Grounded
By Callie Feyen
@calliefeyen
It’s the night before my brother Geoff is getting married, and I am sitting at a thick, wooden dining table with my parents, Jesse, Hadley and Harper, and my soon to be sister-in-law’s family. This is my family’s dining room table—the one I’d spilled gallons of tears on trying to do math homework, where I’d sat with my family on make your own pizza nights, where I refused to eat meatloaf nights, and nights when even though there was school and work the next day, nobody got up because there was just one more story to tell.
Are we making small talk? Probably. The emotion of the moment—of two people who are prepared to devote the entirety of the rest of their lives to each other and we are witness to that—seems to warrant that we stay away from big topics and stick to things like sports (the Cubs, Michigan football for some, Notre Dame football for others), the weather (it’s June and beautiful, aren't we lucky?), and where we will be staying that night.
These are topics you really can’t mess up, so when Kellee’s parents (Kellee is my sister-in-law) asked where we were staying, I told them we would be staying at the Wright Inn, a quaint hotel in the heart of Oak Park. That’s all I should’ve said. Talk about the quaintness. Maybe throw in a thing or two about Frank Lloyd Wright, who the hotel is named after. If I wanted to go literary, I could’ve dropped Enest Hemingay’s name in, too. “We went to the same high school,” I could have said, “though not at the same time.” That line always gets a sniff of laughter.
Here’s what I said instead:
“It’s a very conservative hotel.”
Nobody laughs except my brother who lowers his head and brings his hand to his face—a move that made the situation even funnier because he was the only one laughing, and trying not to laugh. Everyone else looked horrified. You don’t make right wing puns, ever. Especially in Oak Park, Illinois.
To make it even more awkward, I pick up my fork like it is a mic and tap it a few times. “Is this thing on?” I say and Geoff loses it. He erupts in laughter, which makes me laugh, and we are five and seven, we are nine and eleven, we are fourteen and sixteen again—the two of us in on some ridiculous joke that no one can pull us out of.
I think that is right around the time Jesse suggests I spend the night at my parents’ house. “You’ll get more sleep,” he says. “And you can get ready with your brother.” At least, that’s how I like to remember it: my husband giving me a memory to mark the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.
I take him up on it. That night, I sleep in my old room underneath the window that faces the Maze Branch Library. I listen to the Chicago “L” rushing toward the city, its long lost sound and the glow from the library light that is always on, lulling me to sleep.
It was the last time my brother, my mom and dad, and I slept in our house on the 800 block of Gundeson, just the four of us.
***
I began to run around the time I knew Geoff and Kellee would be getting married, and I’ll be clear—I started to run because I wanted to be someone Kellee wanted to hang out with. I didn’t want to be the old, frazzled married lady. I wanted to be the wise, cool and fun sister-in-law. What I mean to say is this: I wanted to be someone I wanted to hang out with. Running seems to have helped with both of these objectives, and so I haven’t stopped.
Every first mile is the most difficult. It is the time when doubt in myself is heaviest; when “this is hard” turns to, “I can’t,” “I suck,” “I’ll never,” and other fun phrases that tighten my chest and send what feels like electric stings through my body. Here is where the still, small voice—what I believe is my true voice—comes in: “You’ve been here before,” she says. “You got through it before. You can probably do it again.” And I do. The electricity that stung now soothes and loosens me up.
Running has become a place where all of me is not only exposed but put to use. My runs serve as mini-quests: the heroine leaves what she knows and faces what she needs to face then comes back - maybe stronger, but always changed—layered in sweat and hopeful resolve.
Running is a physical poem.
***
A lesson in poetry: When you know nothing about the words on the page, when you connect with nothing, when the poem makes you crazy with confusion, look for an image that grounds. The plums in William Carlos Williams’ “This Is Just To Say.” The seed in Marjorie Maddox’s “On Defining Education.” The valley of the shadow of death in Psalm 23. Use that image to pull you into the poem.
I’m at the kitchen table in my pajama pants holding the note my husband left me about the fruit that is no longer there because he ate it—relished it—and his note says as much and I should be mad—I am mad—but I am also thinking of the time I was pregnant and hated all food except for watermelon and he’d bring one home after work, slice it in squares and hand it to me in a big bowl. I’d inhale it and between gasps I’d ask, “How could anyone eat watermelon and not believe in God?”
In an empty classroom with papers and pencils tossed on the floor, where I’m sure I’ve done it all wrong; convinced I’ll never connect with these students, Marjorie Maddox hands me the small seed and tells me to start here. Start with what is: the student who stands up and sniffs the wall because she wants to describe the smell that brings out a musty memory she only remembers when she inhales. The other one—the angry and heartbroken one—who hadn’t heard of Amanda Gorman and when I showed her, when she heard about those hills we climb and whispered, “I didn’t know you could do that,” I said, “You can do that.”
The dark valley: The ER when the doctor tells you he has to give your eleven-month-old a spinal tap. The Saturday night your seventeen-year-old comes home crying and disappointed with a world she loves so. Menopause—the time you’re not sure if you're a person or a monster. What light is walking with those shadows? A balloon your husband made from a surgical glove and tosses around the recovery room, making your baby giggle for the first time in days. The, “Stay with me, mama and tell me about being seventeen” and you do, and the two of you fall asleep telling stories. The friends who are in the Valley of the Pause with you, and who make you laugh about this stupid phase of life, and who, when you tell them you think you are becoming a monster say, “That actually sounds really nice.” The flesh of a word gives me the willingness to return. Locating something tangible is the beginning of understanding, but it is also a need. I need to know where I am.
***
It is August 2016 and Hadley, Harper, Jesse, and I are on our way to Dairy Queen. We’ve just moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan from Germantown, Maryland, and we’re all in a bit of shock for all we don’t know. We need an anchoring image. Jesse and I suggest we all ride our bikes to DQ to get some ice-cream. Harper, who is seven, is still getting the hang of a bike. Hadley, who is nine, believes she is a pro, and zips ahead of us.
“Slow down,” we call, “You don’t know where you’re going.”
Hadley sort of slows down, but still keeps her distance. She is the most upset about this move. We’ve taken her away from everything and everyone she knows. I watch as she pedals furiously away from us and I question whether we made the right decision—a decision that we believed would give her a better life, but also, require her to entirely begin again.
She beats us to Dairy Queen and when we roll up, Harper says she is thirsty. Hadley tells us she found the water fountain but it’s tricky so she’ll help Harper with it. Jesse and I soon learn that what’s tricky about the water fountain is our oldest daughter. Hadley rigged it so it would spray Harper in the face.
Before we can do anything, Hadley hops on her bike and darts away. I chase after her. She stops at a road called Independence. She doesn’t stop because she’s ready to talk, or because she’s tired. Hadley stops because she doesn’t know how to get home.
“Hadley,” I say as I roll up and jump off my bike,” you can’t take this out on your sister.” I say it quietly, breathlessly. I’m upset. I’m tired. I don’t know what to say to make this all better.
This isn’t mine to fix. This is Hadley’s to live, to figure it out. These thoughts sting like the wasps of autumn, starving and ferocious and wanting so much. They follow me as I hop back on my bike, their buzz the only sound I hear as I show Hadley how to get home.
Eight years later, the four of us are at this same Dairy Queen. Hadley is weeks away from turning eighteen, days away from being a senior in high school. This year, she’ll vote for the president of the United States for the first time. Next year at this time, she’ll know where she’s going to college. She might even already be there.
Hadley knows everyone here, like everywhere we go. Her baseline is friendship. She is just like her Grandpa Feyen and her Great-Grandpa Lewis, and she is something else all her own. She is sunshine in human form.
I think back to that night in June more than ten years ago when Geoff and I erupted in laughter like only siblings who’ve been through a life together can do, and I wonder if tonight is the last time the four of us will sit at this picnic table eating ice-cream. And then all the lasts come, undated and asking: When was the last time I changed a diaper? The last time I snapped a onesie? The last time I buckled the girls into a carseat? The last time I held a hand to cross the street? The last time I picked Hadley and Harper up and placed them on my hip? The lasts attack me with reminders of all that’s been, and I begin to eat my cone slowly, trying to savor it—and this moment—as long as I can. But you can’t eat soft serve slowly. You have to scoop all the chocolate and vanilla swirled goodness up, and you have to keep scooping before it dribbles down your arm. You have to keep eating until it’s gone. So that’s what I do, while Hadley and Harper carry the conversation with their banter and giggles.
***
My last run of the summer I wear a black t-shirt with the word “triomphe” on it. It’s a kind of beer, but I bought it for the verb. Outside, the evening is sticky and thick, and I know it will be the kind of run where I’ll never find my groove, where I’ll inhale gnats and maybe get one in my eye (it’s happened), where before the second mile is up I’ll be slick with sweat.
I’ve been running on the eve of school’s beginning since Hadley started Kindergarten. I suppose it’s been my way of sending off summer by marking all of where we’d been. When I started this ritual, my route was pretty small: the library, Starbucks, the park. As the girls grew though, my routes expanded as did our worlds. Tonight, while I run I realize this has been a summer of memories that have been made without me, as it’s been for some time now. As it’s probably supposed to be. Tonight, my world has been expanded both by who my daughters are becoming and who I am becoming. It’s a good thing. A significant thing. A thing that feels like a pinch and hug at the same time.
I round the Michigan athletic fields before turning around and heading home, and as I do, a woman pulls up and leans out of the car window, calling for my attention.
“Do you know where the pool is?” she asks.
“You are so close,” I say and begin to give her instructions the equivalent of something akin to a treasure map. “It’s just around the corner,” I try again, “but there's no sign,” which is why I was making it so complicated. I wanted her to know it’s tricky to find, but she can do it.
The woman nods, but I can tell I’m no help.
“Mom, it’s right here,” the woman’s daughter says. She’s pulled up a map on her phone and clicking the screen with a manicured finger.
They make it look like no big deal, this figuring out where we are, I want to say to this woman. They have no idea. Instead, I tell the woman that her daughter is correct, and point out the building where the pool is.
“So, just that way?” the mother points past me and down the street.
“Yes,” I say, putting my earbuds back in my ears. “But there's nothing that tells you that you’ve made it.”
She rolls up the window and drives away, and I begin to run again. Leaves rusty and burnt from the sun scratch along the sidewalk. They are too early, I think as I quicken my pace, hoping they’ll find their way into the ground, and grow again.
Callie Feyen lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband, Jesse, and their two daughters, Hadley and Harper. She's written two books: Twirl: My Life in Stories, Writing, & Clothes, and The Teacher Diaries: Romeo and Juliet, both published by TS Poetry Press, and she has essays in Coffee + Crumbs' Magic of Motherhood book. Callie holds an MFA in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.