"There’s this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.
A longing wells up in its throat
like a blossom
as it breathes slowly.
 
What does the world
mean to you if you can’t trust it
to go on shining when you’re
not there? And there’s
a tree, long-fallen; once
the bees flew to it, like a procession
of messengers, and filled it
with honey.” 
 
-Excerpt from October by Mary Oliver


The streets are desolate. Businesses are dark and shuttered. There is no traffic, no transit, no pedestrians. This is Boston. This is New York. This is Portland, Maine. Every city emptied out overnight. Civilian life pushed back like an invasive species. Coyotes and bears circle the perimeters of our villages, closer than ever before. Essential workers in hazmat suits tend to our ill and dig mass graves. We form “family units” and reject those “at risk”. We lock up our doors, our homes. We stockpile supplies and acquire guns. Suspicions and fear run rampant. Asking what comes after this assumes there is a next act, yet we were not ready for any of this.

ACT I
Man’s Limitations When It Comes to Dying

My first experience with death was seeing a deer carcass dragged out of the woods on a blue tarp, gutted, and then hoisted up with a pulley and hook to bleed in the yard, while three generations of men cracked beers and drank in the driveway, proudly admiring their work. It was an experience I could get up close to, despite my shyness, and from an arm’s length, I could examine what death looked like, what it smelled like. And if I felt brave enough, I could reach out and feel how it felt.

“Go ahead, stick your head right up in there,” I remember my father encouraging. And I did, looking up, down and around that open cavity, counting the ribs of each lengthy side, with an emerging curiosity in God’s symmetry and the connection between the physical body and that spirit, energy, life force that once resided inside.

Around that same time, while on a road trip to visit my mother’s family in Pennsylvania, we were detoured around an accident where a tractor trailer and a string of vehicles plowed through a herd of migrating deer on a New York highway. The herd was making its seasonal trek back up to the Delaware Water Gap. In an effort to shield me from the scene, my mother told me to keep lying down in the backseat, but my natural instinct was to identify what remained and to wonder how many people a herd that size could feed.

Before fully understanding anything about responsibility or accountability, at five years old, I understood there were events that fell into the natural order of things and there were events that happened as a result of man’s interference with that order. I also knew my father tracked deer along runs older than his grandfather, older than the farm on which my great-grandparents lived, perhaps older than some of the streams cutting through their parcel of land, or even older than the twisted-with-age apple trees that fed the deer in the winter. And if a herd was biologically inclined to follow those same ancient routes for more generations than I could count, then what did that say about the men who built the highways, or the men who drove the trucks? 

My first exposure to death was the closest thing to losing a pet without the personal relationship. Having a small-town rural upbringing, deer had a presence in my life, similar to the domesticated house pets who stalked the yards and terrorized the birdfeeders of my childhood friends or decimated the prized flowering hedges of the neighbors.  However, unlike other children my age, I was not approached with a conversation about fairness, or a crash course covering what I had control over, nor was I give the G-rated version of the life cycle.

My mother, to her credit, did rent for me and my sister the PBS documentary, The Miracle of Life, to explain to us where babies came from. But the only connection I could make between how birth and death were related was that anatomically a woman’s vagina in labor looked much like the belly of a gutted deer. After watching the series, I could not believe a human being could endure something so traumatic as childbirth and still be alive.

Clearly, I was my father’s daughter; the offspring of a man who exclaimed, “Wow, that looks like a deer heart!” the first time he saw my mother deliver a placenta.
 
I did have some religion early on, though it was not a developed belief system by any means that could have helped to better explain what death was, nor was there any age-appropriate censorship provided to formalize and normalize the experience. My disassociation with death did not come from my parents putting distance between me and the messy and complex parts of dying, rather it came from my lack of experience in losing someone close to me. The loss of a deer life was hardly any different than a field mouse at the mercy of a hawk, and so there was no need for mourning or the learning of coping mechanisms.
 
When I first heard the adage, “Nothing prepares you for death,” I was twenty-five and had just lost the first person with whom I had a close relationship with; my grandmother. Though I knew the sentiment was meant to provide comfort in a time of loss, for me, it somehow unintentionally and poetically pointed out my inexperience and under-developed understanding of how death was viewed by others in the Western society in which I was raised.   

Second-hand copies of National Geographic taught me that in other parts of the world, certain traditions and ceremonies were observed with multi-day wakes and extended visiting hours, providing loved ones and neighbors more time with the departed in their naturally deceased state. When my grandmother died, her body was immediately taken away to a crematorium, leaving behind a sudden void and absence and the feeling that something that belonged to us was unrightfully taken away from us. There was no ritualistic bathing or dressing of her body, no traditions observed to aid her passing spirit, no food offerings prepared to honor our God(s) or ward off malevolent entities. Time was not taken.

We chose, instead, to follow the proper protocols and channels when dealing with our dead. Trained individuals were paid to quickly dispose of my grandmother’s body in a sterilized and impersonal environment, incinerating her at such a high heat to not just rid her of the cancer that killed her, but to completely dispose of her physical presence on this earth; except for some residual ash and bone, “the personal effects” of her being that were handed over to her children in a plastic bag, like some consolation prize.
 
I turned twenty-five the day of my grandmother’s funeral. My birthday was an occasion I nearly forgot about amidst all the travel preparations, the service, and the catching up with relatives and family friends. My grandmother had been an important person and force in my life, in all our lives, and losing her on Valentine’s Day, three days before my birthday, was a major blow to my heart.
           
But someone did remember the occasion of me turning another year older and managed to sneak down to the local Wegman’s to pick up a pre-made cake, so that when we gathered later at my aunt’s house after the service, my family could sing Happy Birthday to me. The thoughtful gesture came from the right place, still, it felt a bit funny celebrating the continuity of my life, when we were supposed to be celebrating a life lost, and that guilt stayed with me much longer than I would like to admit.
 
Not all deaths are created equal and there was no comfort to be found knowing that the life of a person close to me was cut short and that she was scared and uncertain until the very end.  My grandmother, who swore she had tasted alcohol twice in her life and died of liver cancer, turned to her faith, because otherwise she would have died angry holding the unfair hand she was dealt.  But it was her last lucid thoughts scratched upon a scrap of paper and left upon her bedside table that truly made me see no one was to blame: Holy Spirit, I have nothing to gain from this at all. This is not the truth of who I am. I am not a body. I am free.  
           
In death, my grandmother shed her fleshy suit like an anchor and her naked soul was finally released of any more pain.  
​
 
ACT II
It is Cyclical: New Life After Loss

I may not have learned about loss in the most conventional ways, but I did learn that life and death could not be simply described with linear timelines that stop and start, nor could they be defined with a standardized set of timeframes without overlap. I learned that the relationship between life and death is more cyclical, ongoing, like those stories you hear about the passing of one relative and another being born, how maybe two spirits from two different generations crossed paths in their leaving and entering into this world.
 
Six months after the death of my grandmother, I learned I was pregnant. It was a shock.

An unplanned pregnancy was not just surprising, it was confusing and a little heartbreaking, too. My partner, who was older than me and in a different place in his life, felt no urgency or biological drive to get his genes into the next generation. And in knowing this about him, I had to muster up all the courage and strength I could just to share the news.
           
My concerns were different from his. How could I possibly become a mother, when I had only been out of college for a few years and did not even have a full grasp on who I was as an adult, yet? I wondered if I was being tested or punished, and I blamed myself for being so careless and stupid. I may as well have experienced another family death, because that is how I felt about this unexpected pregnancy— that I should kiss my goals and dreams goodbye, that my life was over.
 
           
When I first heard the Spanish word for pregnant, embarazada, in an introductory language class in junior high, I wondered why there was shame associated with this miraculous thing a woman could do. It was not until I became pregnant, did I see how, depending on the circumstances surrounding a conception, a pregnancy could either be a joyful occasion and reason for celebration, or it could be something one feels needs to be hidden away and discussed only in certain company. Even procreation had its taboos.
           
When my mother became pregnant for the first time, my Grammy told her, “Don’t be thinking you can move back home, now.” My grandmother made it quite clear that my mother would not be welcome with kids in tow and no husband. It was a you-made-your-bed, now-you’re-going-to-lie-in-it kind of tough love, which clearly got through to my mother, because never once did she consider going back home as an option, after her marriage to my father ended.
 
           
I still had a lot to learn about life, and maybe there was something to becoming a parent and taking on that kind of responsibility—the biggest responsibility of all, the care of another human being brought into this world. It was a lesson in accountability if anything.
           
I decided that if I was going to be a single parent at the cost of a tenuous relationship, so be it. I had a wonderful family and supportive community and I was a highly competent, adaptive, motivated young woman. I was no doubt privileged in this way. It was 2007, and there were plenty of examples of single and successful moms out there with enriched lives. I would make it work, not because I had to, but because I was equipped to.  
           
So, I began my prenatal routine of daily vitamins, a healthier diet, and scheduling my first ultrasound at the women’s clinic. Life did go on and as the weeks went by, my body and mood changed. My heart began to feel full once again, despite the recent loss of my grandmother and the impending loss of my partner.  And at seven weeks along, I could not wait for my first appointment. To hear that heartbeat. To see that little pea-shape on the screen.
 
           
I went alone to the clinic and was surprised when I had to be escorted through a crowd of Pro-Life protestors, their chants and posters making me feel even more exposed and vulnerable. All I wanted to do was yell back over my shoulder, “Can’t you see I’m alone?!”
           
My first check-up did not go as planned. From neither the pelvic exam or the ultrasound could my doctor detect any sign of life, despite my blood and urine tests providing a positive result. Disappointed, we agreed I would return in a week and hopefully, by then, we would have a confirmed pregnancy. 
           
That wait was anxiety-inducing and made me question if somehow in all my indecision around being pregnant and becoming a mom, had I somehow willed there to be nothing to see. Maybe all the changes I had been experiencing were in my head. Maybe I had jumped the gun when I should have waited to tell my partner. Maybe we could salvage our relationship, after all.
           
It was a lot to process and I did feel very much alone during that time. I tried to go to work and act like nothing was out of sorts when my insides felt twisted up with so much stress, I found it difficult at times to breathe. Then the pain started.
           
At first, it was a dull poking feeling in my lower back, not much different than the feeling you get from a tight muscle or pinched nerve from sleeping funny. I stretched at home and when I was at work on my feet, I kept moving and ignored it. But after a couple of days, the pain did not go away. It got worse, reaching a point of being so uncomfortable, I could not sleep through the night.
           
I drove myself to the ER and waited for hours to see a doctor, as my symptoms did not warrant any urgency, compared to the drug overdoses or cardiac patients that came in on stretchers and oxygen. When the doctor did make an appearance, she checked my vitals and found nothing too unusual, other than me looking very tired.
           
She looked quite tired herself. It was late in the evening and she was probably operating on caffeine, adrenaline, and energy bars to get her through the back-to-back shifts and the long list of patients who showed up needing to be fixed.  
           
“It’s probably just a miscarriage,” she told me, lacking the appearance of empathy or any real concern. “I will give you a script for the pain.”
           
I was over-tired and sick of hurting, but something told me that pain killers were probably not the best solution, especially if the pregnancy had any chance of being viable. Call me a masochist, but I wanted to be aware of what was going on with my body, whether the pain was increasing or dissipating.
           
I went home and tried to sleep, and in spurts was successful. The next day, I could barely stand upright and ended up calling into work, so I could stay horizontal and rest. I was bleeding quite a bit at this point, which indicated to me that the doctor may have been right all along. Maybe my body was trying to purge itself of the pregnancy.
           
My back and sides were tender to the touch. Back and forth I went from my bed to bathroom, fearing where I would pass the small fetus, and what I would do when I did. Then the bed became too soft to lay upon, so I moved to the floor and crawled to the toilet when I felt a need.
           
The next day my boss called and told me that I had to come in. It was the way she said it, I knew I could not count on her to understand what I had been going through the last 48 hours. Worried I would lose my job if I did not show, I popped some extra strength Tylenol, put on my best face, and stocked up on super-absorbent pads.
 
           
It was about 7 pm and I had not even made it through the early dinner service, when my barback said to me, “You don’t look so good.”
           
I was taking a breather in the corner, between drink tickets, because the Tylenol had worn off and I could not unhunch my back without shooting pain running through my body. I felt as though I could pass out at any moment.  
           
The General Manager offered to drive me to the hospital, but I told him I would be fine. It had taken so long in the ER last time and I did not want to take a cab home later.
           
This time my experience at the hospital was very different.
           
At check-in, my blood pressure was so low it immediately drew the attention of the triage nurses. And as I waited to see a doctor, they kept asking me to say my name out loud and what day it was.
           
They told me to undress and get into a Johnny and asked if there was anyone I would like to call. They took my jewelry, my cell phone, my car keys, and my clothing, and placed it in a plastic bag, inside a plastic container. I gave them the number of my dad and stepmother.
           
From check-in, I was placed on a stretcher and wheeled quickly down a hallway to radiology, for a scan of my abdomen and back. From radiology, I was again shuttled down another hallway, to where my doctor was waiting for me with a waiver.
           
“It’s about liability,” he told me. I remember hearing those words and how his voice cracked when he told me there was lots of blood and that it would be an exploratory surgery. I wondered if it was nerves, but my sight was so blurry from the lighting and my watering eyes, I could not make out a single feature, let alone the expression on his face.
           
I asked him if I was dying. To which he said, “Well, it’s a good thing you showed up when you did.”
           
The surgery took two and a half hours and they had to enter my abdomen in three different locations. My right fallopian tube had ruptured, which caused me to hemorrhage. Later, I learned from my doctor that had I waited even a couple of hours more, I would have died. He was amazed that neither the pain nor the low blood pressure had not caused me to lose consciousness. I told him my priority, despite all the pain and fatigue, was to stay awake, that there was something in me that needed to be aware of what was happening to my body and my baby.
 
           
It took almost two months for me to physically heal from that surgery, but emotionally that trauma stayed with me for many, many years. My relationship with my partner did end, eventually. Part of me resented him for not being present and at my side, which made it even more difficult to repair trust and intimacy and to heal. It made me recognize that people grieve in different ways and that some choose to not grieve at all.
 
​
“Look, hasn’t my body already felt
like the body of a flower?
Look, I want to love this world
as though it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.
 
Sometimes in late summer I won’t touch anything, not
the flowers, not the blackberries
brimming in the thickets; I won’t drink
from the pond; I won’t name the birds or the trees;
I won’t whisper my own name.
 
One morning
the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,
and didn’t see me- and I thought:
so this is the world.
I’m not in it.
It is beautiful.”
 
-Excerpt from October by Mary Oliver
 
ACT III
New Life in the Time of COVID

I am married and thirty-seven years old. It is 2020. My husband and I have been trying to conceive for years, but we are losing hope. Truth is, I had lost hope long before we met, believing I was broken. Believing that if by some miracle or God’s will I do become pregnant again, I will die. But out of love for my husband and the desire to raise children with him, we optimistically keep trying.

We are referred to the best fertility center in the state. We are referred to an acupuncturist who specializes in conceiving. We are recommended an energy worker who deals in the kind of trauma that resides in the body and blocks growth. 
           
We look beyond Western medicine and consult two Senegalese shamans. They slaughter a sacrificial lamb and a goat that feeds an entire village. We find this to be one of the most beautiful acts of human empathy, knowing that an ocean away and in a tongue we do not know, they are praying for us.
           
We are encouraged to keep looking for signs. We do the work. We visit salt caves. We fill our glasses with wishes and bathe away that which does not serve us. We forgive ourselves, let room in. When spring comes, a flock of fifty lambs are born up the road. We try to remain humble. This is farm country and these lambs will be many meals into the next winter season, feeding hungry families and supplying the local soup kitchen.
           
We are told to stay close to home. There are people dying. They say it is a global pandemic. There are riots in the streets. We are told to take inventory of what is most important. Even the trees look agitated. We count our blessings for the health of our family, for the health of our friends, for the health of our neighbors. Our blessings do not discriminate. We plan and plant a garden believing in tomorrow. We know hope is a privilege.
           
We have questions about how we grieve in this strange and modern world, with populations forced to isolate themselves from one another. We worry about the individuals on the front lines witnessing first-hand the quick decline of the stricken—the nurses and doctors and healthcare workers, staring death in the face, day in and day out. Is this epidemic part of the natural world? Will we be haunted eternally by man’s limitations?
           
We worry about the families who are not given the opportunity to say “goodbye”. The families that cannot hold their loved ones to comfort them as their lives come to an end. Will they forever be tormented with guilt or blame?
           
As soulful human beings, we want decency and a special regard to be set aside for the intimate business of dying. We call this human nature, but it is not the true nature of the natural world.
           
We set up barriers, sterilize our environments, create hierarchies, and our own resource chains, all out of the fear of “foreign agents” and the fear of expiring. Our species is unique in our fear and anticipation of death, and how we memorialize those who have passed on. Do we honestly believe that somehow, someday we may actually have control over one of the most natural acts of all?
 
             
My husband and I learn we are pregnant amidst the chaos, the societal upheaval, and all the loss. It is not a joke, though it feels like it should be. At least some laughter would be welcome to lighten all this heaviness. We do not want to appear deserving or too joyful. It is difficult to pretend. 
           
“What do we tell our son?” We wonder. He will want to know someday, won’t he? What story should we share? Do we tell him we sacrificed a lamb? Do we tell him we had almost given up hope? Do we tell him that while others were grieving, we had to hide away our joy?
 
Maybe we will just start out by telling him about the deer and how their routes are older than men. 
 

There is a narrative emerging around how to have a conversation about race, particularly if we are part of the privileged white majority. If we are compelled to care about racial issues, we must first educate ourselves and learn how to approach and engage in conversations about some very sensitive topics: What is appropriate to say and acknowledge about racial differences, and what is not? Should we express our observations at all, or should we just listen? And, how do we express sincere empathy and compassion, without making it personal and about ourselves?

If we are white it does not necessarily mean we are incapable of understanding what systemic oppression is or means to a minority group, or what barriers our BIPOC brothers and sisters have faced throughout their lives. It does not mean we are not outraged by racial violence or injustices and impassioned to make change happen. It just means that no matter how relatable our own experiences may feel, we, as individuals of the white majority, are not authorities on these issues, and we should not feel entitled to act like we are.

I am reminded of this every time the topic of race is raised in conversations with my friends, my family, and my husband — all mostly white and well-intended individuals, who are deeply disturbed and saddened by recent events and acts of violence. I also cannot help but take these conversations personally — this should not still be happening in our country. We should be past this. We should be better than this.
I am white. My husband is biracial; his mother is white; his father is Mexican with Spanish ancestry. If my husband had grown up in Mexico and not the United States, he would have likely been considered white. But here in the United States, he is considered mixed-race.

When we first met, seven years ago, my husband expressed his feelings about identifying himself as a person of color. Sometimes he checked the box, sometimes he did not. He was aware that part of his ancestry was proof of colonialism, riddled with the atrocities the Spaniards and White Europeans inflicted on indigenous populations, while the other part of his European heritage was indoctrinated with the capitalistic American mindset and culture. When it came to matters of identity, there was not a clear choice of which ethnicity he wanted to take pride in; neither seemed to fit in with his values.

My husband grew up and lived most of his life on the Midcoast of Maine and his ambiguous features helped him to “blend in” with the majority white community in which he was raised. On occasion, he did have to deal with his share of racially charged insults and attitudes, but mostly his experiences were not unlike his white peers. However, sometimes he secretly longed to know what his life would have been like had he instead grown up in California, where his father lived, and had exposure to Latino culture through being part of a Latino community. He wondered what path his life would have taken had he been given a different experience and an opportunity to connect with that side of his familial bloodline.
As a married couple, we chose to reside in an even “whiter” place, Central Vermont. The small town we now live in, in many ways, is reminiscent of the town in which my husband grew up; a place that invokes mostly fond memories and great stories.

When we first arrived in Vermont, the community was very welcoming and only a handful of individuals made subtle references to my husband’s darker complexion.
“Is he Italian?” they asked.
“No, he is half Latino.”
They were often surprised and a little embarrassed knowing they had inadvertently brought up the topic of race, their Yankee guilt making its own subtle appearance.
To lighten the mood, I would throw in the joke, “And you wouldn’t even know it with that accent of his.”
To which they would respond, “I didn’t notice a Spanish accent.”
And, I would say, “Oh no, he doesn’t speak Spanish. My Spanish is better than his. I was talking about his Maine accent.”

It was not until my husband began working at a majority white boarding school, did the conversation really change for us at home. It was there, for the first time in his life, I saw my husband contemplate his identity in a new way, exhibiting a newfound pride and confidence in who he was and where he came from.

As one of three faculty of color, he was invited to be a part of a POC group that supports incoming students who come from relatively diverse communities. Adjusting to the rural landscape and lifestyle is for many of the students who attend the semester program, quite the culture shock, as many of them come from densely populated metropolitan and urban areas. But when you are a student of color, or a faculty member of color, in a majority white school in the middle of nowhere, there is a different kind of transition that happens. For some, it is a matter of facing their fear of being a high-achieving minority among a highly-competitive white population, while for others it is a matter of not having the comfort and support of a familiar community close by.

The more my husband participated in activities with this collective of students and faculty, the more he reflected on and opened up about how he always felt the need to “blend in”, and that it was shame and fear that kept him from feeling connected to his Mexican heritage and culture; that it was shame and fear that kept him from claiming that part of his identity as his own.

While it deeply saddened me to learn my husband lived with these feelings for so long, because the communities he was part of lacked the knowledge or support systems he needed, it gives me great hope now knowing that he is able to take these experiences he had and turn them into productive dialogue with others, who may also be feeling the pressure to assimilate into an [educational] environment curated and represented by a majority white and privileged population. My only critique of how “progressive” institutions operate is that the onus is still continually placed on people like my husband to educate their fellow colleagues and peers about what it means to them to be different.
In an ideal world, there would be equitable representation in our melting pot and a reverence for our differences. And, yes, we are a long way from where we should be, at this point in history, but every day I am seeing examples of people making an effort to have the tough conversations that need to be had, while others are finally hearing and acknowledging the voices that have gone for so long unheard. I want to believe our shared goal is true progress and change. I want to believe it will happen in our lifetime.
​
The conversation shifted again when we learned that we were going to become parents. It was when we were completing the paperwork for genetic testing that we were struck by the significant role we could play in teaching our child about identity. Our child will most likely identify as white and will not know the inner conflict their father has known his whole life, but we will be able to provide our child with an understanding of why such conflicts exist in the first place. Our child will likely not know what it is like to be bullied because their skin tone is a few shades darker, yet we will want them to know where their ancestors came from and will teach them what we can about their Polish-French-Dutch-Native American-Mexican-Spanish-Irish heritage. But above all else, the most important thing for us is that our child is encouraged, no matter how they choose to identify themselves, to be a person of integrity, kindness, and compassion, treating all the way they wish and deserve to be treated themselves. Every parent should be able to give their child a safe place in the world to be who they are, and that, I believe is something we can all agree on.

“Do those bells always ring?” I ask. It is turning six and my time is up.
​
My therapist looks up from his iPad and smiles, “Only this time of year you can hear them better.”

“They sound so clear,” I say.

The church isn’t far away, just a block up the street. I am embarrassed by my lack of awareness. I’ve been seeing this particular shrink for over a year and never once noticed the bells that ring timely after each session is through.

Jack is kind enough to assure me I’m not the only one who hasn’t noticed the bells. That he, himself, can’t hear them most of the year, when there are leaves on the trees. And it’s not until after the leaves have fallen, do the chimes actually resonate with him — filling the air with a hopeful tune, during a season that sometimes feels apologetically bleak. Still, it is my second winter of not noticing the beautiful-sounding bells and somehow it feels inexcusable.

A year ago, I found Jack on a database of other psychologists — a website set up like any other social media, or dating site. I’d been therapy-free for over ten years and was living, what I believed, a normalized and healthy livelihood. I saw myself as a functioning woman, who on occasion would experience short bouts of panic, when I would bite off more than I could chew. I defended these intermittent episodes as part of my eccentric personality and intensity, always pointing out that passionate creatives were not the boring type.

I held a regular job, I was in a stable relationship, I had no addiction issues, and I was managing stress through productive outlets such as exercise, making art, and communicating with my partner. I was apprehensive, as I browsed the site, still contemplating, Do I really need this type of commitment, right now? I could certainly think of all kinds of other ways to spend my time.

In Jack’s profile picture he had combed-back hair, a Czar-style beard, and a contented smile. In the sub-caption below his image, he had included Buddhism as his religious orientation.

Normally, I would’ve rolled my eyes and thought, Great, another white guy trying to be groovy, and skipped on to the next profile, to a woman with thick glasses, unruly hair, and discerning eyes , the type I had mostly been familiar with in the past, with whom I’d developed patterns of ending sessions abruptly after being told my storytelling habits were interfering with the “real work” of habit-breaking. However, it was when I got down to the first line of Jack’s bio, it struck me how much his definition of health hit home.

“I believe our mental health ‘symptoms’ are often our psyche’s way of calling us to a different way of living. Each struggle in our lives is an opportunity for self-awareness and personal growth.”

In my email I tried to explain why, after so many years, I wanted to start seeing a therapist again. It was a well-rehearsed explanation, one I had practiced and recited many times over, when convincing myself and others, that I finally had my shit together. After all, I knew myself best and I wanted him to know that even though he was an expert in his field, I was the expert of what I needed to thrive.

Reluctant to make that first appointment, I was still skeptical about the effectiveness of counseling and wasn’t convinced that some stranger could advise me on how to better live my life. Though, part of me felt like I just had to stop feeling sorry for myself, pull up my bootstraps, and get on with it.

We agreed to weekly sessions, with me guiding the process along. He would listen, while I would tell my story. This was the arrangement I initially requested, since all my previous experiences with therapists ultimately began as another case study for them, and ended with expensive and unsolicited advice I didn’t feel inspired to take. I was upfront with Jack, “I don’t take pills. I can detect psychological babel and impending diagnosis a mile away, and I am in complete acceptance of my well-formed habits.”Completely unfazed by my disclaimer, the weeks went on, with Jack becoming the sounding board and, I, the storyteller.

Sitting in his socked feet with a mug of herbal tea warming his hands, I felt like I had finally found the uncritical and attentive audience I’d been looking for. Or, should I say, agonizing over? You see, not only was I a thirty-three-year-old woman who was adamant about being the sole proprietor of her life, I was also a woman confronting the reality of being an artist.

Being an artist was not at all like what I had expected, or romanticized from an early age. Having not published anything significant by the age of thirty, I felt I had reached failure status. I had begun to believe that somewhere along the line I must have missed my calling and opportunity, and would be better off re-focusing my efforts on more practical things, like making a steady income and having health insurance. I suspected all those lawyers and accountants I knew, who moonlighted as jazz musicians, had been confronted with similar conflicts and doubts. And, I wondered if I did have it in me, to just give up and walk away, shrug it off, like it was some kind of phase.

It was a similar kind of lucid reckoning, which led me to Jack. Scared of everything at once, I became afraid of my changing perspective and worldview. My imagination which had always been my vehicle for escape, was now just a way of coping. And, at other times, my own worst enemy. The news, in particular, became a source of great anxiety for me, as my mind would spin directly into the worst case scenario.

I feared the world was going to shit. I feared dying young. I feared any provocations that would lead to war or violence. I feared people knowing too much about me, and in turn, judging me based off of those assumptions. I feared that I wouldn’t succeed as a writer and time would run out. I feared I would forever sit passively and never say anything, at all. And, I feared I didn’t have a story inside of me worthy enough of being told.

Even when I would dream, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I had nowhere left to hide from fear. It would find me in abandoned buildings, beneath furniture, and behind trees and rocks. Exposed and vulnerable, I was sure there were but a few choices left for me:
I could meet my fears head-on. I could keep wrestling with what I’d been attempting to say for years. Or, I could be a coward and redirect my energies toward other goals.

Becoming aware is often associated with being on a path — the path to becoming an enlightened individual. Unfortunately, in the age of motivational memes and digital gurus, “being woke” has become a catchphrase (and writer’s nightmare!), and “being mindful”, an overused cliche.

Self-help and “soul work” have become trendy, and anyone who has experienced any challenges in their life, is now able to make an income as a professional speaker/blogger/life coach/influencer. All of a sudden, it was like every fearlessly-opinionated, college-educated, entitled white woman had become mindful — Oh, and the luxury of sitting around thinking about yourself! And, being mindful for a man; it was a great way to pick up chicks.

Even in department stores you could find t-shirts with perky little messages — CHOOSE KINDNESS; I HAD A DREAM, BUT NOW I’M WOKE; YOGA DOESN’T TAKE TIME, IT GIVES TIME; NOT ALL WHO WANDER ARE LOST — paired with other misappropriated illustrations of arrows, the “third eye”, Sanskrit text, and other symbolic elements that were once reserved for those with a truly sacred connection to their belief system. And heaven forbid Googling books or philosophies to answer life’s questions, unless you wanted to become a target to every psychic or self-publishing ad out there.

When truly engaged in such a personal kind of work, there is no room for rationalizations or blame. Mindfulness begins by slowing down and quieting your consciousness, so you can be aware of the present moment. When you become open to this way of seeing, there is no past or future quandaries to ball you up, there is only the acknowledgment that you may exist, and that others may, too.

You also learn to acknowledge that you are not weak for seeking out and accepting guidance, but rather a person who believes the evolution of humanity is actually propelled by this kind of mindfulness wisdom, by knowledge, and the work of individuals. As the spiritual teacher, Osho, once said, “Truth is not something outside to be discovered; it is something inside to be realized.”

Being honest with oneself is only the beginning. For the path is long, and there is plenty more to discover within. For some, this may take a lifetime. For others, much longer.

Occasionally, when sitting in the waiting room before each session with Jack, I make the faux pas of initiating eye contact with others, who have also stumbled their way to counseling. These are typically brief encounters, especially with those who have not yet gotten past that initial feeling of shame, which inevitably befalls those seeking out professional help. Because, unfortunately, in the independent American psyche, we have an ingrained stigma associated with asking for and accepting counsel. Whereas, in other cultures and societies, it is viewed quite differently.

Whether it is asking for divine intervention, honoring elders who possess knowledge and understanding beyond your own, or even requesting guidance from a higher place, there are many more places in the world where places of counsel lie at the center of communities and is a large part of a society’s logos, tradition, and belief system. In contrast, within our mainstream American culture, seeking counsel can have an institutional and solitary feel, it can be both personal and impersonal, and it can be more diagnostic than it is holistic.

In these brief encounters, while waiting for counsel, I’ve realized, we — me and my waiting room comrades — are connected in two important ways. First, we are both trying to hide what we feel is broken inside of us. And, also, that each of us is filled with a lifetimes worth of unique stories and experiences, and all we want is assistance in determining which of our stories and experiences define us, and which ones don’t. If we are truly an accumulation of all this narrative stuffed into one consciousness, then we just want to know: How do we accept and love ourselves for who we are?

Before I started working with Jack, I believed I was doing my own mental health work by cathartically writing about my experiences and disguising them as fiction. I was completely unable to tell a story, without hiding in some way. This was before I had accessed the ability to pause or put my insights into coherent forms of self-expression. This was before I understood that my inner-truth should be the place I was tapping into, and that it would be the most relevant writing I would ever do. This was before I recognized that writing only feels and becomes impossible, when you are constantly in motion, and when you believe that everything has already been said; every story told.

It wasn’t until I started vocalizing my story honestly, did I begin to see the world in which we live, not simply as a place made up of brutal truths always working against us; but as a world made up of over 7 billion other individuals, also trying to figure out why they are here. That we are all, every single one of us, seeking validation and some sense of solidarity, as we reckon with our time and purpose on this planet.

The work I have done in the past isn’t all a loss. The unfinished manuscripts I’ve scrapped, won’t completely go to waste. If anything, they are the start of other stories, stories I am finally brave enough to tell.

In 2014, I wrote a short piece about spending time in a city clinic titled, “We All Come From a Long Way Off.” It was picked up by a small, online publication called, The Milo Review, which disbanded not long after its release, making my cynicism of digital media grow ever stronger. It seemed like everyone on the internet had the same dream of being a writer, and if you couldn’t be a writer than the next thing to become was an editor, publisher, vlogger, or your own brand.

Every form of publishing seemed to be headed in a similar direction. Generations of writers who spent years toiling just to see their work in hard copy, were becoming founts of the past. Now, anyone could put their stream of consciousness out to the public instantaneously, after supper. And they did, to the extent where you could scroll through pages upon pages of blog posts without finding anything of substance to read. I was both fascinated by this new outlet of expression and concerned by where it might lead.

It was a changing world and I was pretty certain my soul would suffer if I bought into. It felt superficial and wrong. I had wanted to be a writer ever since I could remember and was invested in life as an artist, even if it meant blazing my own path, not emulating or following others, not being “liked” or “followed”, and speaking my truth, that may not necessarily align with the truth of others.

Between the “How To’s” and the fake news, the propaganda and the lists of useless facts, the celebrity updates and the beauty tips, of course, I wondered who was going to actually weed through all that information, and care enough about a story they stumbled upon about a city clinic where they perform abortions and provide healthcare to immigrants? Like the characters in my story — the nobodies — no one seemed to be itching to read the work of a nobody.

The immediate gratification of an audience validating your worth and intellect, whether you receive praise or criticism, is addicting. And not having to labor at your craft, or wait out the rejection letters, allows you less agony. But that’s when you remember that being an artist is just as much about sitting with yourself (and your sometimes mad ideas) and craft, as it is translating your visions into a work of expressive art. And ‘yes’ sometimes it is agonizing and painful, but on the spectrum of all the other emotions, sensations, and realizations you can experience in a moment, or a series of moments, the agony and pain in the process shouldn’t be the only thing fueling you as an artist.

I have always believed that to be a writer you have to, first, have something to say. And, second, you have to be able to tell a decent story. Over the years, I have been instinctively drawn to unacknowledged people and populations, because their stories can be so incredibly powerful and heart-wrenching, and can reach you in a very real and humanistic way. The unsung heroes and the ones who sacrifice more than will ever be given credit for. The ones who will pass on and be forgotten.

It makes me sad to think about all the unwritten stories we lose each day, because we don’t take the time or make the effort to be quiet enough to listen to others. How much could we learn about ourselves and our relationships with others, if we spent more time listening and less time being afraid of the quiet and the different? How much more could we say as writers, if we were to free ourselves from the stringent labels, and the industry, and the economic constraints, and look at life again as a nobody?
​
And I would bet, when it comes down to it, a mindful nobody has a lot more to say, than a somebody who takes every opportunity to speak and make themselves heard.

​​I can tell you what I am afraid of, but first let me start this fire. After all, in stories about creation there is often some reference to the important part fire plays at the beginning of a story.
 
Last night my husband, Nick, filled the wood box so I need not concern myself with such things. He is thoughtful like that — always considerate of others and how he can lessen their burdens.
 
To start a good fire, one cannot just chock a stove full and strike a match. There is an art to building a good fire, which men like my husband take pride in; just like there is an art to the carefully stacked woodpile he tends to every spring, in preparation of the next burning season.
 
Behind the barn and sugar house, row after well-balanced row of cordwood is neatly stacked beneath a tin roof covering, so it has time to cure into fine firewood. More routine than obsession, heating with wood in New England is a cycle that runs parallel to our lives — an interdependency which sometimes feels intimate, when I squat in just a bathrobe in front of the Alpine casting and feel the familiar warmth moving up my thighs and across my face. I rip and twist pages of the Sunday Times, or local Herald, and use the hatchet to break up kindling — always with the grain, and never against.
 
Inside the sooty gut of the stove, I make sure to leave space between the paper, sticks, and smallish logs, to allow for the movement of air; for air is essential in feeding fires. I tend to rely on the classic teepee shape to start all of mine. While Nick prefers the cabin shape, believing it is more structurally sound when it comes to adding another log or two.
 
As the blaze grows, the door to the stove is closed, but not completely. We have found that if you leave the door slightly ajar, a natural vacuum will occur. And if you listen closely, you can hear the hollow whir of air being sucked from the room, through the stove, and up the flue, making the fire hotter and stronger.
 
On frigid November mornings, when a dusting of snow has fallen overnight, Nick starts a small fire before he leaves for work. The sun will not have even crested over the valley hills, and I will hear the heavy-handed thump of the hatchet and hollow clack of kindling falling to the floor. Then comes the low rumble of the trusty Tacoma warming in the driveway, while Nick sips the last of his coffee, fills his Thermos with his post-lunch afternoon tea, and leaves a kiss on my forehead.
 
After he leaves, I can hear the crackle and pop of wood settling in the stove, as I lie in bed thinking about the sacrifices he makes every day, in order for me to make art; especially on the coldest days, when his energy is spent trying to stay warm at a job site. He assures me it is not so bad, because the timber frame he has been working on has a small potbelly stove where he can warm up his extremities and his lunch, and the work, itself, keeps the blood moving and the body warm beneath the layers. But, I know metal tools are cold in the hand, when you are building outdoors, and that it takes a long hot shower, a good fire, and a warm meal for him to feel like himself again after a long day’s work.
 
I can tell you there is nothing romantic about wondering if a job will go as smoothly as planned, whether we will be able to pay your bills every month, or if you will be able to eat well in the coming weeks. Wondering whether the six logs it will take to stay warm while writing a silly little essay, is worth it, or just a waste of resources and time, this is a constant consideration.
 
“What if it takes a while?” I ask him, worried about my lack of income, my art being decent enough to sell, and whether I have the wherewithal to live within these meager means.
 
“Then it takes a while,” he encourages me. “And in the meantime, we won’t freeze.”
 
Last year, he ordered eleven cords of log-length firewood — three years’ worth of fuel, if our Vermont winters are not too brutal.
 
When I was three, my father, like Nick, worked various odd jobs so my mother could be home with me and my younger sister, and paint. We lived in a drafty Victorian that had been converted into apartments, with an empty side lot we used for a garden. Across the street, was the cleverly-named Frost Free Library, which we frequented, since my father’s salary at the ball bearings factory just barely covered the necessities. Books and new clothes were a luxury, as were most toys.
 
Beneath us, lived a young journalist and his wife, who I suspected never argued about money, or about which one worked longer and harder hours, and deserved a drink. My father’s back-to-back shifts kept him away from home for long stints at a time, and when he would come home, all he wanted to do was catch up on sleep. He demanded quiet. And when it became too loud to be inside, I would go out to the yard and find a place to sit outside the window of the young couple, sometimes secretly hoping they would adopt me.
 
The memories I have of that time are spotty, and sometimes laden with sadness, or nostalgia. But what I remember most about that apartment and my parent’s marriage, is the pride they possessed and imposed on that space. Not only did my father somehow manage to get a six-hundred-pound cook stove up to that second-floor apartment and install it, but he also preferred the old-fashioned technology and ways of doing things. If he could not fix it, he did not want to own it. If it was broke and abandoned on the side of the road, it posed a challenge. He couldn’t read, but he had a way of seeing how all the pieces fit together that could never be taught. He also found intrinsic value in being the provider, while my mother wrestled with the roles of homemaker, caregiver, and artist.
 
I remember drawing and playing in front of that stove. My mother would start a fire early to make us breakfast and then would retreat to the enclosed porch where she kept her paints and easels. Before we were old enough to attend school, my sister and I learned to entertain ourselves with pastels and construction paper on the bare floors of that apartment, understanding that quiet time meant it was creative time, and as long as we had food, heat and a bed to sleep in, there was no reason to long for anything more.
 
Because of these experiences, I can tell you that I have never been afraid of being uncomfortable. For ten years I supported myself, believing that responsibility belonged solely to me. Nick was the one who taught me that it is not a sign of weakness to let others lend a hand along the way and that even though I was a self-sufficient individual, I was still capable of sharing a life with him.
 
But what about rejection? You might ask. Art mimics life in many ways.
 
I stoke the fire, fight the urge to do a job search, and settle in to write a few thousand words. It is gratifying, but not sustaining. Compromising my relationship in the name of art is what truly frightens me, and that is why I must acknowledge the sacrifices my husband makes every day. The frosty mornings, the frustrations of day labor, and the tired joints and bones are all reasons why I ask myself, each day, “Is it worth it?”
 
Nick never ushers a single complaint. He checks the wood box to see if it is full, and the woodpile he “did not stack for nothing.” He helps fold laundry and cook dinner. His little labors of love lack nothing.
 
To speak of all things is to find value in the details that at their most basic level are connected, and therefore essential. These events and decisions that may appear separate and isolated, fold into each other to enrich our lives and give us a more thoughtful resolve, as we take on each day.
 
The vacuum, the air, and the fire — one cannot exist without the other. Just as one cannot just chock a stove full and strike a match.
 
There is an art to building a good fire. And, though it may be seen as a simple contribution, it is never small.