Row Your Boat Gently

When children are free to love both their parents without conflict of loyalty, to have access to both without fear of losing either, they can get on with the totally absorbing work of growing up, on schedule. They can learn to master the tasks that life places before them with confidence and a sense of security. And both parents and children can learn that something as hurtful and as earthshaking as a separation or divorce can eventually be handled constructively. - Mom's House, Dad's House, Isolina Ricci

In the early spring sun, Tee and I met at a nearby playground. Bug scrambled around the trees and jungle gyms with the other kids while we chatted. The meeting was meant to be nothing more than a pick-up exchange, but the lazy sun lulled us into dropping our defenses. We began to talk. I shared a suggestion from my counselor, and we discussed some of what is ahead for our co-parenting relationship.

In a flash, Tee was off the bench, storming away, too angry even to sit next to me anymore. What set him off is still unclear. Was it a word, a phrase? Was it a buildup of grief and frustration finally having its chance to blow? Several brewing weather fronts collided at that mile of sky, and the tempest was immediate and total. The conversation spiraled into a barely contained series of accusations and excuses. Each of us lost our inhibition, and even the proximity of our child and our neighbors didn't rein us in.

Some semblance of control must have remained. We did not find ourselves in a screaming battle or calling each other terrible names, and I would hope we made the other parents merely uncomfortable rather than fearful. I have no doubt, however, that Bug sensed something was not right. It can only have caused him distress. Even the April sunshine has only so much power to alleviate a little boy's fear.

The interaction caught us both off guard. Most of our emotional storm fronts stay off shore, and we have only ventured out under them separately and in the company of counselors or friends. Six months have passed since Tee moved out. A few things have shifted during that time. We are each more settled in our work, our childcare routine, and our separate social lives. I am less interested in what Tee does with his private time, and I am more confident in each of our abilities to stay steady through the changes. Nothing succeeds like success. We can talk a good game about our commitment to our child, but the evidence is in the behaviors we exhibit over time. He has not moved away and neither have I. We are not in court. We each trust the other to care well for our son.

One significant shift has to do with the location of my attention. For the first several months, I was caught up in explaining and understanding the choice to separate. I became one of those insufferable people who suck all the air out of a room blathering on about the drama, the failings, the ex, and what went wrong. Fortunately, my friends and family are patient with me. Only a few have abandoned me altogether during this chaotic time. Because leaving a marriage, especially one with a child involved, is such a significant decision, it cannot be made lightly. It is easy to become consumed by the justifications for doing so. The pull to find fault with the partnership and the partner is almost addictive. It allays the guilt and shame, and it serves as a way to say to the world (and the self), "Look what I had to live with! It's a wonder I stayed as long as I did!"

Separation and divorce land a person in leaky boat, rowing madly for shore. I, for one, am still not sure how I got here. Seeking the reasons may be useful over time so that I don't repeat toxic patterns in future relationships. However, the spiraling diagnosis of the past is a kind of Bermuda Triangle. I have to haul myself out of the pull of "Why" and get myself into "What now?"

Shifting direction is easier said than done. "What now" means making decisions and creating entirely new approaches. "What now" means drawing on one's own resources and letting go of the fantasy of rescue. I have been lost for months. In many ways, I still am. Where is my attention supposed to be? Dangers loom. Sharks circle. Storm clouds gather, maps are out-of-date. For those first weeks and months in this rickety vessel, my mind could not focus on any one thing. Sometimes I found myself paralyzed. Sometime all I could do was curse the sky.

But six months apart have calmed the stormy waters around separation. My gaze is finally settling where it should. Blaming Tee, or myself, or our naivete and blind spots is no longer useful. The attention needs to be on the far horizon. What will our lives as co-parents look like? How do we want to arrange our two homes to meet Bug's needs? I may not have a map, but I have a point of orientation. Now, I need to attend more to the tone of the exchanges with Tee as a parent than to the feelings about him as a spouse. The arrangement we build from here on out will need to look like a business relationship. Courteous communication, structured meetings, explicit agreements, and respect for privacy should characterize our interactions in the future. 

The language we use has the power to shape our sense of what is real. If I speak of Tee not as my soon-to-be-ex-husband, but instead as Bug's father, I remove the marriage (and its demise) as the central factor in our relationship. If I say, "Our marriage ended," instead of "Our family fell apart," it allows for a more even keel.

Bug's family is intact. He has two of them: one with his father and the one with me. He has two homes. In the eyes of our son, we are each a whole person with the capacity to shelter him, care for him, and help him grow. His families are solid, his homes are complete. Tee is a good and capable father. I am a loving and resourceful mother. I will do my best to draw these thoughts into the front of my mind when I interact with Tee. I will allow the respectful and hopeful picture of Bug's future guide my words.

Those two stable homes exist on that distant shore. I will keep my eyes trained there as I pull this family over the miles of open water to reach it.

Wild or Nest

If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun.
- Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods

On the shore of Lake George at the foothills of the Adirondacks, a canopy of trees sheltered our home. I could walk out the front door of our house following a wooded trail up to the top of Buck Mountain without ever crossing a road. Bug grew up in that place, and in two other places like it in two other time zones. Logs made from trees felled by storms became the makeshift jungle-gym. A swing, a hammock, and several bird-feeders dangled from the trees surrounding our cabin. Despite this abundant temptation, Bug never did discover the heady allure of climbing trees.

By moving to the outer reaches of the DC metro area, Bug has inadvertently traded slopping through beaver dams for metro rides and trips to Costco with Gramma. Shaggy mixed deciduous forest skirting the edges of jagged peaks has given way to manicured ornamentals dotting evenly edged lawns. Sometimes I cannot bear this re-ordering of my little boy's relationship with the natural world.

Worry cannot gain a foothold, thought. I will not let it. The kid is four and full of adventure. He plays as rough on the blacktop driveway as he ever did in a mud bog. It is also wise to remember that our little corner of  wilderness had neither museums nor decent kid's theater -- two things Bug has decided to love. Ultimately, this accounting is the burden of being a grownup. My little boy does not seem to measure the worth of one form of play over another. Here in the suburbs, he laughs with his whole body just like he always has.

I have to admit, I was delighted when Bug went slamming out of the house one day last autumn without asking permission. Despite his lack of a chaperone, I was secretly ecstatic to find him already three branches up the white pine in the front yard. Without warning or fanfare, my son had become a tree climber.

Throughout the fall and into the first chill of winter, Bug did his level best to master that tree. He could hoist himself about ten feet up without help. My son possesses that magical four-year-old cocktail of tenacity, flexibility, and foolishness. He figured out how to use his belly, limbs, and balance to get both up and down, only falling once. Bug had me clamber up ahead of him a time or two to provide the motivation for greater height when he someday acheives the same.

Two simple rules have governed the tree climbing: 1) an adult has to be watching, and 2) the kid has to get both up and down on his own. For a few sweet months, this tree was our one sliver of the wild woods, one glinting souvenir from our previous life.

In the recent snowstorm that brought the DMV to its knees, power lines and patience levels were not the only casualties. Branches all over the region buckled under the weight of accumulation. Our tree was hit harder than any other on the property. Bug was momentarily awed by the destruction before he tromped off to pound footprints in the drifts.

A few days after the storm, my folks called in a couple of guys with an impressive array of power tools and an extension ladder. The duo worked in tandem to shear the trunk clean of all branches twenty feet straight up. They went even higher in places, amputating limbs that had sustained injury and lay limp in the crown. When they drove off in their pickup truck, I looked at the tree and felt fate sucker-punch me once again. They had left not one knot big enough for my boy to hoist himself up.

This tree had been the last on our postage-stamp property with branches inviting ascent. Now, naked and groomed like so much of this neighborhood, it cannot provide risk and adventure as it had before. Another loss my boy has to sustain. Another positive spin this mama has to manufacture. "There are other trees," my own mother pointed out. Angry and sad, I grumbled back, "No there aren't. There aren't any other trees."

Of course, I do not believe such dire declarations. Even if I do, even if for one second, I will not speak them out loud. Maybe this yard, this patch of land is not the place where we will become our feral selves. But we will find our next thicket. We pass through here as we have so many places before. We grab hold of the rough edges, we hoist ourselves into the cradle of the moment and treasure it for its brief grip. My son may find another tree. He may not. But he will watch me to learn how to inhabit his own wild, mammalian body. Together, we will seek another manner of ascent. And then another.