Dear Deer

It was late afternoon when I rolled into my street parking in front of the strange stucco house I’d recently traded ev-er-y-thing for (and still didn’t even own). The weather-battered porch shadowed by a jungle of weeds. My neighbor, Jane, was having ‘the neighbor with a truck’ haul away a big mess of roots and branches. I hated arriving at my house in front of the neighbors. They were always out weeding, pruning, rebuilding porches, painting the trim. I, on the other hand, was usually hissing at my kids to get their backpacks or no screen time and wishing I had a machete to clear a path to the front door.

The kids marched in and I scuttled behind carrying all the odds and ends while performing my one woman act for the benefit of any neighbors out. “Oh just look at this yard! I’m going to come out here and just… attack it this weekend!” I projected from my stage until Jane called, “Hi there!” from her spot in the lavender.

“Hey!” I called back. “What’d John take out?”

“An old plum tree. Never gave me a single plum. Not all these years.” she answered, getting up to meet me across the alley between our houses.

“Ahh”, I said, trying to regain the character of Human Who Cares About Landscaping but giving up when she followed up with, “Is Desmond okay?!?”

I knew what she was asking. Two nights in a row he’d screamed for hours. Screamed so long and hard he nearly lost his voice. I’ve heard parents talk about tantrums or fits. I don’t know what to call these. I’ll see the storm cross his eyes and I know what’s coming. I will be relegated to my place as emotional sentry, while trying desperately to keep my own jangled nerves from being shredded. I won’t be allowed to touch him. Look at him directly. Nor will I be allowed to move or ask how I can help. I’ve sped-read parenting books. I’ve asked my therapist. Tried to sleuth out moms at school drop who could be experiencing anything similar. Noting black circles under their eyes, that slightly wild look when they turn away after saying goodbye.

But so far what I can come up with is this: he’s a deer shaking it off and I am his witness. When a deer is chased by a predator and somehow escapes, they have to shake violently to release the flood of cortisol and adrenaline that allowed them to survive. They have to close the loop.

Desmond, more than Penelope, is a quiet gatherer, absorbing and absorbing, pressing it down, down, down. Talking things out isn’t his emotional medicine. He has to process it physically. He has to shake it off. When he hasn’t shaken it off in days, these storms overtake him. It feels like I lose him in the eye of it. During the storm, he can’t tolerate touch. As if I am fire, burning his skin. But as soon as it breaks he comes to me and curls into my lap, strokes my face with his perfect little sweaty hand, peacefully settling back into his body.

How to explain this to Jane? Who, like most people native to the PNW, I can’t even get a read on. They’re experts in ambivalence. They’re pastel coastal paintings. Are those paintings hanging over secret vaults? Maybe? But where I learned to talk it’s different. Western Mass is all bold acrylics or spray paint. And while loud and filterless isn’t always a reflection of truth, they’re the clues I’m used to reading. Does she like me? Or does she think I’m secretly beating my children? Either way, I tell her the deer theory. I tell her we’re okay but it’s been a hard year. Because it has. My kids have two homes. They first rolled their suitcases up to their house at their dads 8 months ago.

The beginning was the hardest. But weeks like this, we’re peaking again. Maybe my surgery? The transition from school year to the vast summer? At my very strongest, my superpower is holding space for all darkness and giant, scary feelings. I can absorb the ‘I hate yous’, being pummeled by the people I love the most, knowing it’s all just pain they need to get out. I can be their witness until they dissolve. Until they’re rung out and crawl so close they’re practically under my skin.

But at my weakest? I am overwhelmed, frustrated, ashamed, and confused. I cry in front of them. At hour two I’ll yell over the screaming, “Please, baby just stop! Just stop! Our neighbors are going to have me arrested!”

One of the nights Jane is asking about, my friend J brought dinner. I wasn’t 5 day out of surgery. I couldn’t pick Desmond up for another 3 weeks. I opened the door and asked, “Can you hear it from the street?”

“Yep.” she answered unphased. She’s a mom I can show it all too, but this felt like too much.

“Did your kids ever do this??”

“Yes, I have a 10 year old who still does this.” And I took my first deep breath in hours as she unpacked food and asked Penelope about her day. We ate and eventually Desmond snuck down and ate too.

Jane across the alley, her kids now grown, must not have had stormy deer children. After listening to my “shake it off” theory she offered, “Give him water next time! They can’t cry when they’re drinking something.”

I feigned eureka, “Ahh good idea!” while picturing the water cup being hurled at my head like the books, toys, and, come to think of it, water cup before it.

Because she’s just trying her best. So are they. So am I. And really that’s all we can do. Again, again, again.

** names have been changed to protect the bystanders.