I wasn’t sure whether it was a biological directive or a spiritual urge, but for as long as I could remember I had wanted a baby. This yearning lived somewhere beyond rational thought, beyond societal pressure or family obligations. It was drawn into the blueprint of my identity, and it defined my sense of purpose. Along with the drive to make art or knit words into stories, I longed to create life and grow my capacity to love.
Before I met Randy, I had considered a sperm donor and after our first date, my therapist advised me to ask him if he wanted babies.
“Don’t even waste your time on a second date if you’re not on the same page,” she had said.
Randy’s reply was diplomatic, but satisfactory. “I’m OK either way, but if I met the right person, I could definitely see becoming a father.”
In that moment, I imagined that I could be his right person.
I was thirty-six when we married, but I guess I didn’t fully appreciate the waning vitality that was going on inside my ovaries. I thought it would be nice to enjoy my new husband for at least a year before considering parenthood. We went backcountry skiing in British Columbia, mountain biking in the Utah desert and rock climbing in our own backyard.
Boulder sits right in the crease where miles of flatlands abruptly heave up into foothills, followed by wave after wave of ragged-edged mountains. For fifteen years I had hopped around town, from condo to condo, always with my eyes to the west, where I had come to memorize the abundant hiking trails. Every dusty step away from traffic lights and into the trees brought me closer to what I considered to be the real world. I dreamed of bedding down in yellow grass with the herds of deer or stretching out on a sun-stippled log.
When we finally started to get serious about babies, Randy had the notion that it couldn’t happen until we had bought them a house. Our limited budget had us trudging around the suburban outskirts with an overzealous realtor, in neighborhoods where every home was a mirror image of the one next door, until we realized that a short drive into the mountains also got us into affordable territory. We printed some real estate listings and set out in Randy’s truck with hopeful anticipation. The roads were in no hurry and the houses clung to precipitous hillsides. We parked in a ditch next to one with a steep roof, a small dormer and a stone chimney. The dark brown siding, rough-hewn and camouflaged among a stand of ponderosa pines. Outside the truck, the air felt cold and thin. A feathery dusting of snow remained untouched by boots or tires.
“It looks empty,” Randy said, with a mischievous smile.
There was a path that arced lazily to the front door. It was paved with flat stepping-stones, snowy grout in the grooves. Randy headed toward it.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, nervous about trespassing.
“Come on,” he replied.
I longed to see inside, so I followed him furtively, hoping there were no witnesses. The houses were sparse and there wasn’t a soul in sight. We cupped our hands against the window in the front door, our breath fogging the glass. The living room was empty, with blonde hardwood floors bathed in sunlight and an entire wall of south facing windows. There was a stone fireplace, a giant deck and some unattractive curtains which could be easily removed.
“Oh my God, I am in love with this house,” I said.
Randy grinned, reached his hands overhead and took hold of the deck railing. Then he flung a leg up into a heel hook so he could hoist himself over. Only a rock climber could be so efficient and graceful. I hesitated for a moment and then copied his fancy move. From the deck, the sky was enormous, and the view was as crisp as a gallery photograph, hills tumbling into valleys and onto the plains below. The wave, the current, the pulse of wind ruffling pine trees. Their needles glistened like eyelashes, lacquered in sunshine.
The deck wrapped around the house, and we went, peeping in the kitchen windows. Maple cabinets and bright walls. I could almost see our future children inside.
“How soon can we get the realtor up here?” Randy asked, and I was already pulling out my phone.
We closed on a February afternoon and as soon as we had keys in pockets, we started the drive up to our new home. The sun balanced at the edge of the horizon, spilling long tree shadows across the road and by the time we arrived, it had slipped behind the peaks. Our boots echoed in the empty living room as we approached the windows. The city lights were just beginning to blink on, shimmering pinpricks in the blue twilight. It was exactly like the view from my grandparents’ house in the hills above San Francisco, the way it glittered and glowed. There, I used to lie on my mother’s childhood bed at night, my chin on the windowsill, wrapped in a sense of security, thinking it was the most magical thing I had ever seen.
Randy eased the sliding glass door open, and we stepped into the brisk evening.
“Behold our kingdom,” he joked as he waved his arm in a sweeping gesture to indicate the vastness of the bejeweled panorama below. He leaned against me, and I wrapped my arms around his warm waist, as we watched the city brighten and the sky dim.
“We have everything we could ever wish for right here,” I said.
“We own a speck of the universe,” he replied.
It seemed dangerous to be smug, as if we could jinx our good fortune. The more we gained, the more we stood to lose. Now I had a husband and a home that I loved so much, I was more vulnerable than ever before.
“Chief Seattle says you can’t own the land,” I said, to inject some humility, perhaps ingratiate myself to the fates.
“It’s true,” Randy agreed. “But here we are.”
And then we went about doting on our new house. The deck was our favorite part. The cats, Tara and Elvin, were in heaven out there, stalking stellar jays and basking in the sun. Sometimes they leapt into the branches of nearby trees, but never went down to the ground where the predators lived. Randy strung Tibetan prayer flags overhead. Red, yellow, green and blue, whipping about on stormy days. I painted my office a bright spring green inspired by Elvin’s eyes.
The landscape was grizzled and rough like a bear, with its matted coat of evergreen trees and the musky scent of churned up dirt. Prickly flora. Fallen trees. Discarded antlers. The rattle of tree toads, the scuffling of chipmunks and the pent-up heartbeat of predators. There was nothing domesticated about this land. It was riddled with the gashes and scars of erosion, revealing its stone skeleton. Restless forces under the ground pushing and colliding. Perpetually in the process of slow geologic change. Slabs of stone tilting, splitting, breaching the surface like compound fractures. Iron rich dirt, the blood of the earth. It was this unmanicured authenticity that captured my heart.
During that first winter, we acquired studded snow tires, a wood stove and a generator. Randy bought a plow and volunteered to clear the neighbors’ driveways. We shoveled our way in and out of the house and sometimes we hunkered down by the fire with no place to go. Randy split wood just outside the front door while I pulled boots over my pajamas and ventured onto the deck with my camera. After one blizzard, we put on our gear and skied down the backyard. Our dog, Remmy, bounded after us. She was young and vibrant then. Unleashed and unrestrained. The epitome of unbridled joy.
In the spring, wildflowers appeared everywhere, and I discovered new trails to walk. We planted trees and fed hummingbirds, which darted about like fairies, their wings so rapid, they purred. Tiny, emerald, and effervescent, they seemed to generate light rather than reflect it. Black bears woke and shuffled through our yard, nonchalant, unpretentious, even reckless, ripping our garage door to get into the trash. The foxes were my favorite. Willowy tails, surefooted, alone and composed. The cleverest of all, they poured across the land and carefully avoided cars. The lions were the most elusive, watching from high branches, rarely detected. Aerodynamic heads, flattened-back ears, mascara eyes and muscular haunches. When summer was near, they let out astonishing wails to attract mates, high pitched and urgent, that reverberated off the hills. They could leap onto a second-floor deck, like a house cat onto a countertop. Sometimes they left deer legs on the road, gnawed and fringed at the hoof, in case you ever thought to doubt their presence.
Autumn evenings when the moon was new, Randy set up his telescope on the highest rise in our front yard and gave the neighbors a window through light years, through time. We witnessed the slow silent birth of stars, in a stellar nursery, where plumes of light formed spiral clouds peppered with tiny sparks. Standing on the rotating earth, galaxies wheeling overhead, the ground seemed to be tipping, slipping lopsided into the cosmos.
I often wondered whether our presence compromised this beautiful place. Of course, it did. There was no way to love it without leaving our mark. I walked the dog at dawn and entertained the possibility that a mountain lion could decide to have us for breakfast. We were equal parts dangerous and powerless.
One day, Remmy caught sight of a black bear on top of a knoll across from our house. She instinctively decided to chase it, with the enthusiasm her ancestors used for herding sheep. She disappeared behind an embankment, and I ran to her, arms flailing, hollering ineffectively. When I rounded the bend, Remmy was flat on the ground and the bear was running away. My heart jolted with terror, picturing the swipe that had taken her down, but when I reached my dog, I saw that she was having a seizure. This was good news. It had been a common occurrence for her since the age of three, whenever she got excited. It was always unsettling, but this time it may have saved her life by halting the chase. She came to, disoriented but unscathed, and I pressed my face into her scruffy neck.
When she was a puppy, Remmy had Parvo virus and almost died. I had only known her for a couple of days, but I was already in love with her. For a week, the veterinarian fed her through an IV. Unable to sleep, I visited her in the middle of the night. She finally recovered and I took her home. Docile and vulnerable, I put her on her bed for a nap. As I watched her dream, I was overwhelmed with love and fear. I couldn’t imagine how mothers bear all that emotion and responsibility.
In an unexpected role reversal, Randy was suddenly pushing for a baby, and I was getting scared.
“We’d love it so much our hearts would explode,” I told him, as we walked the quarter mile to our mailbox.
“Yeah, probably even more than our pets,” he agreed, with a wink.
“That sounds painful,” I said, stuffing my hand into his jacket pocket.
“There’s this concept in Buddhism,” he said. “The raw and broken open heart. Basically, the only way to live is by loving with an open heart, despite the risks.”
“Well, playing it safe has never really been our forte,” I said, as we threaded our fingers together. Of course, we would take the leap.”
That night, Randy forgot to latch the back door. I came down in the morning and winter air was blowing up from the basement. Cats didn’t last long out there, so I bolted upstairs to make sure ours were inside. Fortunately, they had come home, but a layer of fresh snow revealed their dainty footprints exploring the forest floor.
On our mountain, where humans and animals coexisted, wildness and domesticity also intertwined. There would be no guarantee that we could keep the beasts out, or those we loved inside. To live fully meant sleeping with the door ajar. Domesticity sneaking out with its little paws. The wilderness creeping in. We would wake each morning to another fragile day, drawing courage from the strength of our partnership, and we would love with our hearts open, which meant letting everything in. Joy and sorrow, the future baby, the sleeping puppy, the running bear and the feline explorers all making footprints in the snow of our own frontier.