After Babies, Love

By Callie Feyen
@calliefeyen

I hope to never forget the morning I made a classroom visit to sit in a on a Book Club Hadley and a group of her classmates were participating in.

I don’t remember the book Hadley and her friends were discussing, but I remember Hadley wanted me right next to her. This was not because she was clingy. Hadley has never been a “Mommy, don’t leave me” kind of girl. She wanted me to participate. She expected me to get involved.

“This is what you do,” she leaned over to me and whispered, loudly.

She was referring to books—words—reading and writing. Since she was two, she’d seen me make my way toward this life: a bookshelf in the playroom, half filled with toys, half filled with books on writing. Next, a small desk with two chairs, and cups to hold pens for me; crayons for Hadley. My notebooks back then were filled with my stories and her letters and pictures – both of our marks shaky, emerging, but not unsure. They were the marks of explorers.

She saw me at the park, on a bench with a book or a notebook, scribbling away or marking up the margins moments in between re-tying shoes, handing out Cheerios, saying, ‘Great job!” after an attempt down a steep slide. She sat in the audience in Santa Fe, and listened as I read from my creative manuscript. For years she watched as I made my way, figuring out how to do the things I love.

Motherhood and writing were so intertwined, so a part of the everyday moments of my life, and Hadley didn’t only witness it—this all happened because she was born. I didn’t know how to be a mother or how to be a writer, but my lack of knowledge, my ignorance was no match for my love, my curiosity, my willingness to try. It never occurred to me to turn away. I see now I didn’t—couldn’t—separate the two. Being a mom and a writer were there because of each other.

She came, and I didn’t know what else do but write. It was more natural than breastfeeding.

“Tell them what you do,” Hadley demanded that day in her classroom. “Tell them what you ARE!”

Hadley was 9, then. Now, she is 13—a lifetime away from that moment. Now, we are standing in the kitchen, she and I. She’s asking for a snack while I’m filling a pot with water to boil for pasta. A bowl of arugula, and toppings for salad are on the counter; bowls and glasses set out.

“Are you serious?” I ask, setting the pot on the stove, and waving my arm as though I’m a game show host highlighting what the contestant might win if she gets the next answer correct.

Hadley smirks, unimpressed with my nonverbal answer. “I’m hungry,” she says.

She taps her fitbit and tells me she’s taken something like 536,000 steps today. “Two hundred in the last hour,” she says.

“There is no way that’s possible unless sitting on the couch staring at your phone counts as steps.”

Hadley rolls her eyes. “I’m so hungry,” she complains.

“Have a banana,” I say. It’s me calling her bluff. She glares at me, looks at the bananas, and leaves the kitchen.

At dinner, Jesse tells Hadley that her science teacher reached out to ask if he could speak to Hadley’s class, and Hadley makes it clear that she does not endorse this nonsense of her father coming to her 7th grade science class to talk all things water.

I spin spaghetti around my fork as they talk. I chew quietly on my arugula salad. I take a sip of wine. I am absolutely minding my own business when Hadley points to me from across the table and tells me under no circumstances am I allowed to tell her English teacher what it is I do.

Things are different now, is what I’m trying to express. I think of that scene in The Hobbit where Gandalf is telling the dwarves that Bilbo Baggins is something spectacular when the dwarves think that actually Bilbo is a total loser. “There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself,” Gandalf says. That’s Hadley at 9.

Hadley at 13 is Gandalf slamming his magic rod on the ground telling the goblins, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS.”

I think I was wrong to write that I hope I never forget the moment Hadley insisted I tell her buddies who I am and what I do. Maybe it’s okay to remember it, but I think I’ve been hanging on to it too tightly.  I think it might be time to let it go.

***

I’m driving Hadley to the bus stop, and she insists on playing her music. She cues up, “Graduation,” by Benny Blanco and Juice WRLD. “This is a remake, you know,” I tell her.

“They make songs better these days,” she says.

I take a deep breath and let it out. I am not about to get into an argument over which sentimental, synthesized song is better. (Never mind the fact that both bring tears to me eyes; Vitamin C’s 1999 version is better. Their riff on “Pomp and Circumstance” is amazing.)

We get to her stop, and she tells me, “Now don’t go blasting your music, mom.” I tell her I’m going to crank Dave Matthews Band until the bus gets here.

She laughs, shuts the car door, and waves goodbye. I watch, for just a second, as she walks towards her friends.

There is so much I’ve written about this bus stop—what I see, how I feel, what I wonder—but all those words will most likely stay in a notebook. I’m glad to bring Hadley here, but this scene is for her to turn over if she’d like. It’s her story now.

Later that morning, Harper is putting the finishing touches on her braid a few moments before her bus arrives. Normally, she puts her hair in a ponytail or bun.

“Something new,” I tell her, handing her a bottle of hairspray. “Me too,” I add, pointing to my hair. It looks nothing like Pinterest said it would in three easy steps, but I like it. I like the change.

“And look,” Harper says. “We’re wearing the same shirt.” She’s right. We both have a longish, loose grey shirt on. Harper’s look is sporty – she’s wearing camouflage leggings, and her black, high top (sparkly) Converse. My look is more classic, I suppose. I have on maroon pants, grey booties, and a silver necklace.

“Maybe I’ll do sporty next time,” I tell her.

“Maybe I’ll do classy,” she says, fiddling with an earring. Today’s pair are mugs of hot chocolate with candy canes in them.

“What’s your quote?” I ask. Harper writes her outfits for the week on a whiteboard, and next to each outfit, she writes a quotation from something she’s read.

She runs to her room to check, and calls out, “It’s ‘Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known.’”

I hope that that something incredible doesn’t wait too long, I think as I hand Harper her backpack, as I watch her climb on board the bus, as I ring out the kitchen cloth, hang it to dry, and turn to face my day, willing myself not to confuse this freedom with vacancy.