A New Path

This may be it. Our last weekend as expecting parents. We had our final doctor appointment on Friday afternoon. During that time, the doctor told us he thought the pregnancy would go past the due date, but he was very careful to accentuate that was only his thought and that in a pregnancy anything can happen. He advised me not to go anywhere more than an hour away from the hospital without Alecia and told a story about a couple he knew that nearly split because the husband was planning on taking a business trip to the other side of the country while his wife was at the same stage Alecia is now. Needless to say, there is no way I am leaving the state and probably not even South Snohomish County without Alecia there with me. So while technically, with the due date set at this Thursday, February 14, it may not be our last weekend as soon-to-be parents, there is a strong possibility that it will be.

                Yesterday, we walked the Green Lake trail, a very nice three-mile circuit perfect for a little exercise as well as people and dog watching, in Seattle with our friends Keri and Tracy. We started by the Green Lake Pitch and Putt on the south side of the lake. There was a 5K race just wrapping up as we arrived. We watched some of the runners—many of them costumed—finishing up and milling around and we started walking clockwise around the lake past the rowing stadium toward the Seattle Canoe and Kayak Club.

                It was in early June 2012 that Alecia broke the news to me. I was tired and had gone to bed. My eyelids were heavy and I was just about ready to let the day go when I heard Alecia coming up our creaky stairs. “I have a surprise for you!” she said, and my exhausted brain thought it had picked up a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Great,” I replied, “where’d the cat puke this time?” But instead of Clorox, she showed me the positive pregnancy test. Although I was still tired, I didn’t sleep much that night and the next day I felt I was teaching on a cloud. I was going to be a dad!

                When walking the Green Lake trail there are all the usual and expected people and sights, but there’s so much unexpected, too. There will be a lot of people of all shapes and sizes and there will be almost as many dogs. There will be a dodgy-looking guy holding a sign that says he offers “Free Spanish Lessons” and although he may have some linguistic genius that would allow me to learn an entire new language in a matter of minutes, his outward appearance shouts “STAY AWAY” in a universal language without words. But there is also always something new and interesting from a group of twenty-somethings wearing Snuggies and riding golf clubs like Quidditch brooms while participating in a scavenger hunt to a toddler racing down the path dragging a full-sized suitcase with his mother in hot pursuit.

                Such were our feelings with this pregnancy. We knew the basic stages and what we’d find there and we knew what the end result would be, but what were we going to find on the path?

                A few weeks after Alecia’s announcement that the cat hadn’t barfed, we took a trip to Alaska to visit my parents and share our exciting news. We were at a city park in Anchorage and had wrapped two of my favorite books as a toddler, Goodnight Moon and Cars and Trucks and Things that Go and had written inscriptions that would leave no doubt as to the news we had to share. We took a video of the event and it’s one of the happiest I’ve ever seen and can still make me tear up. Their reactions were priceless.

                Alecia was a trooper during that first trimester. Riding a float plane into Katmai National Park to see grizzly bears in a natural environment that felt very Jurassic Park-like (in the best of ways), searching for a new house that would be more conducive to raising a family, and taking a surprisingly grueling hike to reach Lake Twenty-Two off of the Mountain Loop Highway among many other things, all the while battling terrible nausea.              

                During those first few months, we met our doctor, bought all the important books, and downloaded an iPhone app that filled us in on what to expect during each new week of the pregnancy. We listened and read and watched videos so we would know exactly what point on the trail the “Free Spanish Lessons” were being offered.

                We continued on the shore of Green Lake past the Bathhouse Theatre, past the wading pond that is filled with happy, squealing children during the summer months, past people of every shape, size, and ethnicity including several other pregnant women making their way around the lake in the opposite direction.

                The second trimester of the pregnancy found us renovating our old house (with extraordinary help from my brother, Brian, and friends Tim and Ann) and moving into our new one, a cute little three-bedroom within a half-mile of the elementary, middle, and high school our son will be attending. It has parks nearby and a green belt beyond the backyard at the end of a nearly silent col-de-sac. We started another school year with new fifth grade classes filled with fifth graders who can hardly wait for our little one to be born. We also had the ultrasound that revealed our baby’s gender. We found out and immediately called my parents so they would be the first to know. Alecia’s dad, Kim, found out by opening up a gift we had bought for him at a Chevron station on the way home. The gift? A hot dog. We were going to have a boy!

                About two-thirds of the way around Green Lake there is a Starbucks. We decided to stop for a snack and to warm up after being out in the cool-dampness that is Seattle’s winters. Inside was a friendly atmosphere with people laughing and chatting and there was a smiling young couple with an adorable one-year-old baby boy.

                It was during the third trimester when all the questions started. Is he here yet? Where’s that baby? Is she nesting? Are you ready? How’s she feeling? Ready for your life to change? Has she dropped? Has she lost her mucous plug? There is also incredibly touching generosity from friends, family, and co-workers. After Alecia’s baby shower it took two carloads to get the gifts to our house. We had them all spread out in what will inevitably be our playroom. They were organized into groups such as toys, clothes, utility items. Colorful and cheerful and humbling we could feel the love of our wonderful family and friends as we looked at all the thoughtful gifts imagining the people most important to us at the store picking the perfect present for our new son. A preview, I am sure, of the intense and immensely powerful love we will feel for who will soon be our most precious person in the world.

                We left Starbucks warmer and continued and as with any circuit trail we ended up back where we had started the journey. The Pitch and Putt, near the stadium, the finish line of the 5K race that had now been cleared, all the debris piled neatly in plastic bags. But our other journey will not leave us back where we started. We will finish it and start on an entirely new path where Alecia and I have made a new beautiful little person who from within that tiny package will redefine importance, fear, admiration, triumph, setback, exhaustion, frustration, but most importantly love. I am overjoyed at the thought of our next walk around Green Lake from behind a stroller as we introduce the precious little love of our lives, our son, to the world.

Electrical Pole

               In Alaska, it takes a long time to get anywhere. Need a doctor? Round trip: four hours. McDonalds? Three hours. Any resemblance of a real mall? Sixteen hours. As a kid, my brother Brian and I endured countless hours pinched behind our parents in the backseat separated by a pile of snacks, Mad Libs, crossword puzzles, and Game Boy paraphernalia. It was a small space to be confined next to a sibling for so many hours.

                Often, boredom led to bruising car games. Our favorite, and most often played, was called “Electrical Pole”. In most places, kids in the backseat can play “Popeye” or “Slug Bug”, where one gets popped in the upper shoulder at the sight of a car with one headlight or a Volkswagen Beetle, respectively. Unfortunately, in rural Alaska, there are not enough Beetles to ever have an effective round of Slug Bug and, honestly, cars are usually too few in number to play Popeye, one headlight or otherwise.

Electrical Pole, on the other hand, was a much more suitable and entertaining game. By all accounts, it was really just an excuse to hit each other. Hard. The rules were simple. Anything that could be seen out the car window was fair game. “Moose!” BAM! “Lake!” BAM! “Tree!” BAM! Moose, lakes, and, most notably, trees are all quite abundant in the Alaskan wilderness. The game earned its name because on the occasion that electrical poles were spotted, the nukes could be brought out and the dreaded “Boom Crane” punch could be used in an all-out assault. Most of the time, this game began with friendly sibling rivalry, but could escalate to full-on war if any invented rule happened to be violated and could end in black and blue shoulders, thighs, and feelings.

                On one trip, we were coming back from Whitehorse, which is the capital city of the Yukon Territory in Canada. A small town, by most standards, but for two Alaskan children it was a variable burgeoning metropolis. We had crossed back in to the United States, and were speeding down the Alaska Highway en route for home when the first Electrical Pole punch flew. “Mountain!” I shouted, followed by a swift right hook to Brian’s shoulder. I almost always sat on the passenger side of the car, which gave me a distinct power advantage since I was able to use my right arm more freely, despite this, retaliation was never far off. “River!” he shouted and whipped back with a mini-crane punch, which was kind of a back-handed thump that pivoted around the elbow. After a few volleys, a fragile truce was called so shoulder and leg muscles could take a break from the beating.

                About five miles down the road a trestle bridge came into view. It was gleaming in the Alaskan sunshine like a silver invitation for gratuitous attack. “Bridge!” I exclaimed and let loose the biggest, most powerful Boom Crane punch I could muster.

                “Ouch! You Moose Turd!” Brian yelled, “You can only do the Boom for electrical poles!”

                Not responding to his protest, I shouted, “Yellow line!” followed by the second most powerful Boom Crane released in the last ten seconds. Clearly this aggression would not stand and reprisal came in the form of a series of quick and brutal punches to my thigh.

                “Hey Turd Clown, you can’t hit without calling out an object first,” I replied valiantly followed by a hard clout to Brian’s shoulder.

                “Then you can’t either!” he hollered slamming his fist into my upper thigh.

                It was about that time we noticed the car was no longer moving forward. “Why are we stopped?” Brian and I asked simultaneously. My parents gave each other a glance that could mean nothing but trouble for both of us. A sly smirk formed on my dad’s lips.

“Get out,” he said, “you’re walking from here.” Brian and I looked at one another dumbfounded. We were easily 75 miles from the closest thing resembling civilization. Quickly we formed an allegiance as if we’d just left a United Nations council, but the front seat dictators would hear no testimony. We stood silently on the shoulder of the Alaska Highway as we watched our only hope of transportation, the white 1987 Ford Aerostar crest a hill and then disappear into the Alaskan wild lands. We were on our own in the wilderness with no choice but to walk while trying to ignore how many moose, bears, or other vicious beasts were lurking in the forest just beyond our field of vision.

We began our hike with me in front, the highway’s white line to our left and throngs of magenta fireweed lining the asphalt to our right. It was a bluebird summer day, rugged mountains rising on either side of the highway spread forth their majesty like crowns, patches of snow clinging to their crevices like white jewels. Trees filled the valley between their limbs reaching outward as if in reverence of mountain kings. Robins and chickadees sang and an eagle circled above our heads and we walked through that wonderland into unknown. The war that had caused our plight drifted into distant memory, as if its causes, its failed truces, its escalation, and eventual reasons for deportation were from a time so remote they may not have even occurred.

On we walked following the endless white line of the highway until we too eventually crested the same hill where we had last sighted the Aerostar. Below us and perhaps a half mile ahead sat the van waiting like a carriage drawn by white horses and driven by angels to give respite to our weary legs. We knew further consequences would likely ensue upon reaching the van, but we ran forward feeling the wind in our hair with cushioned seats on our minds. We had just about reached the rear hatch, when, to our horror, the van pulled away from our grasping hands. This time it stopped still in sight, but at least another half mile ahead.

Our walk continued for another ten or fifteen minutes. This time less appreciative of the surrounding natural beauty and more focused on the goal at hand. When we finally reached the old Ford, we lunged forward gripping the bumper like shipwreck survivors clutching surrounding flotsam. Afraid to let go, we stood there until we heard one of the front doors open. “Are you guys done?” we were asked.

“Yeah,” we responded sheepishly, “but we’re afraid to let go.”

“You’re invited back in, but the next fight you’ll be walking even longer!”

We climbed into the car and collapsed onto the seat like subdued prisoners and silently stared out windows in opposite directions. For about an hour, Alaska’s unspoiled wilderness blurred by as the car passed, but then we saw far on the horizon, a long line of repeating electrical poles.