Glacial Shifts

First, the mighty ice recedes, leaving a lake in its glacial wake, seasons circulate, repeat, circulate, repeat, until the toe of the frozen river of snow no longer stands within view...

******

"Mom, why would someone try to scare kids?"

My nine-year-old daughter Olive came home from school upset by playground gossip about a hacker who, in her words, told kids to "cut off their wrists during Peppa Pig".

I look at her earnest face and say: "Maybe they were scared as kids, so grew up to be adults who think its OK to scare children."

"Like bullies," she replies.

"Yes, kinda like bullies."

She's still scared to go to bed and tells me: "I keep seeing that creepy face."

"Its fake, " I say, as I lift open my covers for her body to curl into mine. "Just a disturbed person sitting at a desk somewhere writing mean messages."

"Maybe its someone in Australia," she says. "Because they speak a different language than us and maybe the person meant to say something else."

"Maybe." I smile in the dark at her stubborn faith in the goodness of others and repeat her words in my head so I'll remember to write them down in the morning.

Maybe.

*******

Second, a Northwest February wind roars down the glacier, glides across the frozen surface, sweeps away winter's snowfall, polishes the ice to perfection, until word spreads: Bring your skates to Portage Lake...

******

I sit in our high school auditorium and listen to school district folks discuss drastic budget reductions due to our new Governor's proposed education cuts--no art, no theater, no counselor, no sports, no extracurricular activities.

The closing of the only pool in town. The reduction of teachers as class sizes increase.

(All while also cutting social services, health care and transportation.)

I sink in my seat, heavy with the weight of knowing I live in a state where the quality of our kids education depends on the price of a barrel of oil. We balance our budgets on the backs of our children.

(How many more will end up in prison?)

I wipe away tears and can't form words when the floor opens for questions. Later that night I try to write, only to create a bitter soup of scorched letters.

******

Third, our family laces our skates at the edge of Portage lake, we pull Elias on an orange plastic sled, he smiles up at the festival-ish weekend of people converged for this rare opportunity of conditions that makes my heart sing.

My whole body grins.

"Mom," Olive says, "You should write a poem about this."

********

In my parenting class at the prison I'm the only one in the room who didn't grow up in a violent or neglectful household.

"What do you mean your Dad didn't yell?" the convict with the facial tattoos asks. 'Didn't you ever come home drunk or something or were you not that kind of girl?"

(Um....)

"I just don't ever remember him losing his temper. He was disappointed in me plenty of times but he didn't yell."

"He didn't beat you!?" he swats his buddy on the shoulder and raises his eyes like I'm talking crazy.

In my Public Speaking class I ask a roomful of prisoners to stand up if they dropped out of school before completing high school. Three quarters of the men stand.

Who failed these men as boys? Who missed the chance to calm their evening fears? Where was their safety net of fully-staffed schools and opportunities, teachers, coaches, counselors, neighbors, concerned citizens who held their path straight when mayhem licked at their heels.

Trauma begets trauma, I think. Injured children often become injurious to others.

"If you ever go to the hole you'll notice all the mirrors are cracked," a man who has been down for 39 years tells me as we discuss his work after my writing class. He spent 19 of those years in segregation, also known as "the hole."

"It's because they can't look at themselves. They'll yell all kinds of things out their cell door, bang their pots, throw shit, but the last thing they want to do is look within."

******

Fourth, just days after our epic ice skating episode, a man bikes across Portage Lake right as the great glacier calves--he films the aftermath, the ice cracks, undulates, his camera captures the lake's glass as it fractures, shapes-shifts from playground to potential prison.  

His frame holds the place where just yesterday we played in the shadow of ancient ice, where our blades sailed across a cloudy mirror of sky, a thin line between stable and volatile ground.

We left filled with beauty and awe from a place that could have just as easily broken us, and spit us out raw.

"Mom," I hear Olive say, "You should write a poem about this."

 

Comments

[Deb Bowers]

Kristie,

I love reading about your family and outdoors adventures. But one thing you could eliminate, is you writing about your new job. The title of your blog is Following Elias. I don’t see any correlation between the two. Am I missing something?

Deb

[Christy]

Deb, you are correct, the title is Following Elias and this blog started as a parenting blog, but my lens is no longer primarily on my family; and since I am no longer in contract with Parents Magazine I tend to stray from the boxes that contain me and write about whatever is on my mind these days, and for the past few years I've been drawn to the political as well as the personal. I'm sure I've lost readers because of this and I appreciate you taking a moment to give me your feedback.

I can't promise I wont continue to add stories about my work but I will always circle back to motherhood, to following Elias (and Olive) in more ways than I can count.

As my children grow I am also becoming more aware of their own unique identities and the challenges that come from me telling their stories onlne when they are their own authors.

Thank you for reading, Christy

[ebeth]

Lovely and powerful, as always.

[Greta]

Wow- strange synchronicity between tour family enjoying the frozen lake and the subsequent viral footage of the lake rolling. Obviously the filmer survived. I can't imagine the stomach drop and adrenaline feeling of standing in the middle of a rolling frozen lake! Beautiful synchronicity you capture in your writing, Christy.

[Christy]

Ebeth and Greta, thank you. And yes, Greta, he was able to bike back safely after the lake rolled. But oh so humbling and scary! I'm so glad it didn't happen while I stood there with the kids. I wanted to get even closer to the glacier and it was wise little Olive who told us we were close enough.