what a year brings — Katrina Kenison

“In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” — Deepak Chopra

If I keep my eyes closed and listen, I could be five again. Tucked into the warm nest of early morning darkness, the blanket pulled to my chin, I drift, half awake, lulled by the familiar sounds of my parents in the next room. My father’s hushed voice. My mother’s brief, small cough. A shared laugh, quiet and intimate as a kiss. The clink of a coffee cup on the table. A murmured conversation punctuated by silences and then resuming, like waves rolling softly ashore. The two of them, their togetherness, now and always, for as far back as I’ve been alive. This, I know, is a kind of happiness. And so I give myself over to the sweetness of the moment, trying to take it in fully, to tuck it away for safekeeping so that someday I might gently take it out again, cup it in both hands, and remember.

Here’s a memory from long ago. I’m pretty sure I actually was five on this particular afternoon, which is to say I was old enough to know better and yet young enough, still, to be sent to my room after lunch for a nap, or a “rest” as my grandmother would have said in her kindly way, trying to make this despised solitary confinement a bit more palatable. (It occurs to me that if I was five my grandmother would have been 61, younger than I am now, although, to my child self she seemed very old. Funny, that, since to my own adult self at 64, I still feel young.)

I did not need to be tucked in, which meant there was no one there to see me climb onto the bed without removing my brand new patent leather Mary Janes. I scootched over to the far side and swung my legs up the wall, the better to lie back and admire my shiny new shoes with their thin straps and elegantly rounded toes.

The first black scuff mark, surely, was an accident. Who knew that the heel of a shoe would leave a dark, indelible print on a freshly papered bedroom wall? Not I. But there it was, in fact there they were, a pair of them. Two perfectly shaped half-moons had appeared beneath my feet as if by magic.

I’ve thought of this moment so many times over the course of my life, that hovering instant between innocence and guilt, when I could have called out to my grandmother, confessed my mistake, apologized, and offered to take a damp cloth to those two small marks amid the pale pink flowers on her guestroom wall.

But for some reason I could not fathom then or now, I did not call out. Whatever shock or remorse I might have felt with the first two black marks yielded to a more powerful, primitive impulse. Slowly, quietly, with a kind of mindless determination, I began to scissor my legs back and forth against the wall. When one area was done to my satisfaction, I shimmied myself over to the next clear space and carried on, until the entire expanse of wallpaper along the bed was covered with my terrible handiwork, a shocking constellation of black heel prints and tiny roses.

I don’t remember how I was punished for this act of desecration, although I most surely was. Oddly, I don’t remember anything else about my crime or its aftermath except the sense of having been almost unconscious while committing it, and then the dawning horror as my brain switched back on and I absorbed the full import of what I’d done. My budding conscience had failed me completely.

Perhaps my grandmother was able to wash away the marks, but honestly, nearly sixty years later, I have no idea. What remains indelible is the memory of my own wickedness followed by a tidal wave of embarrassment and regret. I’m pretty certain I decided, then and there, that going forward I would be good. Shame is transforming, and I was most certainly shaped by it that day. There would be no more black marks on walls, nor on my record, of that I was certain. It might have been the first entirely self-aware decision of my life.

When my grandparents died and their house was sold, the small spindle bed in which I spent so many nights of my childhood was one of the few pieces of furniture my mother kept. She had slept in it herself as a child. Rather than send the bed off to Goodwill, she had my dad take it apart and tuck it away in the attic. Maybe, someday, it would be of use again.

And so it is.

I didn’t intend, when I last wrote here in February of 2022, to let a whole quiet year go by. I’m tempted to say life got complicated and I got busy and to leave it at that. But the truth is a bit more nuanced. So many things began to shift and change over the last year that I couldn’t imagine writing about events as they unfolded. For the first time ever, I had no desire to write at all. It was all I could do to show up and live each day with some attempt at presence and grace.

But now, as the winter’s last snow melts and the first green shoots push their way through the damp earth, I find my writerly self tentatively stirring to life, too. Yes, there’s more to say than can possibly be put into a blog post. But my friend Jena’s recent email entitled “What Goes Into a Week” inspired me to make a short list of my own. It’s not everything, not by a long shot, but it feels like a way back onto the page and, I hope, back into our conversation here, which I’ve missed very much

This year brought upheaval, sadness, and loss around my parents’ painful but wise decision to leave their beloved home and move into an apartment in a retirement community. It brought me their beautiful house to care for and manage. It brought grief every time I walked through their door, only to be reminded that my mom was no longer puttering in the kitchen, that my dad wasn’t reading in his chair, that they were no longer there at all. It brought the emotional work of learning to be in their house without wishing to roll back time.

This year brought me a new job, of landlord, and a succession of renters who have become friends. It brought me a sense of my own mortality and many questions about what’s next.

This year brought ripples and repercussions from both of our grown sons’ challenges. It brought struggles with depression, anxiety, hearing loss, and addiction. It brought help, recovery, sobriety, and fresh starts. It brought each of them home for long visits.

This year brought Jack back to live with us for seven months and it brought the unexpected but welcome development of him taking a job in his dad’s business. It brought his dog Carol into all our hearts.

It brought Jack to settle into an apartment nearby and to renewed connections with his grandparents. This year brought Henry a permanent position as a college professor, a newfound resilience, self-confidence, and certainty about his path.

There were hard times. There were sleepless nights and difficult conversations. There was also healing, growth, and a deeper kind of honesty.

This year brought many, many family gatherings. It brought dinners around the fire, dinners on the porch, breakfasts with my dad, long heart-to-hearts with my mom, long walks with everyone, a full house from June through February, and more shopping and cooking than I’ve ever done in my life.

This year brought broken pipes and gutted walls and weeks of mess. It brought drought-damaged lawns and brutal blizzards and too many days without power. It brought the grim task of throwing away every single thing in the refrigerator, followed by the pleasure of starting over again from scratch.

This year brought spectacular sunrises, sunsets, and rainbows, a nest of baby robins, a garden full of hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. The best peonies ever. Home-grown salads from May through November. The driest summer. The loveliest fall. Beauty and destruction, all of which, of course, are part of life.

This year brought a leisurely week with my husband exploring E.B. White country along the coast of Maine. It brought a joy-filled hiking and stitching adventure to England with my soul daughter, a visit to New York City and a long-awaited return to Broadway shows with Henry, a week in a cabin on a lake with my mom, an 87 thbirthday party for my dad.

What I remember most, looking back, are these moments of togetherness and happiness, all the many reasons we found to pinch ourselves, celebrate, and give thanks.

This year brought Covid. Or, rather, Lauren and I brought Covid back with us from England. Everyone in the house got the virus, and I was sick on my birthday, but at least we were all quarantined under one roof. My parents gamely came over for a chilly outdoor visit and Lauren made me a cake and strung balloons in my bedroom and made sure I felt pampered and cherished and showered with love.

This year brought many reminders that families are defined not by blood so much as by the strength of connections woven over time, by a mutual commitment to truth and kindness, by a sense of kinship and a willingness to show up for each other, come what may. This year brought tensions of all kinds and, in the end, it brought tighter family ties, both chosen and biological.

This year brought some painful reckonings and necessary revisions to a 35-year marriage. It brought renewed commitment and a clearer sense of where to compromise, when to stand firm, how to let go. It brought, on my part, some deep personal work that has both shaken me and strengthened me in ways I continue to explore. It brought me my Enneagram type (Number 9, the Peacemaker). It brought me much needed hope and hard-won clarity. I’ve learned a lot.

This year brought thousands of tiny stitches in cloth. In a world that often seems to be moving too fast, I’ve found respite in slowness, beauty in softness, and delight in using my hands in a simple, practical way. Sitting quietly with my needle and thread has become both a creative outlet and a profoundly satisfying way to connect with my own quiet center.

This year brought the little girl who once wreaked silent havoc at naptime back to sleep in that very same bed, nearly sixty years later. It brought a sense of just how long it takes to become the person one aspires to be. It brought the unanticipated delight of getting to be a guest in my parents’ new apartment, of having them all to myself at dinner, and then hugging them each goodnight and going off to stay in a lovely little room down the hall. It brought me a chocolate on my pillow (thank you, Mom), and coffee delivered by my early-rising dad as soon as he saw my light flick on at 6. It brought the full-circle moment that inspired me to write this essay.

This year brought a deeper awareness of life’s fleetingness. It brought me to my knees and it made my heart soar. And along the way it tested me as a mother, as a daughter, as a wife, as woman. This year brought powerful reminders that to live in this world is to learn how to meet what is painful even as we choose, again and again, to turn toward what is beautiful and good and lasting. And that, of course, is love.

Originally published at https://www.katrinakenison.com on March 31, 2023.