these last couple of years. I keep waiting for her avatar to pop up at the bottom of the thread, showing she’s finally caught up with what I’ve sent her. But her picture remains fixed right after she said, “Just don’t forget my Icee!” on April 17.

My budgeting software shows the transaction at Pilot on the same day. One dollar, thirty cents.

I carry her phone around with me almost everywhere I go. I don’t want to turn it off, but I can’t bear to check off any of the notifications. The lock screen tells me that she has 99 new notifications on Facebook and 22 likes on a post she was tagged in. It tells me it’s the last chance to check today’s Timehop. I open her Kindle app, and it defaults to a sample of Dying to be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing. I look in her library, and it shows she purchased and downloaded my novel — but never felt up to reading it.

I carry her phone around like it’s one of the communication devices from the “Silence in the Library” episode of Doctor Who. For those not familiar with the series, after a person dies in this episode, a copy of their consciousness is temporarily held in these devices for a short time after death, and they can communicate with the living. This phenomenon is referred to as “data ghosting.”

I wander around her empty house, looking for a hard drive to which I can upload her consciousness. Instead, I queue up her Spotify playlists, and it appears to all who follow her that she’s still rocking out to the same old tunes.

*

I’ve been spending a lot of time at my mother’s house these past few weeks. In theory, I’m going over there to rummage through the boxes we never had the chance to unpack because her health deteriorated so rapidly after the move here. I tell everyone that I’m sorting out things the family will probably find valuable or important, and trying to box up the rest. Or going through paperwork to find important things like mortgage statements and car titles that are imperative to the executor of the estate during the probate process.

In reality, I wander from room to room. I pick up a journal — the first twenty or so pages have been scribbled all over, but the rest of the book is blank. There are at least thirty books like this around her house. I read the last line of the last page — “What if I never get better” — there isn’t even a period to mark the end of this thought. I read another journal — this one typed up and slipped into sheet protectors:

“I guess the most significant moment of my life was giving birth to my daughter. That day changed my life. Everyday with her has been incredible. I remember how much I wanted her. How I knew that what I was doing was important, the most important thing I would ever do.”

On another sheet of paper, she’s scribbled: “Body as a vehicle — consciousness-limiting vehicle – limited by the body,” and “Nothing is ever created or destroyed — energy has always been continuous.”

I comb through the hard drives of her computer for any important-looking files. I find a video recorded in 2015. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this video, even though she mentions me by name. She’s addressing me in the video. She’s showing me the crazy little apartment she’s renting during her last stay in Phoenix, Arizona. I was in graduate school at the University of Tennessee at the time. She shows me the random pieces of decor in the apartment courtyard: “Folk art at its finest,” she says, sarcastically. She shows me the snails on her back garden door. Inside the apartment, she points the camera to a door in the kitchen. “That’s actually a pantry,” she says, “but I have co-opted it for BOOKS, of course.”

And I think, who does this? Who take the time to film the entire contents of their apartment just because they know it will amuse and delight their adult daughter?

My mother. She did that. Because she loves me.

*

I think I know what it is I’m looking for, why I wander aimlessly through her house every day while the girls are at school. I’m looking for absolution. Something that assures me that none of this was my fault. Evidence that she’s at peace with the universe. Proof that even if I did mess all of this up, she’s going to love me anyway. Testimony that’s there’s some rhyme or reason to all of this madness.

Mom had stopped having long conversations with me a couple of weeks before she died. She simply didn’t have the energy to keep them up anymore. Before the cancer diagnosis, Mom and I would talk at least once a week, usually on Sunday. We’d talk for hours. Whenever we were in the same room with each other, we’d talk nonstop. Every so often, I’d get stressed or frustrated in these conversations with Mom. Maybe she was having Yet Another Great Big Revelation About Life, or she was sharing Yet Another Unscientifically Supported Claim — for whatever reason, I’d get impatient with it. One night in April, I came home crying to Thomas about all the times I was impatient with her during those conversations.

“I would give anything to have another ridiculously long conversation about her crazy theories about life,” I said. “I would even happily listen to her talk about GMOs or nature spirits or anything — I’d listen to her talk about anything.”

And that’s what I want — that’s what I’m looking for. Another ridiculously long conversation where Mom tells me that it’s okay — she’s figured it all out. For real this time. It’s fine that she had to leave early, because the body is just consciousness-limiting vehicle after all, and she’s okay with it. And besides all that, she knows I did the best I could. And she’d chide me for being so hard on myself like I always am. She’d tell me I did a good job, no matter how it turned out. She’s proud of me, and she loves me. And for all the stuff I feel guilty about — well, she’d remind me that this is what we’ve always done. And she’d also keep her promise to prove to me that consciousness survives death — to give me some sign that she’s still hanging out around here, somewhere.

Instead, there’s a small box of ashes — no bigger or heavier than a sack of flour. And a death certificate. That’s all I get.

*

Except, that’s not entirely true. That’s not all I get. I also have the lucid conversation we had in the emergency room after we discovered that they found abnormalities from the CT scan, and it appeared the cancer had spread to her brain. It was 7am on Sunday, May 1, and I hadn’t slept in 24 hours. I wanted to stay strong, but I couldn’t help but fall to pieces after hearing that news.

“It’s okay,” she told me. “You don’t have to be strong for this.”

I voiced a torrent of audible second guesses. If only I’d pressed the doctors harder when I called asking for advice. I knew in my gut something was wrong. I should have never brought Mom to Tennessee — I should have let her stay in North Carolina. Saying all of this as if I were the person solely responsible for the decisions about her care. Saying all of this as if I’d held Mom at gunpoint and forced her to move.

Then the guilt started. I thought about the fight we’d had on Thursday morning. It was the first day she stopped wanting to sit up. I begged and pleaded with her to sit up and eat some breakfast. She refused. She didn’t want to get up. I was terrified. I joked that she probably wanted me to shut up. She snapped and said, “I want you to stop badgering me!” I got mad and yelled, “Fine!” and took my keys and stormed out the front door. I was probably out on her front porch a total of 15 seconds before realizing how stupid it was and how I had no intention of going anywhere. I wheeled back around and lectured Mom on how important it was for her to eat and keep up her strength, but I backed off overall and let her sleep more.

“I’m sorry I badgered you about eating,” I cried as we waited in the ER room for Mom to be admitted to the hospital for the last time.

“Oh baby, don’t worry about it,” Mom laughed a little. “That’s just what we do.”

So, I have that. And I have songs that I discover on Spotify that are exactly what I need to hear, that reflect exactly how I feel:

“24 Frames”
by Jason Isbell

This is how you make yourself vanish into nothing
And this is how you make yourself worthy of the love that she
Gave to you back when you didn’t own a beautiful thing

This is how you make yourself call your mother
And this is how you make yourself closer to your brother
And remember him back when he was small enough to help you sing

You thought God was an architect, now you know
He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow
And everything you built that’s all for show goes up in flames
In 24 frames

This is how you see yourself floating on the ceiling
And this is how you help her when her heart stops beating
What happened to the part of you that noticed every changing wind

This is how you talk to her when no one else is listening
And this is how you help her when the muse goes missing
You vanish so she can go drowning in a dream again

You thought God was an architect, now you know
He’s something like a pipe bomb ready to blow
And everything you built that’s all for show goes up in flames
In 24 frames

It isn’t enough. But I also have to accept that it will never be enough. When I cry and flail about how I wish I had done something differently, Thomas always points out that I’m really just looking for the secret sequence of events that would have magically cured my mother, that would have made it so she never had to die. And he’s right. That’s exactly what I want.

I want that because, three hours before she died, my mom told me that she wasn’t dying.

And I always believed everything my mother told me, even when it wasn’t true.

I published a novel.

I should begin this post by saying — I have amazing friends.

I have amazing friends who have always believed in me, and who have always pushed me to do more, deliver more, and make creative things happen.

And I have amazing friends who, in turn, do amazing things. They run podcasts. They write amazing articles for websites. They publish, they create, and they have put so many things out into the universe. And, generally, I cheer and offer support from the sidelines, because they are, in truth, kicking all the ass.

Sometimes, those friends do amazing things that help others do amazing things. And thus, a novel was born.

I wrote this novel a few years ago, as part of my first NaNoWriMo challenge. And then, true to form, I left the novel in my document cloud to collect dust. Why? I don’t know. I have a hard time believing in myself. Having my work out there for others to read and critique makes me feel vulnerable and exposed. And while this novel is far from autobiographical, I still wrote a lot of myself into the pages, and that also makes me feel vulnerable and exposed.

I’d pretty much resigned myself to the act of creating as my way of life. I was no longer concerned with completing a product or ever becoming published. I just wanted to enjoy the process. And while that sounds rather “zen,” it truly was a bit of a cop-out. If I never tried, I would never fail. If my work was never “out there,” I could more easily hide myself from harsh critiques and negative feedback. And if you know me well at all, you know that my totem animal is probably the Cowardly Lion.

Then, my good friend Elizabeth started No Cube Press. And she needed material. And it just so happened I had this novel laying around, collecting dust. So I mentioned I would work on getting it into a quasi-publishable state and send it her way.

And then I went through the long, arduous process of editing a paragraph every week or so.

My mom got sick. My grandmother got sick. After a heart-wrenching weekend of transporting my grandmother to a nursing home in South Carolina, having spent an entire morning in the floor at the foot of her wheelchair, hugging her knees and sobbing loudly while her open eyes regarded me with no response or recognition whatsoever, I got a message from Elizabeth letting me know she was going to send me a galley proof of this book I’d all but forgotten about. She said:

We witness birth, we witness death, and it’s messy on both ends. It’s ok. In the middle, we make art.

Not even a month later, I have an ISBN number to my name, and an author page on Amazon. And it is terrifying. It is all of the things I always feared. I worry I missed something. I worry the book isn’t truly finished. I worry people will read my book and discover things about my personality that they won’t like. I do feel naked and vulnerable and exposed. Posting the link to my book on social media may have been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.

But I also feel immensely grateful. Eternally grateful, and infinitely loved. I never thought I would be here. Devon, the girl who can’t even finish her sentences. And now I have a novel. A novel that is currently number #310 on Amazon under the genre “Gay Romance.” That’s not nothing.

So, thank you — all of you, and especially those of you who’ve been on the crazy, ridiculously long journey with me from the very beginning. This would not be possible without your ongoing love and support, and I am deeply and thoroughly grateful.

I think it might be time to do some more writing.

Love letter to Knoxville.

As of this past August, I have lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, for ten years.

I came to this city in pursuit of a dream, lured by the creative writing graduate program at the University of Tennessee. I came to this city as a young single mother, enrolling my wild-haired, fae-mannered daughter into Kindergarten when we first arrived. I came to this city penniless and freshly tattooed, envisioning myself a sort of academic Vianne Rocher from Chocolat.

I came to this city, and I fell head over heels in love.

I fell in love with my tiny, hole-in-the-wall, one bedroom apartment right off of Sutherland Avenue. I fell in love with Red Onion Pizza and the Pakistani couple who owned it. I fell in love with my morning commute that hugged the Tennessee River as it reflected the morning sun. I fell in love with the campus — the tower where I practically lived, its Q*bert-esque library, the ancient architecture that flanked the outskirts, the bowels of the enormous stadium where I kept my office, the special collections at James D. Hoskins. I fell in love with football — the way the entire city would rally around each home game as if it were the only event in the universe. I fell in love with Market Square — the free concerts, the amazing restaurants, the quirky little shops that seemed to change their names and locations once a quarter. I fell in love with the radio stations — the music, the banter of the disc jockeys, the advertisements for local businesses. I fell in love with Boomsday — such a brilliant, crowded, crazy display of fireworks across the sky every Labor Day weekend. I fell in love with the skyline and its trademarked ostentatious relic from the 1982 World’s Fair.

I fell in love with the fact that there always seemed to be something to do. I fell in love with the fact that Knoxville had so much culture, and yet it was flanked by mountains and vast expanses of countryside. I fell in love with its solid Appalachian roots and vibrant liberal underbelly. I felt complimented by the city, and comfortable living as one of its citizens. I moved from Bearden to Farragut to Fountain City to Powell, and each neighborhood had its own specialized charm, its own rich history and personality. It was amazing to see such a tapestry of life woven within the fabric of one single city.

No relationship is perfect, of course. Knoxville’s politics have often been the subject of ridicule and scorn among my friends who have left the state for more liberal locales. The economic climate of the city is just a little less depressed than the destitute Appalachian communities that flank it. The public transit system is lacking. The city suffers from segregation along both racial and economic lines. Nestled in a bowl surrounded by mountains, Knoxville is notorious for its terrible air quality, for its allergens. The quality of the school systems have a lot of room to improve. And sometimes it feels as if the city is dwarfed by the shadow of its university.

Still, I could never imagine living anywhere else. This city is a perfect fit for me. It’s always changing, and I feel as if I find something new and amazing each year. It’s a wonderful place to play with children, it’s an amazing place to play as an adult, and I feel as if I could spend an entire lifetime here and never become bored or overwhelmed. I’ve come to know her intimately over the past ten years. I will always love wandering her Farmer’s Markets, frequenting her unique pubs and beer gardens, finding little pieces of art hidden in crevices and alleyways. I will always enjoy discovering her history, exploring her backroads, engaging in the ongoing conversation of her landscape. Much like one chooses a spouse, I’ve chosen this city to be my home — to have and to hold, in sickness and in health. And I couldn’t imagine a better match in all the world.

We has a Kes!

The past four weeks have been amazing, overwhelming, and very different from anything I had pictures in my head about what having second daughter 15 years later would be like. It’s funny how the things you worry and stress about the most end up being the things that really matter the least, and it’s the things you didn’t expect or anticipate that throw you for a loop and shake up your little world. I’ve been dying to explain and express myself in depth since this whole thing started, but where do you find time to write when your arms are always full of a baby hungry for yet another meal that only you can provide? I’ve been regulated to quick one-handed status updates over social media while Kes is busily snacking, but even that is difficult since I often have to use both hands with her — one to hold her, and one to push the breast back from her nose so she can breathe while she is eating. Now, at four weeks, we’ve developed a sort of rhythm, so I will try to get down my thoughts as well as I can whenever I can — but I apologize if this entry is a little disjointed and lacks the natural flow of my usual writings. It has taken three weeks to complete, after all.

Kes’s Birth Story

As I explained in my last entry, the thing I had the most anxiety about beforehand was the surgery itself. I was terrified about the c-section — scared that something would go wrong, frightened about major surgery in general, worried about making the wrong decision. Writing everything out in my last blog entry made me feel a lot better; the amazing amount of support and outpouring of love from everyone in the social media universe only added to that feeling of warmth and comfort. I was able to spend the next few days really preparing for the surgery — engaging in a lot of meditation the day before, getting plenty of rest and sleep, going easy on what I ate the day before. I also did a lot of research online about scheduled c-sections — what they generally entailed, and what I needed to be aware of from a psychological perspective. One of these readings suggested that when you have a scheduled c-section, one of the things you miss out on is the period of transition from pregnancy to parenthood, that this is essentially what labor is. It suggested you may want to take a little time to mark the passage — burn a candle, say a prayer, meditate. I had requested the Labor/Delivery/Recovery suite at the hospital, which we obviously only used for prep and recovery, but I’m glad I had such a big and peaceful room to prepare. I listened to the “Welcome Baby Kes!” playlist I had created on Spotify in the advent that I might actually go into labor, I set up a little hospital altar, and I meditated and breathed and spent time with my husband, with my daughter, with my mom, and with the pre-born baby. We were left alone for the majority of the hour before the surgery, and it was really nice to have that time to sit and contemplate this transition, to continue to calm myself, and to get as prepared as I possibly could for the upcoming event of birth.

In the meantime, Kes kicked and flailed and dodged close to and away from the heartbeat monitors, that crazy bundle of activity I’d been used to watching in my belly for the past several months.

When it finally came time for the surgery, my doctor quickly came in and checked on me, and they took Thomas to get outfitted in scrubs while they wheeled me into the operating room to do my spinal. The anesthesiologist was this really nice, sarcastic, playful lady who did have to poke and prod a bit to get everything correct with my spinal, but who was very sensitive to the fact that I was so very frightened. She asked me if I was prone to panic attacks and offered to get me something for my nerves; I told her I was, but I didn’t think it would come to that. She was so very good about telling me everything — she pinched my belly to see if I could feel pain in all these different areas, and the only place I could feel a little pain was right beneath my breastbone. She asked if I thought I needed more there, and explained that this was for when the doctor was preparing the uterus, that I would feel pain up there. I didn’t want any more pain medication than absolutely necessary, so I said it would be fine — and, true to her word, that was the only part of the process that hurt. My fear was having a bad reaction to the medication, that too much would make me loopy and out of it, and I wanted to be fully conscious and aware of the whole process. Plus, I had a weird sort of paranoia about making an area so close to my lungs so numb. She didn’t pressure me, and she explained that the trembling and shaking that was happening to me was perfectly normal, that it was part of the process. I explained that yeah, I guessed that from the first time around — I should have said, I wish that someone had told me that the first time around, that the massive amount of uncontrollable shaking was one of the things that frightened me so much when Aisling was born. With Kes, I knew and understood that it was part of the process, so it was annoying, and kind of funny to try to talk through, but not frightening at all. They gave me oxygen, but it was in one of those nose tubes and not in a mask, so I didn’t freak out about that, either.

They brought Thomas in then, and he grabbed my hand and didn’t let go until they let him hold Kes. He was my focal point. I told him how funny he looked, because all I could see of him was his eyes over the surgical mask and under the cap. To distract me from my fear, Thomas and I started making guesses about the baby — and the anesthesiologist got in on it, too. What the hair color would be, what the eye color would be. The anesthesiologist kept looking over the curtain and letting me know what was going on, almost giving me a play-by-play. She let me know when they were about to get started. She let me know when I would feel intense pressure. She let me know when they started pulling the baby out. And I could feel it. I couldn’t feel the pain of it at all, but I could feel the tug, the suction, the fact that there was something actively being pulled from my body. Thomas said it was funny to watch the anesthesiologist go from looking at us and giving us comforting words, to looking over the curtain and almost wincing. The doctor himself made an audible grunt of exertion, and he may have said something about the baby being huge — I’m not sure. I just had this picture in my head of the doctor pulling the baby out of my belly in a very cartoon-like manner, pushing against my stomach with his shoe — which I’m sure is not what it was like at all. As soon as they got her head out, I could feel the suction give way, I could feel the release from my body, and I could hear Kes’s strangled first cry — and it was such a tremendous experience. “Kes! My Kes!” I cried out, and started sobbing — tears streaming from my face, so relieved that she was here in the world, that she was calling out to me. Thomas said it was amazing to watch my face, that had been so twisted with anxiety just a moment before, and then to see the immediate joy and relief as soon as she took her first cry. The doctor brought her around right away for me to get a quick look at her — red and screaming, lip trembling, still covered in vernix and goo, and mad as hell — before they started doing the initial cleaning and bundling her up for Thomas to hold.

The nurse took her to the scale, and said, “Okay, so — bets on how much this baby weighs?”

“Eight pounds?” I guessed.
“Eight and a half?” offered Thomas.
“Keep going,” the nurse said.
“How much does she weigh?!” I asked.
“Nine pounds, Eight point six ounces,” the nurse announced.

“You have GOT to be kidding me!” I exclaimed. I then turned my head towards the ceiling, meaning to include everyone in the operating room in the conversation. “This was a GOOD PLAN. This was a GOOD PLAN.” Because I could not in a million years have imagined trying to give vaginal birth to an ALMOST TEN POUND BABY.

I’m pretty sure everyone in the operating room was convinced I was crazy at this point, however.

They bundled Kes up and stuck a hat on her head and gave her to Thomas, who cradled her in his arms and brought her down to my hand so that I could gently stroke her face with my trembling, strapped down fingers. This was the part where they started putting me all back together again, and I could definitely feel a lot of pain and pressure right beneath my breastbone from where he was repairing the uterus.

“This is what I was talking about earlier,” the anesthesiologist said, and I understood what she meant.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I can handle it.”

The pain was unpleasant, but it wasn’t unbearable. I kept my ears open for anything going wrong, kept a watch on my own mood and level of consciousness, but everything seemed five by five. I listened to the nurses go through a series of counting items — as much as I can tell, they were counting all of the instruments they use during an operation, maybe to make sure that they hadn’t left anything inside me. Kes remained bundled up in her daddy’s arms, and I watched the two of them, grateful that I was awake, alert, and okay, and that I had such a beautiful memory to carry with me of Kes’s birth.

After the operation, they wheeled me into the recovery room, and I was able to set about trying to breastfeed — “trying to” being the operative word, here, since Kes was just not really interested in doing anything but snuggling up with us and drifting off to sleep. I guess she’d had a rough morning! While I was still shaking, I had enough control to be able to hold Kes, and Thomas went to bring A. into the room with us so that we could have a few minutes of bonding time as a new family. A. described Kes as being “a little bundle of adorableness” and told her to not ever change — completely the opposite of what I was expecting. Once we had a few minutes to hug and snuggle as a new family, we brought the rest of our extended family in — and everyone got to delight in our brand new baby. They did take her to the nursery for a while, but they brought her back very quickly, and Thomas and I spent the next three days trying to get Kes to breastfeed, trying to recover from surgery, and trying to get what little sleep we could.

It’s Completely Different This Time

The birth story and surgery itself was not the only thing that was dramatically different from the first time I brought a creature into existence. The biggest difference was that I had a partner this time around — a co-pilot equally responsible for the parenting and care of this newborn. Don’t get me wrong — the first time around, I was definitely not lacking for support with the help of friends and family that really made all of that possible. Still, there’s something to be said about sharing those moments with the person who helped you create this creature, to look at the eyes and ears and toes together and discuss who contributed which feature to this tiny dandelion seed of your shared genetic codes. There’s something to be said about watching the man you love fall madly in love with a tiny bundle of baby, about watching him care for, comfort, help with feedings, change diapers, and slip into the role of “father” so easily and effortlessly, just like you always knew he would. After all, he’d already slipped so easily into the role of “stepfather” without even really trying. There’s a lot to be said in knowing that you share responsibility, that somebody else is just as invested in this child as you are. I think that’s been my favorite part, watching Thomas fall in love with Kes, and watching him revel and delight in everything about her.

The other major difference was being prepared and well-equipped for the arrival of wee baby Kes. We had everything planned, arranged, organized, and put together, from our financial status, to the nursery, to the items to bring to the hospital, to all of my items at work for my extended maternity leave. With the scheduled c-section, we even knew what day and time Kes would be arriving. I had a moment, in the hazy weeks when Kes was first home, when I was just overwhelmed by how hard we had both worked to make this happen, how badly we had wanted to bring her into the world, how much effort we put into each step along the way. It was so humbling to have wanted something so badly, to have worked so hard at it, and to finally reap the reward of all that hard work — which, of course, resulted in even more hard work, but that’s for the next section of this entry. There were still items that we didn’t know we really needed — we ended up investing in a co-sleeper bassinet, for example, which has been one of the best purchases we’ve made so far, and a relative donated a Boppy pillow to the cause (I have no idea how I managed to breastfeed my first child *without* one of these) — but it made me feel so much at ease to have everything prepared, together, and ready for her as soon as we walked in the door.

Finally, it was really different to move into the space of mothering and tending to a newborn this time around. With A., I was so young, and I really had no routine or life to speak of. I didn’t have any other responsibilities besides schoolwork, which I could do whenever, and I didn’t have anyone else I needed to tend to or care for. My entire life became centered around my newborn, and I had no problem doing so — I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything, or letting anything else go, because she really was the only important thing in my life. I pretty much let my first child give my life direction and meaning, which meant that slipping into that period of being at the baby’s beck and call was a lot easier. This time around, I have another daughter who does occasionally at least need my time and attention (even if, as a teenager, she likes to pretend otherwise) and I have a life-mate that I want to spend time with, that I miss cuddling up to, taking showers with, having long conversations and debates with. Not only that, but years of therapy have shown me that I have my own needs that I should not ignore. In short, I understand that my new daughter is not the absolute center of the universe. However, during the first few weeks of life, any newborn takes center stage and makes pretty incredible demands of their parents, so it has been a difficult balance which, thankfully, gets a little easier each day.

The Hardest Part

When Thomas and I decided to have a baby, the thing I had the most anxiety about was labor and childbirth. In fact, I told Thomas that I would be facing my absolute biggest fear to bring a new life into the world, but that it was well worth it to face that fear. This time around, however, there was no labor, and childbirth was a lot easier and less frightening than I expected. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was for the recovery process to be so difficult.

I seriously have no memory of the recovery process after my first c-section. I remember being in the hospital, and I remember the process of coming home from the hospital — how much it hurt to walk down the sidewalk on the hill to the front door. After that, I have no clear memory of anything until A.’s umbilical stump fell off and I panicked and rushed her to the ER, which must have been a couple of weeks later. As such, I was completely unprepared for the continual pain, for the physical and psychological drain, and for the absolute emotional wreckage that would be the first two weeks postpartum. Everything felt absolutely impossible and utterly overwhelming, despite the fact I had the amazing ongoing assistance of a husband who got to spend two weeks in recovery with me, and despite the fact that I had family members coming by to manage laundry and chores while I catered to the constant demand of caring for a newborn. I can’t remember ever feeling so completely helpless and fragile in my entire life, and even now a week after the worst is finally over, I still have moments when I feel like my life has been hijacked, where I just have to cry because I don’t know if I’ll ever get more than two hours of continuous sleep at a time again, and I don’t know when I’ll have time to write on a regular basis or when leaving the house will become less of an ordeal. I don’t know if A. was just a much easier baby, or if I’ve lost my ability to roll with the punches in my old age, or if I’ve just blocked out how difficult that first month was in my memory, but it seems like things are a lot more difficult this time around, despite the fact I have so much help and support.

Still, things get a little easier each day. I’m beginning to feel a little more like myself again. In the few hours of the day that Kes is awake and alert, she’s become more playful and more likely to smile, and she is a very cuddly and snuggly baby, all of which help improve my mood. I’ve also found different ways to cope with feedings and lack of sleep, and I’m getting out of the house more (even if it’s just to take my teen daughter places) and beginning to exercise a little. As we come upon the one month milestone, I’m finally beginning to feel like I’m getting the hang of this, and it all feels a lot less impossible. Of course, you could ask me tomorrow, and I might feel completely different about things then — that’s just how quickly things change right now.

Why I Am Sharing

Yes, part of this entry is simply having a narcissistic record of my personal reaction to childbirth and recovery. I recorded a detailed birth story of my oldest daughter’s birth, and I was amazed how valuable that became, how often I referenced it while preparing for childbirth this time around. But I had no record of the recovery process, and so the emotional tumult of those first few weeks really took me by surprise. I felt guilty that everything seemed so hard, that I wasn’t fully enjoying those moments, that where everyone else saw a beautiful, cooing newborn, I couldn’t help but see a squalling, demanding succubus that was trying to eat me alive — quite literally at times. I was sad that my life had changed so drastically, and overwhelmed that I couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something wrong with me. None of the discomforts should matter, right? Why was I not floating on a white puffy cloud of absolute love for my newborn where all the pains and problems simply melted away? Did I not love this child enough? Had I made a terrible mistake in thinking I could do this again after all this time?

So I’m sharing this in case there are other new mothers out there who might be feeling the same way, who might be comforted in realizing they’re not alone. The “baby blues” is, in my opinion, a piss-poor and almost trivializing description of what can happen to a mother’s emotional state during this fragile period of time. Even if you’re not dealing with full-on postpartum depression, you can still feel completely hopeless and absolutely despondent at times. Don’t feel guilty. Reach out and talk to people. Find people you can trust, then vent and bitch your heart out. Open up to your partner and let them support you. It’s okay for you to feel how you feel. It doesn’t make you a bad person or a horrible mother. It just makes you human.

And the cooing, delighted, being-in-love-with-your-baby phase will come. First, you just have to be easier on yourself to allow that space to open up. For me, learning to breastfeed while lying in bed was the transition point. In that position, I could be completely relaxed. I could even doze off if I was too exhausted. Kes wouldn’t strangle as much from my letdown and she could relax, too. Most importantly, for night feedings, my husband could curl up beside me and I wouldn’t feel so alone and isolated. I felt much more in tune with my baby, and could spend the rest of the evening up and awake if I needed to be — I was a lot less frustrated in general. I’m sure that breakthrough moment is different for all moms, but the important thing is to know that it will happen — and if it takes a month or so to get there, you’re not alone. (That being said, if you’re having thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, you obviously want to seek help immediately.)

So, that’s the story of how we grew our crazy little family from three to four. That’s the story of how our lives were blessed and changed forever by the arrival of a Kes. That’s the story of how one mother’s heart had to open up slowly and painfully over several weeks, but finally found the room to fully bloom. And that’s a story of how no matter the preparation and forethought, you can still be blind-sighted by the unexpected.

Confession: I'll be having a c-section.

Twenty years old, pregnant with my first daughter.

Fifteen years ago, I was a young, single mother-to-be, walking around barefoot, wearing faerie wings, immortal and invincible in the way that only twenty-year-olds can be. Raised by Appalachians and hippies, I had a great deal of mistrust for doctors, drugs, and modern medicine, so I opted for prenatal care at a local birthing center, with the expectation of a textbook, drug-free delivery in a warm, cozy bedroom under the care of midwives and surrounded by people I loved. I enjoyed the empowerment and involvement in my own prenatal care, the fact that I was given so much information and so many options, the fact that I wouldn’t constantly be hooked up to a thousand machines, the fact that I would have complete freedom of movement throughout the process. And, for the most part, I had a textbook pregnancy. Other than low iron which was immediately corrected with supplements, I had no medical complications whatsoever. Sure, I was sick during the first trimester, and yes, I grew to a size where I could no longer reach the clutch on my manual transmission automobile, but these are not uncommon complaints, and I didn’t think I would have any issue delivering my firstborn daughter the way I wished and imagined.

My due date came and went. I would have regular, painful contractions, but I would make little-to-no progress. I drank raspberry tea. I drank blue cohosh tea. I drank Castor oil. I took evening primrose oil. The midwives attempted to ripen my cervix with prostaglandin. Some progress was made, but not enough. Finally, one morning about two weeks after my due date, my water broke (or, at least, I thought it did at the time. In hindsight I’m not sure that’s really what happened.) The contractions, however, were sporadic and irregular as ever, and at eight o’clock that evening, I’d only dilated a couple of centimeters. The midwives stripped my membranes and set me to walking the halls of the birthing center. Within an hour, I was having intense, painful contractions about two minutes apart, and I spent the next ten hours dilating up to five and finally ten centimeters, oscillating between pushing and then trying not to push because there was swelling, and in a general state of unbelievable pain, absolute panic, and total confusion. To this day, I’m not entirely sure what went wrong. The official reason for my transfer to the hospital was “failure to progress,” but that usually indicates a failure to dilate to 10 centimeters; despite the fact it took an eternity and a small army to get me to 10 centimeters, I was, in fact, able to get to that point, so I’m not sure what else could have complicated the delivery. The hospital gave me an epidural and encouraged me to push for several more hours to no avail. My firstborn daughter was finally delivered into the world with no complications via cesarean section. When they pulled her out, the doctor exclaimed that I’d been trying to give birth to something as big as me.

My daughter was 8 lbs., 4.6 oz. when she was born. And I was only 4’10”.

Flash forward fifteen years. Now, I’m a married mother-to-be of “advanced maternal age” with a Master’s degree, working full-time for a large and stable corporation, living in the suburbs of all places. While I haven’t completely shed my mistrust of the mainstream medical community, modern medicine is what makes it possible for both my daughter and myself to be alive right now — it’s what makes it possible for my husband, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was thirteen, to be alive every single day. Modern medicine diagnosed my daughter with autism; created developmental interventions for her speech, occupational therapy, and social skills; and helped her find a way to communicate and integrate with the larger world around her. Because I previously had a c-section, my options for prenatal care were somewhat limited — I could not, at least, return to the birthing center to try a natural VBAC delivery, so I had to pick a different avenue. I went with the hospital where my oldest daughter was born, and I started seeing doctors and discussing recommendations. All of the doctors I worked with were very willing to cooperate with me on attempting a VBAC — as long as I was willing to keep an open mind to their suggestions and concerns as the pregnancy progressed. Once again, I had a fairly textbook pregnancy — no major issues, no health problems, very active healthy baby. It’s been fascinating to me just how “hands off” the doctors are with the prenatal visits. No ultrasounds have been ordered since the standard anatomy ultrasound at 20 weeks — my primary doctor won’t even offer a guess to the baby’s weight since he says it’s impossible to be accurate about such things. I’m healthy, the baby’s healthy, and the past two months have just been basic urine/blood pressure/fetal heartbeat checkups that take about 10 minutes at a time. He did start laughing at me whenever I would lay down on the exam table at about week 36 just because the baby takes up such a crazy amount of room in comparison to my tiny frame.

When I was researching delivery options, I’d decided that, while I really wanted to try a VBAC delivery, I also did not think it was a good idea to go over my due date, so I thought I would give myself up until that point to deliver vaginally, and if it didn’t happen, I’d just go ahead with a c-section. When I explained this to my doctor, he agreed, and suggested that I go ahead and schedule my c-section a month in advance to make sure I had a good time slot, and that he’d be able to perform the surgery.

The thing is, I’ve been embarrassed to confess publicly that I have a c-section scheduled this upcoming Friday.

I’ve been embarrassed for many different reasons. First of all, I’m embarrassed that my body, once again, seems incapable of progressing forward. I joke and say that my womb must have amazing furnishings and killer wi-fi for my progeny to want to stay there forever, but that’s a joke that masks a lot of insecurities. When I first saw the Vagina Monologues, I remember thinking that if my vagina could talk, it would say it felt like a failure since it wasn’t able to deliver a baby. Even though I recognize how ridiculous of a concept that is, I can’t help but still feel that way. I should have tried harder. I should have done more yoga. I should have been more active. I should have been drinking raspberry tea all day every day for all nine months of my pregnancy. I’m also embarrassed because there’s a real stigma about c-sections in our culture today. If you get a c-section, there’s often an assumption that not all avenues and options were fully explored. The doctors obviously coerced you into getting a c-section because it’s more expensive. A successful VBAC is better for the mother, better for the baby. Many of these beliefs are often true, which makes me feel even more guilty about my decision. The other thing I often hear is that mothers don’t create babies that are too large for them to deliver vaginally. I have no idea if this is true or not, but doctors often cite my small size as a possible cause for my failure to progress. That being said, I know that there are women who are smaller than me who have had successful vaginal deliveries of babies larger than my own. Again, I feel depressed and irresponsible. According to the rhetoric, this should be something I can control. I’ve obviously not put the work into it. I’ve not done the research. I’ve not done everything within my means and my power to do what’s best for my baby. So, I’ve hemmed and hawed and hoped beyond hope that I would go into labor before my due date, that I’d be able to have a successful vaginal delivery, that I would be able to proudly share the news with the world that, finally, I did it. Achievement unlocked. Bought the t-shirt.

However, it’s now two days before my scheduled c-section, and I have to set aside this embarrassment once and for all. Despite the intermittent painful contractions, it doesn’t look like anything is going to progress into actual labor. I have to stop beating myself up over this decision, and be willing to move forward and completely accept it. I also need to be able to talk about it publicly, because it’s possibly one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever agreed to do in my entire life, and I really need support from people I care about right now.

Thirty-five years old, pregnant with my second daughter.

My first c-section was an incredibly traumatic experience for me. This was partially due to the fact that labor itself had been so incredibly traumatic, and that I was not at all prepared for what was going to happen on the operating table — the possibility of a c-section had not even crossed my immortal and invincible twenty-year-old mind. However, I also have a deep reptilian fear of medical procedures. Donating blood is a huge act of courage for me. The nurses had to give me anxiety medication to stave off panic attacks when I went in to have my gallbladder removed. Simple blood tests make me sweaty and nauseous. This time, I know what to expect — I’ve even seen the movie of the procedure from the other side of the curtain — and I know that it absolutely scares me to death. What happens if something goes wrong? My last c-section went very well, all things considered, but there were still minor complications. What happens if I hemorrhage? What happens if my blood pressure plummets? Those things happened before, and I obviously survived, but they were terrifying to go through, and I’m scared of the same problems happening again. Logically, I understand that if I’m in a hospital surrounded by intelligent and capable physicians, even if something goes wrong, they should be able to fix the situation, to fix me — but the fear is still there. What if? And even if everything does go according to plan, there’s still the feeling of pressure, the overwhelming smell of blood, the fact that I won’t be able to hold my baby right away, the extra complication of breastfeeding right after major invasive surgery, the pain involved in recovery.

I try to stay focused on what’s really important. I’m healthy. This baby is healthy. I have an amazing, supportive network of family and friends that will be there for both of us. I have an incredible husband that I get to share this experience with, and he’ll be right there in the operating room beside me, holding Kes as soon as she comes into the world. Whatever the trappings, whatever the procedures, whatever the methods for making that possible, that’s really what’s important, and that’s what makes it all worth it. Still, fear can be a very paralyzing force, and it’s so hard to be brave when there’s something just ahead of you that scares you that much.

On Thursday, I am taking the day off of work, and my plan is to spend the entire day in meditation — utilizing all of the mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques I’ve learned in my various classes, and letting myself sit with my fear and try to let it go. Friday morning, at 6am, I will be at the hospital with my husband, going through the intake and preparation process for our 8am c-section. I will be in good hands, and I will be surrounded by love, but I can use all of the thoughts, prayers, well-wishes, and good mojo I can get. If you get a chance or think about it, please send some my way. And afterwards, we can all celebrate Kes Litha Alley’s beautiful arrival, just in time for the summer solstice.

The Song of the Brier.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Appalachia lately, probably more than I have since I graduated ETSU with my minor in Appalachian Studies over a decade ago now, probably more than I have since I left my mountain hollers of Greene County for the “big city” of Knoxville, Tennessee. I follow a Facebook group called Appalachian Americans, and a few individuals have been posting a lot of pictures to the group lately — everything from historical photos from all around the area, to snapshots of restored log cabins and antique wood stoves heating a cast iron skillet full of beans. These photographs made me remember things, made me think about home, inspired me to pick up a collection of poetry from my bookshelf by Jim Wayne Miller called The Brier Poems. From an introductory note on the term brier: “North of the Ohio River, migrants from the southern Appalachians are known as Briers. Any of several prickly plants, the Brier is in another sense the quintessential Appalachian.” The book essentially focuses on the diaspora associated with the Appalachian who leaves the mountains — how the mountains never really leave you, and yet, when you come back, how you can never really come home again.

I’ve been thinking about Appalachia because it’s been in the news. With the chemical leak in West Virginia’s water supply, I’ve watched my own emotional reaction with a great deal of curiosity. I generally try to gather as much information as I can about newsworthy items before commenting on them or forming a vocal opinion. As I’ve grown older, I’ve resisted engaging in conversations about issues that I feel I know very little about. This issue, however, reawakened dormant angry Appalachian reactions from deep in my soul — angry about the coal industry’s continuing exploitation of the land and the people in the region, angry about the complete lack of emphasis on the issue in the news and mainstream media. Who cares about a bunch of poor mountain folk, after all? Understanding that these reactions are not the most logical and well-thought out responses, I’ve tried to maintain a certain degree of radio silence on social media about the issue, but I would keep up, read articles, watch videos, and listen to that nagging voice in the back of my head saying, just the way it always is.

I’ve been thinking about Appalachia because I’ve been watching a lot of Justified episodes with my husband, who absolutely loves the show and has been trying to get me to add the television series to my queue for ages now. I’m enjoying the show overall. I can’t say from a literary or critical standpoint that it’s the best piece of television out there, but the acting is good, there are some decently strong female characters in the show, and it deals with issues of gender, race, and class in such a manner that really illustrate the shades of gray inherent in everyday life. The most striking thing for me, however, is the rather harrowing picture the show paints of life in Appalachia — or, at least, specifically, economically-depressed towns in the region. We’d been watching season 2, and had just finished the episode “The Spoil” which deals with the subject of mountaintop removal and the relationship of Appalachian people and the coal companies. In that episode, Mags Bennett — a local crime matriarch — delivers the following speech at a town meeting:

“Well, my people pioneered this valley when George Washington was President of the United States, and as long as we’ve been here, the story’s always been the same. Big money men come in, take the timber, and the coal, and the strength of our people. And what do they leave behind? Poundments full of poison slurry and valleys full of toxic trash. You know what happens when 500 million gallons of slurry breaks loose? The gate of hell open… and all that waste rolls down through the hollers, and poisons the water, and the land, and everything it touches. Mining company has a word for those leavings, dunnit? The Spoil. … To an outsider it’s probably hard to understand why we’re all not just lining up and saying ‘where do we sign’? But we got our own kind of food, our own music, our own liquor, we got our own way of courting, and raising children, and our own way of living and dying.”

After watching this episode, I turned to my husband and said, “I have a complicated relationship with this show. I really feel like they’re presenting an accurate depiction of Appalachia, but I wish it wasn’t always such a negative depiction.” I think, specifically, I was reacting to the fact that the people I most identified with in the show were murderers and drug dealers and all sorts of unsavory folk who, at the end of the day, were just trying to make ends meet, take care of their own kinfolk, and hold on to their traditions against all the odds and setbacks of modern life. But I thought about my own experience growing up in Appalachia — I knew many people who were either directly or loosely connected to similar happenings in my own county. I thought of my own family history — stories of pimps, prostitutes, and moonshine when times were hard, stories of distant relatives in gunfights and brawls in bars. In truth, I’m not far removed from that sort of history, myself.

And I thought of my own novel about Appalachia, the novel I finished last year during NaNoWriMo, the one I’ve currently sent to a couple of friends to review for editing purposes. These same themes are pervasive in that novel — the absolute destitution of poverty, the hopelessness of a family trapped by addiction, the vital importance of controlling one’s own land and stake in the world. It makes a certain amount of sense — the novel itself is a modern retelling of an Appalachian Jack tale. It’s just amazing how often I tend to romanticize the mountains, how easy it is to long for home, for simple times, and how easy it is to forget the darker shadows of those beautiful hollers.

“He had to admit it: he
didn’t live here any longer. He was
settled in a suburb, north of himself.”
~ Jim Wayne Miller, “Down Home”

That’s the story of us briers, though. We leave the mountains, because what can we do? There are no jobs in those small mountain towns. When I left Greene County over a decade ago, my grandmother was selling the family farm — the 15+ acres of foothills that I spent my childhood exploring, where I had brought my own daughter to spend her first few years of life. I had my Bachelor’s, but there were no jobs to be had that would help me support my family. There were other reasons too, certainly, but those are the same ones that many briers face — we want to stay, but we know we can’t, and we grudgingly head to flatter land, to bigger cities, to try to seek our fortunes. We struggle to wear the right clothes, to style our hair the right way, to talk good. We always feel a little out of step — our priorities seem a lot different from many of the others around us. Because of that, it’s easy for us briers to get homesick, to hold fast to fond memories of our childhood, to take a deep breath of mountain air any time we hit an elevation over 15,000 feet.

We briers return home often, hoping to feel at ease, to fall back into step, for nothing to have changed. And, often, very little has — at least in the landscape and the daily lives of the small, sleepy towns we escaped from. But we’ve changed. We have to live with that.

“Some left for college, some could only dream
Hanging around town, still wearing their high school rings
I avoid their faces when I come to town
Man, I still don’t know which one of us
has let the other down.”
~ Pierce Pettis, “Little River Canyon”

Still, that doesn’t keep us from speeding down the winding country roads with our windows rolled down, taking in a deep whiff of the dogwood and redbud and cow dung scent, and singing at the top of our lungs as forests, farmhouses, dilapidated trailers, and fields of corn flank us on both sides.

Skin has a memory.

There’s this little squirmy hitchhiker who has been sharing my body for the past sixteen weeks. They say it’s not much larger than an avocado, nestled in this large, round home that keeps stretching, expanding — showing so much more quickly on this, my second pregnancy. I’ve already traded in for maternity clothes. We’ve only been together four months, but this little creature has wasted no time getting comfortable, getting settled, moving all its stuff in, kicking against my cesarean scar as if it owned the place.

Considering it wasn’t until after Thomas had already moved his bed into my old tiny house that I realized we must be living together, I guess this little critter takes after its father.

It strikes me, as I watch my belly expand beneath the network of stretch marks that spiderweb the length of my body, that skin has a memory. It did all of this, fifteen years ago. It created cushions from my breasts, from my stomach to cradle my daughter, the first tenant of my uterus. It’s been over a decade, now, but it’s simply picking up where it left off, using the same old blueprints to make the necessary renovations.  It’s even stretching along the same fissures, to make sure there’s enough room, to make enough space for this tiny stranger.

What other memories do we carry in our bodies? What other stories does the skin whisper, does the bone keep secret?

Keep Hoping Machine Running.

I rang in 2013 drinking beer and snuggling on the living room couch with my partner in domestic criminology. It wasn’t the most spectacular beginning to a new year ever, but it was a desperately needed respite from the bustle of what had been my busy life. The next morning, I loaded up on the usual New Year’s Luck with black eyed peas and hog jowl at the in-laws’, and then proceeded to begin a year full of snow days, good food, amazing friends, wonderful family, hard work, and lots of whimsy. 

Some of the highlights of my year involved seeing The Secret Commonwealth in concert for the first time in 15 years, the birth of my beautiful niece Gabriella, watching my daughter become interested in the art of performance and theater, spending a weekend hiking and playing in the Appalachian mountains with some amazing people, spending a Girls’ Night Out in Asheville with my mother, spending my wedding anniversary weekend back at the honeymoon cabin with my husband, celebrating the weddings of several beautiful couples, celebrating my goddaughter’s first birthday, visiting San Antonio for the first time, conducting various fitness & meal experiences with Stacy, attempting to understand baseball in Cincinnati with the help of my coworkers, exploring the crazy secret art of the scruffy little city I live in, getting to see Neil Gaiman speak about The Ocean at the End of the Lane, relaxing and basking in the Perdido Key sun with my family for a week, creating an elaborate Minecraft birthday bash for my daughter, lots of yoga, lots of Zumba, taking A. to her first Renaissance Faire, celebrating the imminent arrival of a new baby Alley, celebrating the any-day-now arrival of a brand-new cousin in the Pacific Northwest, and rejoicing in the end of year holiday season with friends, family, and loved ones.

I began 2013 with three simple over-arching goals: run another half-marathon, try for a baby, and continue my commitment to a balanced life. As per usual, I completely forgot about the three resolutions. I definitely failed to run a half-marathon, deciding that the training was too taxing on my body and that I should stick to 5Ks instead. However, I was successful in the baby-trying, and I feel I was extremely successful in finally finding balance in my life. It’s funny, because I wasn’t even really focused on balance as I have been in the past. Still, it feels like that happened anyway. Maybe that’s the key to finding balance — stop trying so hard and the balance starts happening. One of my mantras of the year was “Eat Dessert First,” and I think I did a good job of keeping that attitude as I navigated the year.

I think if there was a word that would sum up 2013 for me, it would be: “celebrate.” I managed to successfully turn a rather stress-filled, ultra-busy lifestyle into something more manageable, something more sustainable, and something more fun. Furthermore, I didn’t have to make any major life changes to do it. I just had to wake up each morning and be present for the day, for the tasks at hand, and for the people who surrounded me. It sounds simple, but it’s actually a lot more difficult than you may think. Still, I feel like I was able to shed a LOT of the stress I’d been carrying around for years to find a place of peace in my little corner of life.

So, what about 2014? I recently ran across Woody Guthrie’s list of New Year’s Resolutions from 1942 on Facebook, and I found it very inspiring (you can see an excerpt at the top of this post.) 2014 is already going to be an eventful year, as I will see one child begin high school and bring another child into the world. I think it will be good for me to make a list of reminders like this to help keep myself focused when life inevitably becomes chaotic. So, these are not so much resolutions, I suppose, as they are New Year Reminders:

1. Be Mindful

2. Keep Loving Yourself

3. Write Like Your Life Depends On It

4. Get Lost In Books

5. Spend Time Just Being With Family And Friends

6. Keep In Touch

7. Keep Up With Budgets

8. Sleep As Much As You Can

9. Practice And Pray

10. Keep Hoping Machine Running

The last one I shamelessly lifted from Woody Guthrie. I can’t say exactly what he meant when he wrote it in his notebook, but I like the sound of it, and to me, it means allowing yourself to keep dreaming, to keep creating, and to do the maintenance you need to do on yourself in order to let that happen. One very simple way I plan to do that is to start maintaining a website again, because let’s face it — it’s a lot more fun to tell stories if you have an audience who wants to listen to them.

So, here’s to another year. Let’s continue to celebrate, to do the hard work of living, and to share these experiences with each other. It’s how we keep the hoping machine running.