Sharpened

We've all been sleeping in the same bed. Shea is afraid of slippery monsters. He has nightmares and wakes up terrified, screaming, "Bye!" Justin holds him. "You're safe, buddy, you're safe. You're right here with us."

My neighbors gather for a bonfire a few days after the election. There are children everywhere, chasing each other in the dark, pretending to be monsters. There is beer and a plate of rice and quinoa and a commotion inside the house. A group of children come tumbling out of the light into the darkness, "They're locked in! They can't get out!" Justin goes to investigate, somehow the doorknob came off and my 4-year-old and their 6-year-old are locked in together. I hear murmuring and it seems like they are sharpening pencils on the other side of the door. Justin gets out his pocket knife to see if he can use it as a screwdriver with a crowd of children watching, offering suggestions. One little girl pokes a stick through the lock. My son says, "Thank you," and takes the stick through to the other side. The little girl starts crying. She wants her stick back.

A screwdriver is found, success! The door is opened. The little girl rushes in to retrieve her stick. But it's sticking out of the pencil sharpener. There is real despair. She holds up her sharpened stick, half of it is missing, the end makes a deadly point. My son takes this in, then pushes past me, runs out and away from the scene, back into the night. "Look, Mommy," he says, hanging from the ropeswing in the dark. "I'm putting myself in danger to make you proud!" The little girl collapses into her mother's arms.

Later Justin will step in dog poop climbing over our fence to get back home, and Shea will cry for an hour when we don't let him watch TV before bed. For now though, there is the cold tips of our noses, the gathering supermoon, the grass, the smell of smoke, and a tumble of beautiful children.

Parenting on Wednesday, November 9

That first twinge of arthritis in your knee is a thing I imagine with all the tenderness I felt when you showed me your loose tooth. I wish I could help you carry the weight of many years. --Marilynne Robinson

On Wednesday, my son has a field trip at Three Lakes Park. Beautiful fall morning, the playground, his friends, the picnic lunch. He throws up everywhere. My husband asks, “Is it nerves? Or is he sick?” He's only four. And what to tell him? Did the mean man win? Why did I dramatize this election for him at all? Why did I use the language of his superhero books to explain it to him? I wouldn’t have, except I didn’t think it would matter. On Tuesday, it seemed like a good idea to introduce him to democracy. On Wednesday, I wasn’t so sure.

I leave a message on the school's voicemail. "We kept him out of school yesterday because, well, the election. We were excited. He's throwing up now. So we're keeping him out now too."

On Monday, there was the feeling of winter in my hair. Yet the breeze carried summer. The night was growing around us. There was a half moon, an atmospheric haze. Shea was afraid of monsters in the woods. We had lanterns and glow sticks and we walked deeper and deeper down the fire road. Two-year-old Nat ahead of us, wearing blue, disappearing into the twilight as we tried to keep up. He stumbled on the gravel, sprawling, and stayed sprawled until his daddy righted him and brushed him off. He asked, "This way?" as he ran ahead. Shea wanted up, he bobbed on my shoulders, holding the phone as a flashlight.

 Later, we found out there was a bear on the Boulevard Bridge. It was hit by a car, its leg broken in two places. A young bear, less than a year old. "They follow the waterways into the city. That's how they get in undetected." I think of the woods full of bears, but the wildlife population has decreased by 60% in the last forty years, a new report says. 60% of all mammals, reptiles, amphibians are gone. Dead. Why are we not shouting this from the rooftops? Why are we so scared of one juvenile bear? "Undetected." The word feels powerful.

We've left a shattered world. Will my sons fear for their own children? I think of my grandchildren, or my great grandchildren subsisting on the land. Maybe that won't be so bad. Hunter gatherers had moments of joy. But first there will be the catastrophe. The apocalypse runs through my mind regularly. I think about moving to a place that will be safer from climate change, to the mountains, away from the sea.

Our parents had the privilege of worrying about a leg up in college admissions. I want my sons to have a leg up in survival. Will the interior of the country be safer than the edges? I'm acting from fear, not from love. And from fear, we head down the rabbit hole.

The bear, confused, walking along the riverbank, climbing the hill up to the bridge. Alone, a juvenile. A car hurtling down on him at 50 miles an hour across the beautiful bridge we cross to get to preschool. We walk beneath the bridge in the gathering twilight, the night before the election, innocent to the small drama playing out above. I think about the end of the world, the heavy warm weight of my son on my shoulders. "Mommy, it's getting darker. I think I hear a monster. I want pizza. Can we go home?"