I give thanks to the sun
for turning my skin
into the deep
warm hues
of my aunties,
whose hands
I admired
as they prepared
our food,
their wrists
adorned
with silver
delicately engraved
and freckled with turquoise.
-Metis
Tragedy at the Puddle’s Edge
Only days into summer holiday, we discovered freshly laid frog eggs in the very shallow, warm water of the ditch near our home. Some lay completely exposed to the afternoon’s heat, the soft jelly already hardening, surrendering its existence to the relentless heat. The sun has since made dusty patchwork quilts of the ditch’s bottom.
We carefully collected all of the eggs, scraping the mud with our fingers, we placed them delicately into a large bowl of murky water. We knew a completely successful hatching was unlikely given their delicate condition and still we watched, hopeful. Nearly forty tadpoles emerged and found life in the tank that would entertain us for weeks.
Unbeknownst to us, we simultaneously hatched mosquitos and midge flies, too. The mud we collected alongside the eggs, gave birth to squirming larva. The walls of our home were soon sprinkled with the tiny winged creatures, who would regrettably live out their short lives indoors — their forlorn figures eternally resting on our window sills.
We watched as the tadpoles slowly developed back legs, then front. To our delight we noticed one afternoon, the first tiny frog with barely a tail, sitting on the rock we had planted in their makeshift home. It had happened. We hurried to fix the lid in place as the frog quickly scaled the walls of the container. Revealing its delicate underside, through the glass, we witnessed each breath as the air from the room filled its lungs.
After a month of dry weather, the only nearby refuge that the summer had yet to get rid of, was a small puddle on the edge of the ditch. Collecting a constant, almost imperceptible amount of ground water it defies the tall, thirsty trees looming overhead with their starved, autumn-coloured leaves, curling sorrowfully. So nearby where the eggs were laid, the destination seemed to me both poetic and opportune.
We collected the frog for a second time and brought it to the puddle. We watched as it flicked its tail and tested its legs in the water. We celebrated its first jumps as it stretched its legs in this newfound capacity. It ambitiously explored the rocky edge of the puddle, collecting fallen pine needles on its back. I watched it for some time, crouched nearby.
I watched a fascinating, particularly long-legged, wonderfully dexterous spider race past me, past the pair of fading deer prints, left sometime ago. It left the dry edge of the puddle, stretched its black and yellow limbs and took hold of a thin green plant that bent under the weight of the excited spider. It skillfully climbed from branch to branch before resting on its perch, contemplating where to build its voracious web.
I watched the frog as it continued exploring, a world materializing around it, now free from the confines of the water of its previous life.
As we prepared to head back inside, one excited daughter pushed another to get a final glance of the frog we had raised. A foot came falling down and crushed the tiny frog, on the puddle’s edge.
One daughter cried. Another reminded me, “it would’ve died anyway.” The youngest remained oblivious. We went back inside as there was nothing left to do.
The spider, having observed many thirsty insects, could rest assured in its decision to build there. It began to prepare a web in hungry anticipation.
The still body of the frog sank below the insatiable mud.
The Highway
Every day we would hit the bump in the highway with increasing velocity and increasing hopes that today would be the day when we momentarily took flight.
A year, felt a long time to travel the same stretch of highway, every day — an introduction to the drudgery of regular routine and we celebrated the break in monotony by attempting to launch ourselves into the air, with no regard for consequence.
I met my dear friend in a Math for Elementary Teachers course. I didn’t know she would become my friend just yet. I did know, she needed help, and while I was adept in math I didn’t realize I was in need of a lot of loud laughter and support for many years to come. Five years and a few courses later, we were thrilled to have been accepted into the same teacher program and we made immediate plans to carpool.
Excitement grew when winter came and the bump grew under the freezing conditions like only a newly settling freshly twinned highway over a wetlands could bend a highway. We wondered how much more the road could endure before crumbling completely under the intensifying conditions — but her integrity remained intact. Everyday we hit the bump speeding, and for just a moment before we returned home each afternoon, we were weightless.
A professor we deeply admired, encouraged us when feeling uncertain, to plant our feet firmly on the ground connecting ourselves with the earth. Unsurprisingly, when you envision the entire earth beneath your feet, supporting you, you begin to feel calm. (Whether this worked because of a true connection or a distraction method, the results were the same.) This technique became invaluable as we interviewed for teaching positions and beginning our career. We planted ourselves in the interview seats and became fixed in positions that required even more routine and regularity than student life allowed.
As we became fixed in our new phase of life, my dear friend moved away and the highway folks “fixed” the blacktop on our beloved stretch of pavement — taking her defiant beauty.
Every now and then I come hurtling down nostalgia highway and more often, the regular highway. While her playful, unruly ascent no longer remains, she still bends a little, fondly reminiscing of the time she sent us soaring — an enthusiastic accomplice in our escape from the usual.
Thank you, dear highway, for always taking us to where we needed to be.
the old house
Devoid of any flesh or rot, as if it had always been a skeleton, never a horse — as though muscles, tendons and ligaments had never moved its spectacular form — the remains bleached white under the prairie sun, became a destination we returned to year after year, a monument of our annual summer pilgrimage. It lay unchanged, as did the rest of the property. Though it was apparent time had at some point transformed this creature, this entire place, from its original state — a bustling general store, post office and homestead — it seemed as though it had somehow happened all at once and time had forgotten to return, continuing its steady progression forward.
It always began with too long a journey. Road trip games were punctuated by car fighting, we loudly boasted completing the alphabet, signalling both the end of the game and our winning — a lie, it was always a lie — and as if in the confines of the car volume determined truthfulness, we shouted our false victory. “A zed!” If we were lucky the shouting ended the game, although most often we did not favour concession, and shouting led to fist fights, which led to time outs. Whether we were involved in the backseat mischief or not (we were, we always were, in one way or another), we were instructed from the front seat, to sit on our hands. Angry with our new predicament we had to work harder to irritate our back seat companions further. With a dirty look, words or elbows we always succeeded, and it never failed, we would be sitting on our hands with our heads in our laps for what seemed like a significant portion of our trip.
Excitement rose as we neared the farm, it always did. As we travelled the long straight roads, we watched for familiar signs. As the road turned to gravel we knew we were close and we strained to look for something the dark and monotonous prairie fields kept hidden from our longing eyes. Some how none of it was familiar and yet all of it was.
We parked our car on the hard packed dirt between the old house and the new one. The old weathered house looked out at the new one. Forlorn and leaning, it timidly called to us, offering endless opportunity for exploration if we should give it a chance. The new house wore fresh paint, robins egg blue, it stood square flaunting electricity as the mosquito trap buzzed and sparked as it caught its prey. The new house would be home for the next week. Bags in hand, we followed our great grandfather inside the new house, but it was the old house that held our curious hearts captive.
It required no imagination to see my young grandmother dutifully throwing seed for the chickens that freely roamed the hardened soil in front of her childhood home. Swept up in times past, we found ourselves being drawn into the old house, past the creaky door, into the house that preserved artifacts of another lifetime under its dilapidated roof.
Candy remained in tall glass jars on a long counter where the general store and post office once bustled. Even now I wonder about the tremendous amount of restraint required for those jars to remain full for decades with two young children living so nearby. How was it decided what goods would be moved into the cellar of the new house, and what would be forever preserved in the forgotten home?
We crept past the banjo that still hung on the wall, turning up the dark, narrow stairway, clutching the railing. Each tread, leaning slightly, squeaked under the weight they only bore once each year.
We inspected the bedrooms, still furnished, items abandoned as though the house would have immediately collapsed should they had been removed. Maybe we should have paid more attention to my great grandfathers cautioning, “be careful” and took notice that he never followed us into the old house. We explored each inch of the old house before temporarily closing the door, promising to visit again the following year, in turn the old house too promised to continue to carefully protect its contents.
We rode a horse in a large figure eight, mowed into the long prairie grass that only rustled slightly in the prairie breeze, so tall, it seemed it had never bent under the cruel weight of snow. We rode past the silo, over and over — still full of corn, for the cattle that used to roam the fields it so proudly looked out on. It threatened to swallow us whole if we did not pay it the respect it was owed and so we kept our distance as it towered over us.
We were trusted with the motor trike and spent a great deal of time darting through the adjoining fields. We toured out to the old horse skeleton pondering the grandeur of the creature and the expanse. What was its story? We found ourselves creating a narrative for the incredible beast in its final moments, each one grander than the last as we gazed into its empty eyes. Perhaps it had died of old age, on a warm summer evening, such as this. Perhaps it had finished its day, a dutiful companion and work horse, it simply laid down its head and fallen asleep surrounded by several of its knowing friends and passed from this life into the next one. The gentle grass blew and the starlings performed their evening dance in the darkening sky. Or perhaps it had become lost and found by a pack of wolves on a blustery snowy night, it had put up a valiant fight, but at the end it succumbed to its predators and nourished their bodies for the coming days. Perhaps with freshly filled bellies, the wolves taught their young the spirit of gratitude as they leaned back and howled beneath the moon, giving thanks to the earth for providing. The young wolves echoed their sentiments.
At night we sifted through old coins, and rummaged through war time memorabilia. We listened closely to stories from my great grandfathers time as a mechanic in the war. He waved his bent finger in the air, recounting a story for each piece we held up.
We delved into the relics in the new house, the eight tracks in the closet of the upstairs bedroom, replaced by the large record player in the living room downstairs — a photo of our late great grandmother adorned its side. I think I remember her or at least I imagine remembering her one stormy night, though she never exists, in my mind anyway, outside of that room.
We busied ourselves for days on the homestead, a place where both the past and the present somehow existed simultaneously. Just when it seemed we had explored every area, it was over. We found comfort upon packing for home, knowing the farm would be waiting for our next visit, we would find it exactly the same, and we did year after year after year.
the ivory
the keys inherited
from my childhood teacher
the hours pored into fruitless scales
up and down
it was never my forte
but it was hers
she committed herself
the tireless effort
the pencil perched in between her fingers and thumb
the cursive reminders
speed up, slow down
excruciating practice
and now i sit down to play
reminiscent
but my damaged fingers won’t cooperate with my memory
and i cannot for the life of me
play the merry melody she taught me
-you never know what you’ve got til it’s gone
into the rain
Distracted, I nearly hit a man, with my grocery cart, as he slowly made his way across the opening of the aisle, on his motorized scooter.
“I’m sorry.” I smiled — a sheepish apology. I had used this trick successfully before, so I felt unsure when he didn’t smile back. The minor accident check list always works. Admit guilt, check. Smile, check. Wait for a forgiving smile in return. But he didn’t. I studied the look on his deeply wrinkled face — like a puddle that had spent an entire season without rain. He looked perturbed. His thickly furrowed brow furrowed even further and without another word we headed in different directions.
And then it happened again.
My daughter pulled the cart along at the check out as she hurled all of the easily bruised groceries into any available space on the conveyor belt.
“Clink.” The cart hit the cart in front of us.
“Sorry,” I laughed. The lady smiled, understandingly.
And then I saw him, right in front of her, paying for his groceries.
“Hello, again.” I smiled — twice rejected.
“Do you generally make a habit of hitting people with your grocery cart?”
“Not generally, no.” I follow it up with an awkward laugh.
“Hmph.” He said before departing into the cold mist of the day.
“Good riddance,” I thought to myself as we continued checking out. We paused for a moment to pull on our hoods before slowly venturing into the rain.
I saw the man in the distance. A cigarette nestled in his yellowing fingers, fighting against the elements. He saw me too.
“No one smiles anymore.” He stated. “No one has time for small talk either.” He said as we wheeled a little nearer. The mist coated our clothing, his unkempt hair and settled into the thirsty crevices on his face. Almost pleasant out of doors — we stayed and chatted for a minute or two — there in the rain. Perhaps it was more than his skin feeling thirsty.
the trees
the place we used to live
echoes
of children’s laughter
reverberate off
dilapidated walls
of the fallen treehouse
happy shouts
ring out
hide and seek
dull clanging
of sword fights
in the field
expectant stockings
giddy mornings
over hot chicolate
the slow
crunch
of gravel
under unsteady bicycle tires
the dog
lost
in the woods
happy birthdays
melt away
like warm icing
on patio boards
hungry vines
reach out
from the earth
engulfing
the place
we used
to live
consuming time
feasting on memories
When Internet Friends Become Real Friends
We lost our first baby. He was born at 35 weeks 2 days pregnant, it was both shocking and devastating, to say the very least.
The hospital social worker warned us that internet groups could be dark places and to be wary of them. Armed with a handful of bereavement pamphlets, a memory box and this information, we left the hospital.
Still reeling, I couldn’t handle the obnoxiously happy weekly pregnancy updates infiltrating my inbox. I tentatively logged on to the website to delete my account. My vision made blurry from constant tear swiping, I navigated my way to the “delete account” page — a nearly impossible feat. The site, like most sites, claimed to be very genuinely sad to see me go. They begged to know why I would ever want to leave their very informative and useful site, and provided a multiple choice click option. And for once in my life, I was grateful to have to explain my reasons to a computer, because there it was beside one of the tiny check boxes: miscarriage/baby loss. The site expressed its sincerest condolences and listed several forums I might find comfort in.
But wait, the social worker had warned me about these dark corners of the internet, where grieving people wallow in their sorrows amongst the internet cobwebs — often never heard from again.
Too late — before I knew it, I was the newest member in all three of the loss groups the site had recommended for me.
I have “real life” friends, great ones, family too, they were so so good to us after our loss, but my soul longed for a kindred connection with other souls, also still reeling from the overwhelming trauma, that is baby loss.
I spent hours poring over every single post. I made posts. I commented on posts. I marked comments with a tiny heart, just to let someone, somewhere, know they had been heard. It was a safe space where I could say whatever sad or disturbing thing I wanted and I was completely understood. Some nights, long after pre-loss me would have been sleeping, I lay in bed, clinging to my phone, the screen illuminated the darkness, as I refreshed my feed, over and over again. I didn’t want to miss anything.
There was a specific group of us, that had all lost babies within a few months of each other (three of us had babies born on the same day — including our son). We frequently commented on each others posts and passed private messages back and forth. Then one of them made a Facebook group. I was hesitant to lose my anonymity by linking these two worlds, matching screen names with real names, but I’m so glad I did.
We celebrate with each other. We cry with each other. We talk each other through some of the scariest moments of our lives. We lift each other up. We talk each other down. We’ve watched each other’s families grow both in size and in experiences. But most importantly, we remember together.
When the entire world feels like it is entirely too much, we make jokes about buying a castle together, or a tropical island and escaping it all — quite possibly forever.
I was so lucky to meet one of my friends, after almost three years of chatting online. She generously invited my family to stay with hers in her home in the Dominican Republic. It was awkward for exactly one minute before we dove deep into conversation, right where our last chat had left off. We visited her sweet baby in the cemetery and celebrated her rainbow daughter’s first birthday, alongside her family and friends. We holidayed together and watched both of our daughters playing in the sand under the palm trees. We marvelled at this exhaustingly beautiful stage of life, while reminiscing about our journey here. How lucky we were to have found each other.
I casually talk about my Internet friends and I’m often asked how I met them, because they are scattered about the United States, another in Canada and my dear friend in the Dominican Republic. “Oh,” people always respond, flatly, and I quickly feel the need to legitimize our friendship, but maybe it’s not something you fully understand, until you have internet friends, who regularly check in on you.
My soul found what it needed there, in that dark little corner of the internet, I found them, or maybe they found me, all of us a little broken, all of us in need of an understanding ear, all of us connected by a life-altering, world up-ending event.
Seven years, several miscarriages, many heart breaks, personal and family traumas, countless laughs and 27 rainbow babies (another on its way), we all remain friends.
Our Blatant Invisible Luxuries
They’ve done it. The third time is the charm. Twice my desperate pleas of, “I’m sleeping. Shut my door,” worked. “Pleeeeeease!” I add and pull the duvet up higher. It feels early, but it’s not — not in this house anyway.
I roll off the bed and take the almost giggling baby with me. She loves mornings, she loves the super high-pitched squealing declarations of love from her sisters too. Goodness, that’s high-pitched. I need coffee.
I power up the espresso maker. It stubbornly beeps at me, a reminder that I forgot to empty the grounds, yesterday. It needs water too. A petulant thing — I’d complain, but then again I’d give her anything and she knows it. Satisfied, she pours a double espresso, extra long, just right.
I release the dogs from their kennels downstairs and prepare their medicines. That’s right, they’re both taking medicine now, for the rest of their lives. We probably should have better timed getting dogs, so they weren’t both seniors at the same time.
I prepare breakfast for us all. We all want different things. Not a problem, the espresso has kicked in.
And then the poo. She warned me, by pushing and grunting. I bring her to the change table, and lie her down. I remove her diaper and carefully peel off her jammies. There’s poo in her armpit, well that won’t do. I run a bath.
Her sisters crowd around as I lather her up. She laughs and kicks her legs under the heavy wash cloth. Sufficiently clean, I lift her from the tub. She looks unimpressed to be leaving the warmth of the water. The towel I had neatly laid out on my bed is now balled up on the floor. “Thanks,” I mumble to nobody.
I rinse off her poo-logged jammy in our oversized sink, I spray on too much stain remover and place them into the washing machine. Before I press start, I gather the remaining laundry from the various places it has been strewn about the house, tucked into the couch and hidden under beds. I’ll repeat the same circuit later, scouring for dirty dishes and random toys.
The weather looks iffy and I can’t stand the thought of being indoors all day. It’s time to get to the park. They need a snack. Crackers and cheese strings will have to cut it.
The baby falls asleep on the six minute car ride there. I buckle up the baby carrier while making small talk with a couple in the parking lot. They lower a ramp out of their car for their Rottweiler, who very happily makes her way out of the vehicle. My kids are equally as happy as they make their way out of mine. The baby stays asleep, snuggled against my chest as her sisters chase down bunnies wildly waving their carrots in the air. “Go slooooowly!” I whisper.
We walk through the park, greeting everyone with a genuinely hearty, “good morning!” (I may have had a second espresso). They echo our sentiments, everyone is happy to be out here.
We stop a few times to throw rocks in a pond, attempt to climb a very large rock and to watch ants scurrying around.
While my kids play at the sandbox amongst the once loved, now abandoned, toys I contemplate this short morning, a typical one, mundane even (in the most beautiful way), I’m lucky.
I can’t help but think that of course they’re coming. Of course people want their children to experience even the smallest luxuries we all take completely for granted. Safety at the most basic level, enough food and shelter. Even my inconveniences are convenient — blatant invisible luxuries.
I did nothing to deserve this. Nothing. And yet here I am, completely complacent.
I’ll likely never have to risk dehydration and starvation crossing deserts. I’ll likely never need to brave the ocean waters with a child on my back. I’ll likely never need to cross borders to keep my family safe.
But I would. If it meant that my children for just one morning could run freely through fields, throwing rocks into ponds, attempting to climb impossible rocks or watching ants scurrying on the ground, not a care in the world, I would do it. I would.