When Frances was just shy of two years old Mike and I flew with her to visit our friends in Colorado. At the time we knew (deep in our first-time flimsy parent bones, which had not yet been tested by toilet training, toddler rage, vomiting in the night, sibling rivalry, eye rolling, or anything remotely humbling) that she was an absolutely brilliant baby, and one of the ways this was made clear to us was the few baby verbal tics she held onto - adorable abberations that highlighted her genius and enabled it to shine that much brighter - the cutest of these being her confusion around personal pronouns.
A delighted announcement from the black arms of the baby swing: you're swinging!! meant, of course, I'm swinging. The way she developed this habit made sense. I'd say Frances, are you hungry? And she'd reply, yes, you're hungry. Do you want some? Why yes, you do want some. Mike and I figured she probably had the cognitive abilities of a fourteen year old so we'd patiently try to explain the you-I problem to our chubby baby sitting in the little clip-on seat at the counter, gripping a plastic-coated spoon. Frances, we understand your confusion, but you see, I address you using the word you, but when you refer to yourself, you reply using the word I. Got it?
You got it!
See? Genius! It never occurred to us to instruct her. We could have just said Frances, say I’m hungry. But we wanted her to understand. We didn't want to boss her around like oppressive authoritarian parents and take away her creative linguistic autonomy. Or something like that, I guess. Anyway, we took her to Colorado. And she was the cutest. There were meltdowns, there were all kinds of challenges I'm sure, but time has faded these moments around the edges while leaving some very good ones crisp and clear. One of the most vivid is her utter delight in her own competency. Once she understood that walking on a trail is called hiking, and that that was something she could do, she really milked it. When I see the photo above, I can hear her squeaky little voice announcing to everyone we met, over and over: you're hiking!
She was so proud. You're hiking! You've got this! You're amazing, you're climbing a mountain!
I often think about you’re hiking. On a challenging trail, or just a long walk around the neighborhood with Ramona the dog, or more often when I notice a kid doing something like flashily riding her bike one-handed or mastering the monkey bars, I smile. You’re doing it, kid. That feeling of mastery, of competence, of one’s own power growing, and smiling to all the world about it. You’re hiking!
Also, announcing to others that you are doing something you feel proud of and referring to yourself as ‘you’ is a kind of neat verbal trick. You’re talking to them, but you’re talking to yourself too. Hey you. I mean me. I mean you/me. You’re pretty great! You’re/I’m doing this hard thing and it’s actually working! It’s telling the story and being the cheerleader of the storyteller and enjoying the support of the cheerleader all at once.
Yesterday afternoon we returned from a camping trip at the beach. Just an overnight, because that’s all the availability I could find during the time we could get away. You see, I’m starting back at work on Monday after my two month summer break.
Allow me a moment to see that sentence on the screen, breathe a bit, and let it sink in.
Whew. Yes.
So! On Thursday morning, while Frances was conducting her zoom Spanish tutoring lessons, I pulled all the gear up from the basement and threw all kinds of things into the cooler and lots of sunscreen and towels into the big tote bag and downloaded some audio books from the library and eventually we made it onto the road. I drove us three hours to Cape Henlopen State Park. I put on a mask and talked to the guy at the park about safety and park rules. It was stinking hot. I could hear Beatrice screaming at her brother in the car parked nearby and pretended like they weren’t my children.
We pulled up to our assigned tent spot which the children found weirdly close to all the other tent spots. No comment. And it’s SO hot. Uh, yeah. And why did you think this was a good idea again Mama? But we were all excited to meet our friends from Annapolis who were already at the beach waiting to see us, and agreed to set up our tent first. The air was thick and still, I was short-tempered with the kids, and all of us were sweating like crazy. The physical exertion required to slide tent poles into those little sleeves and walk back and forth from the minivan with sleeping bags in our arms was enough to leave us dripping. The challenge of then pulling our bathing suits on over our sticky wet skin was considerable.
But we did it, and we made it to the beach, and we found our friends, and we were so happy to see them and to jump in the waves. Lots of nice things happened; it felt great to be together. But eventually after dinner and some more evening beach time we had to return to our tent. The heat was like another person in there with us, a grouchy humorless person who enjoyed sitting on our faces. We stretched out on top of our sleeping bags, sweating. I read Harry Potter aloud to Bea for awhile, and then we turned out the lights. None of us slept.
The rain started and it poured and poured. This helped a little with the thick hot air but not much as we had to keep the rain flap up; it was a pretty intense drenching. Every once in awhile one of the kids would whisper are you awake? Oh yes. We’re awake. Occasionally I would slip outside and try to rig the rain flap to allow for some more air flow into the tent, then go back in and watch a gust of wind slap it back into place.
It rained all morning, and all into the next day, and we left earlier than planned.
But through it all, I would look around, take it all in, and have this feeling that made me smile a little private smile. Meagan. You’re camping.
The conditions were miserable but we didn’t kill each other. We actually laughed a lot, and had a great time with our friends huddled under a little porch with our Starbucks haul that we went searching for in the morning. I didn’t forget anything important. I found where we were going without incident. The tent kept us relatively dry. And everyone got to put their feet in the ocean even though it’s a pandemic and even though I have to pull off all this shit alone.
Also my kids are cool people whom I really like spending time with. It feels good to notice that.
We’re still a family. The particular shape of this life of ours is due entirely to tragedy - if Mike hadn’t gotten sick and died we would still be in Annapolis. Beatrice would have lived in one house over the course of her seven years instead of five. I would never have attempted to take the three of them camping by myself. I wouldn’t be soaking in the highs and lows of life in our pandemic pod with friends and watching my kids flourish in their Lancaster community. I didn’t want this widowed life, but I have it, and sometimes I’m really good at it, and sometimes I really like it, and sometimes that doesn’t feel like disloyalty or any other kind of problem at all. It feels like something to be grateful for, and maybe even something to crow about.
You’re hiking, bitches.
