Ten years. (from Dad)

[A guest post written by D.]

To my daughter, Mila….

Today would have been your 10th birthday. 

I used to think about what you’d be like at 5. Or 10. Or 18. But with the passage of time, I no longer think about who you would have been. I think about who you were and what you mean to me today and forever.

You are our first child. As much as your sister likes to argue the merits of her being the “oldest”, you were our first. When Mama was pregnant with you, we were so excited. We waited for you for 9 whole months, building to a crescendo of new-parent anticipation, love, and yes, preparation. And then, in an instant, we lost you. 

And even though we held you for only a few hours before we had to say goodbye, you will forever be our first child. We love you always.

You are the foundation on which our family is built. Your death was like an earthquake. It was so disorienting. The life path we were on wasn’t altered…it didn’t come to an abrupt dead end…  It completely disappeared. 

Suddenly we were in the middle of a dense jungle with no path or purpose in sight. We had no choice but to start over and carve our way out. But which direction should we go? Any direction we could pick was as good (or as bad) as the next. What more did we have to lose?

So we took some risks. We moved abroad. The entire trajectory of our family was changed by you.

And even more importantly, you changed who we are as parents. How I am as a dad. How Mama is as a mom. When I see your brother and sister and how close they are, I’d like to think you had something to do with that too. Who would they be without you? Would they even be?

You are not just part of our family; we grew out of you.

You changed me fundamentally for the better. For me, there is a before you and an after you. You were born lifeless, but the ways you have affected my life are profound and permanent. My whole world changed on December 23, 2013. Losing you stripped me emotionally to the bone. 

Before you, I spent way too much time in my own head regretting the past or worrying about the future. So much so that I missed out on years of living in the present. Unfortunately, nothing could have brought me more violently into the “now” than losing you.

So I have spent the better part of a decade “after you” trying to rebuild myself into a better person. That would not have happened if it weren’t for you. You forced a self-reckoning. 

There are so many ways that I can continue to grow personally, but today feels like a good day to acknowledge how far I’ve come. I hate that losing you had to be the reason for who I’ve become, but I am so grateful for it.

To Mila’s mama….

You are the love of my life and the most amazing mother in the world. I’ll never forget how you were with Mila that day. In the deepest throes of emotional and physical agony a woman can endure, you were above all else, Mila’s mama. I don’t know how you did it. And 10 years later, I am still marveling at you. You are the strongest person I have ever met.

Losing Mila could have easily broken us in ways that were impossible to repair. Instead, it deepened our love for each other. For a while there, it was just the two of us, wandering in the world lost and alone. But we had each other. And somehow we managed to put one foot in front of the other until we found joy in life again. Now I wake up everyday knowing that no matter what life throws at us, we will persevere together.

I also want to thank you for this blog. You have left our family and the world such a beautiful tribute to Mila and a vivid testimony of grief, anger, fear, hope, and rebirth. It is truly a gift.

I feel so much warmth reading your posts now–even through the sadness. My favorites: Mila’s Life, Mila’s Birth Story, your travelogs of our escaping the world in Japan, finding hope and happiness again at the end of the world in Chile and Argentina (and parts 2, 3, 4), physically and emotionally moving on from the west coast; and more recently, your eulogy for my Dad. 

I hope that one day when they are older, our children will read this blog and learn from it.

To the World….

Having a stillborn baby is excruciatingly isolating. People don’t know what to say. Let’s face it, no one likes talking about dead babies. So they say nothing. Or they ignore you. Or even worse, they say something like “don’t worry, you’ll have another”.

Mila’s mom has documented that isolation in this blog. It’s a tough read. But as rare as it is to hear a mother talk so honestly about having a stillborn child, it’s even rarer to hear a father do the same. Maybe one day I’ll work up the courage to talk about what that’s like in more detail.

Every 16 seconds, a baby is stillborn. Today I think about the many parents around the world who will have to endure that isolation with little or no support network. Or even worse, be actively stigmatized by their community.

Which is why I am so grateful for our family and friends and the doctors, nurses, and support groups who helped us through those early years. Many friends were there for us 10 years ago and continue to be by our side today. Some of you didn’t know us then but have become the closest of friends. 

Two of the first people to rush to our side in San Francisco after we lost Mila are gone now too.

I miss them.

And so life goes on.

On Mila's 10th birthday.

Although I haven't written here regularly for a long time, this blog will always be special to me.

Today I don't find myself compelled to say much and that is because, for me, this blog serves its purpose. I have said what I had to say. I wrote this as a record of Mila's brief but beautiful life; and of all the experiences in the wake of her stillbirth that I couldn't allow to be forgotten, but that I also could not bear to carry myself. This was a place to set those things down for safekeeping. That brings me a lot of peace.

When I started this blog, I called it "After Mila" with the blind hope that someday, I would get to a place in my life that truly would feel like an "after." And I have. I'm here. I made it.

So today, all there is for me to say is:

Happy 10th birthday, my girl. Thank you for everything you have given me. I love you, endlessly. xo Mama

This body is not me; I am not caught in this body,

I am life without boundaries,
I have never been born and I have never died.
Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies
All manifests from the basis of consciousness.
Since beginningless time I have always been free.
Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out.
Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek.
So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye.
Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before.
We shall always be meeting again at the true source,

Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.

-- Thích Nhất Hạnh

A letter to you on your 7th birthday.

Mila Nalin. Today you would have turned 7 years old.

Every day you remind me of what matters. You remind me to appreciate this moment, because the next is not promised; and so you remind me, don’t wait. You teach me empathy and you teach me strength. You show me what I am capable of, and also what I cannot control. You have always been and continue to be a blessing.

xo
Mama

Re: the photos. I don’t have any proper pictures of you. So these are some of the places where I have found you.

Dad.

Our family is grieving again, so here I am. Two Tuesdays ago, D’s dad passed in his sleep suddenly and unexpectedly. He’d been active, vibrant, and living his life up to the last. He would have been a young 74 next week.

In a strange coincidence, I had been thinking about Mila the night before. I think of her routinely, but am at a point now where it doesn’t usually upset me to think of her. But that night in the shower, I found myself remembering the emptiness of losing her. I remembered how after an initial period of shock and silence, how strong my urge had been to document everything I could about her. I remembered my horror at the realization that, since no one else had known her, it fell entirely to me to tell the stories of her life; and if I failed her in that duty, it would be as if she had never existed. This blog exists because I could not bear that she would leave no trace on the world. And at the memory of that feeling, I did break down, hard.

It had been an unremarkable day and I still wonder why that memory came to me that night, seemingly unbidden. I stood in the shower afterwards wondering, apropos of nothing, if it would be any easier to grieve someone who had lived a full life, full of family and friends who could help carry the weight of remembering all their stories. Then I went to bed and thought nothing more of it.

Now on the other side of that night, I can say, no, it’s not any easier. Different, but not easier. Everyone Dad touched in life has their own stories about him; those, I don’t have to carry. But I knew him as another dad to me and the grandfather of my kids; those are the stories I carry. Those are the stories that I have to put out into the universe. Here they are; let them be remembered, for ever and ever.

To the best Dad and Grampy our family could have been blessed with.

We still can’t believe you are not here. We keep waiting for you to walk through the door with your big smile, ready laugh, and a big hug for the kids.

You doted on Isla. She had a seat on your lap whenever she wanted it, and ready access to your iPad. She could always convince you to go swimming with her, no matter how much you protested. Like you, she loves planes, and her toy box is full of toy planes that you picked out for her. Every time one flew overhead, you could tell her what kind of plane it was and where it was going. She loves biking too, just like you, and you were so proud of her progress this year. I’m quite sure you spent hours researching the perfect new big-girl bike to get her for her 5th birthday next month.

You had a soft heart for Jake, too. When he was a wakeful young baby and we were staying at your house before we moved into our own, you let Jake sleep in your office. You would always clear out of there at 5:30pm, carrying your computer and all your papers, so that he could go down and D and I could get some sleep too. You did this for months. And when Jake was older, your office was like heaven to him. You let him press as many buttons, rifle through as many drawers, play with as many gadgets, and steal as many golf balls as he wished. Jake’s toy box is full of trucks you picked out for him, the newest ones from just this past week. When Isla got to sleep over at your house without Jakey, you sent a set of trucks for him with a note explaining that you didn’t want him to feel bad about being left out of the fun. What a sweet Grampy you were, to worry about that even though he was still too little to understand that he was missing out. I am so glad that I saved the note for him.

When Mila was stillborn, you showed up in San Francisco the very next day. You read all my most difficult blog posts about her in the very dark year that followed, and during a time when most people did not know what to say, you did. You always offered such loving reassurance and support. I will never forget that.

And Schmorgy, well, we all know Schmorgy hates pretty much everyone but he always, always loved you.

No matter where in the world we were living, whether it was Boston or San Francisco or Spain, you were always ready to jump on a plane to come see us and the kids. And it was always a fun adventure. When you visited us in Madrid, you talked up everyone in the neighborhood and made friends with everyone from the local bakery employees to the guy at the mobile phone shop down the street, and somehow seemed to know all about the neighborhood goings-on, even though you barely spoke any Spanish. I am so glad that we came home in time to give the kids the last couple of years together with you. I just wish that there had been more.

You and Mom raised two wonderful men. I see you in D every time he thinks through a strategic or logistical puzzle, and also when he drops everything to help a friend or family member and makes sure everyone is taken care of. I see you in the kids every time they get excited to see a plane flying overhead or are able to give us turn-by-turn directions from point A to point B. The two of you created a loving and welcoming home that is always at its best, loudest, and most fun when it is filled with grandkids, cousins, nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers, and a crazy dog or two. We lost you too soon. There is a hole in our hearts and we miss you incredibly.

Six.

Happy almost-6th birthday, baby girl. Six years ago tonight I was curled up at home with you, looking forward to the holidays, and unbeknown to me, sharing some of my last moments with you. Where would we be now, if you had stayed?

When we lost you, suddenly everything that really mattered to me was so clear. All the daily annoyances and insecurities fell away, for a time, and there was just that quiet knowledge. That was one of your greatest gifts to me. Nowadays, with the noise of everyday life, it's harder for me to access. My innermost thoughts are not as clear. But I'll keep working at it.

Schmorgy sniffed at your box of mementoes when I took it down from my closet this evening. His expression was curious and sensitive, all soft ears and knitted brows, and I think he knew it was something special. I think you would have loved him. Isla knows a bit about you, and she'll know more as she gets older. She is an imaginative, nurturing, artistic, particular, reserved, and defiant four years old. Your baby brother Jake is still too young to know about you, but he will too. He is still a little guy, 20 months old, and full of giggles and affection. He likes anything that "go-go's" and pretty much every dog he's ever seen.

We miss you, but we are so lucky. We are so lucky, but we miss you.

Love you always,

Mama

Fourth birthday.

Happy 4th birthday, sweetie. You would be such a big girl now!

I'm a day late in posting to the blog this year, since life's getting more hectic with a two-year-old in tow. We've driven down from Madrid to Andalucía to spend the holidays in a house in the countryside surrounded by orange trees, lavender, and artichokes. This year Mila's candle, instead of being a quiet zone, is surrounded by toddler chatter and toy cars. Isla is growing into a girl who is sweet, funny, empathetic, and button-pushing all at once. She seems so grown-up to me at two, chatting and flirting and sassing me in both English and Spanish; but I wonder sometimes how different our dynamic would be if Mila were here to be the big girl of the family. Maybe Isla would still seem to me like a baby in comparison. Maybe I'd coddle her more, and maybe she'd lean on her more experienced big sister. Maybe Isla would not be Isla. Maybe we would not have undertaken our Spanish adventure. I'll never know for sure.

Down the path our lives have actually taken, Isla will be the big sister of the family, because we're expecting her baby brother in April. We're firmly in alternate-universe territory now, because this third pregnancy is the one I would not have planned to have if Mila had survived. I'm happy that he and the pregnancy look healthy and normal so far, but it does feel a bit strange to me. I'm definitely feeling the wear and tear more this time. I'm five years older and despite lugging around a 25-pound kid every day, I wasn't nearly as fit when I started this pregnancy as when I got pregnant with Mila. My body's getting creakier and more fatigued by the week. I've had more than my fill of pregnancy and I'm looking forward to hopefully being finished with it for good. 

I also (based on no logic whatsoever, but nevertheless) never expected to have a boy, always having felt like more of a girl mom, especially after having had both Mila and Isla. But here we are! We'll give away our old pink onesies, stock up on more boy-friendly ones, and figure it out.

Moving on, and remembering.

Moving on.

It has been a while since my last post. Lots of changes are afoot. I will try to write more about it when I have the time, but the short version of the story is that we are leaving San Francisco -- at least for now -- and relocating to Madrid, Spain for a year. I have a lot of complicated feelings about saying goodbye to San Francisco. We've been here just about four years now. It has been a life-changing four years, many times over, in both good ways and bad. San Francisco made me grow up, beat me up, picked me up, made me strong, made me weak. For better or worse, we're now parting ways.

Remembering.

Since we knew we were leaving the west coast for at least a year, D and I decided to spend our summer vacation in Hawaii, while it's still only a few hours' flight away. Every year on Memorial Day, there is a floating lantern festival in Honolulu to honor lost loved ones. Anyone can participate. So we went, and spent the evening remembering. Here are some photos.

Mila, 

It feels right that we should remember you here in Hawaii. We have been here together before, and it will always remind us of you. You have seen dolphins here, visited green sand beaches here, and swum in the ocean here. 

We miss you and always wonder who you would be today, a big sister to Isla and Schmorgy. You will always be in our hearts, and will always be our little Nuggsy.   

Love and love and love for always, 

Mama and Dada

Imbalance.

I still get lots of people asking me if Isla is my first child. It's part of the standard battery of very innocent questions: How old is she? What's her name? How's she sleeping? Is she your first? The experience of raising her is so different from anything I got to experience with Mila that it's not as hard anymore to say "Yes" just to get along with my day, but I still always add the mental qualification: Yes, my first living child. Which is what they mean after all, even if they don't know it, isn't it?

It makes me so sad that we have so little of Mila to remember, especially in light of the incredible new memories we are making with Isla every day. I want to love them equally, but it is impossible to love them in the same way. One I know better and better every day, and one I can never fully know. In one hand I have a mountain; in the other, a grain of sand -- and every day, the disparity grows larger. One doesn't subsume the other, does it? My brain says no, but still I am afraid. I guard the space around my little grain jealously.

Second birthday.

Happy birthday, my little Mila love.

Two years out from her death and birth, I'd like to say something beautiful, but real life is not a novel so not everything can be profound. The first year after her stillbirth took shape in a poetic way, beginning in an abyss of grief and ending with our Patagonian backpacking trip to commemorate Mila's first birthday, where Isla's little light first sparked. But life keeps on going. There is a second anniversary, and a third, and a fourth, on and on and on, and not every one can be a grand capstone. So I find myself wondering how to grieve her, celebrate her, and remember her on all the anniversaries to come, as December 23rd becomes (and how is this even possible?) gradually more mundane.

Although the place where I was two years ago is harder to access now, I still remember. That little empty place in my heart is still there, covered over with layers of scar tissue, the original edges of the wound obscured. I remember how big that emptiness once yawned, how loud the silence was, how blindingly bright the world and how jagged and unbearable its edges. What it was like to look at the motionless ultrasound image. What the ceiling looked like as I lay on the table, feeling dead myself. What it was like to watch Mila emerge without a sound. What she smelled like, and what it was like to kiss her little face as it grew cold. What it was like to see D cry, which I had not seen before and have not seen since. What it was like to visit the funeral home the day after Christmas, three days postpartum, and sit in that echoless room discussing urns while my milk came in with no one to drink it. Horror. The darkest horror I'd never imagined. I can't believe I survived it.

So I am grateful for the mundanity. It means we've come to some kind of peace. I know the pain and anger will never be gone, but it's become easier to bear. I live in a world now where on the same day that I buy Mila's yahrzeit candle, I can continue on to browse the bookshop; enjoy my lunch; play with the dog; and celebrate, with real happiness, Isla's gorgeous, miraculous first laugh.

Recently Isla and I went on a playdate with what D likes to call the Increasingly Less Sad Moms Club (formerly just the straight-up Sad Moms Club). We are four moms who all lost our first children within three months of each other, either in utero at term or shortly after birth; and who all had healthy second babies this year. M observed that we must look like a normal playgroup from the outside; who would suspect the dark place we all share? But in a sense, we are a normal playgroup too. In addition to sharing the experience of losing a child, we are also now all moms who have made it through the subsequent pregnancy and are learning the ropes for the first time, enjoying the first milestones, struggling with the challenges that most first-time moms have. We have both of those experiences now. I'll never be the same person that I was before, but that's okay. Children are supposed to change you, and both Mila and Isla continue to make their marks indelibly on me (and not just figuratively). For that I am grateful.

So how to remember Mila on her second birthday? Well, D and I lit her candle, and we will have some family time with Isla and Schmorgy. And I would like to repost the story of Mila's Life, to celebrate the short time that she was with us. And, there's no getting around it, we will miss her so, so much, and wonder what she would have been like, and wish we could have both our girls with us. And tomorrow morning when we get up and the candle has burned out, we will look at it and feel sad and still a little empty. And then we'll continue on with our day, because both Isla and Schmorgy will demand breakfast and play. And I guess it's fine that not every one of Mila's birthdays will have some kind of grand poetry, because in the course of writing this blog post, I've realized I remember her every day, just by being alive.

Anyway. Since I don't have something profound to say today, I'd like to borrow some thoughts from Aaron Freeman, which are very much in line with how I have come to think about Mila and the way in which she is now a part of the everything that there is. Here they are, emphasis mine.

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got. 

And at one point you'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever. 

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives. 

And you'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know your energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you're just less orderly. Amen.

December.

I'm having so much fun watching Isla grow, but it's December now so I inevitably think of Mila. I dress Isla in "her" pjs, swaddle her in "her" blankies, ask her if she likes looking in "her" play mirror, but it's hard to use many of her things -- brand new though they are -- without remembering with some pain that they used to belong to someone else. There are some really cute pennant banner-print pjs that I particularly treasure because I used to imagine Mila in them, and I love to see them on Isla, but in some ways it might be easier on me as Isla continues to grow out of Mila's old things.

Mila will have been two years old on the 23rd. Babies born around the time she died are having their second birthday parties, and I see their pictures -- all cheeks, long curly hair, baby teeth, and cake frosting. Big girls and boys.

Mila will always be a baby now, but it strikes me that the idea of who she would have been will keep growing every year until one day I will be thinking to myself, She would be 12... She would be 17... She would be 25... on and on, a grown woman that I won't get to know. The thought makes me ache.

I have some other scattered thoughts, but they'll have to wait because I can hear Isla waking up from her nap.

Photobomb!

Photobomb!

If Mila had lived, I don't think either of these two would be a part of our family right now. Something terrible happened and our family is now somehow simultaneously lesser and fuller than it might otherwise have been. The thought makes me sad, confused, scared, and grateful all at once.

Their roads diverged.

It's a strange new world; the lights are bright and, like Isla, I'm still adjusting my eyes.

It was so surreal to leave the hospital in the opposite direction, outgoing, with the Nut in my arms. I'd gotten so accustomed to being incoming, arriving at triage full of fear, the hospital a place of anxiety, mystery, and ultimately reassurance, but never of joy. A nurse wheeled me out, retracing the same path we had taken in three days earlier, but everything looked different and unrecognizable to me. We emerged into the bright sunlight and drove home through SF streets that looked distantly familiar. I felt like I had been gone on a long, long trip.

I marvel at Isla's perfect face and find it unbelievable that something so sweet was inside me just days ago. I think of my pregnancy with her, until now the only part of motherhood that I knew, and it now feels unreal. The daily walks with Schmorgy to the park, the countless doctor's appointments, the weekly and then daily antenatal testing, the panicked trips to triage, the twice-daily kick counts, the big belly that I protected but was too afraid to think much about even as it grew and grew and became a casual topic of conversation for the outside world. That whole time, I was walking around with this little girl growing inside me. Now she is out and shared with the rest of the world, no longer just mine. I felt her hiccup on the inside, and now all can see her hiccup on the outside. People buy her soothing baby toys that play simulated heartbeat sounds and I think, that's my heartbeat they're trying to replicate for her. The practice breaths I watched her draw via ultrasound on the inside, her diaphragm moving up and down, I now hear as sweet, tiny heaves as she lies on my chest. The regular, liquidy thuds of her heartbeat that I listened to on countless fetal monitors now happen outside of my body, beyond my hearing.

I wish I could have enjoyed that time more, the time when she belonged wholly to me.

The first night in the hospital after she was born, I held her to my chest as she slept, her head nestled just under the right side of my chin. The room was dark and quiet, and D was asleep on the couch. I realized I was holding Isla much the same way I'd held Mila on her first and only night, and I cried.

Mila and Isla don't look entirely alike, but they share many features. Their hair, eyelashes, and little lips. Even their birth weights were the same. For the first couple of days, Isla's every gesture and grimace reminded me anew and in vivid detail what was lost for Mila. I'm so happy for what we have, but it still hurts to think of what my first sweet girl was denied. It's not fair.

On my left forearm there is a scab from my IV from Isla's delivery and, just inches from that, a faint white dot, the scar from my IV from Mila's.

In our living room, the remainder of Mila's one-year yahrzeit candle sits on the same shelf as a photo of Isla at one day old. They're both flanked by plush llamas from our Chile/Argentina trip for Mila's first birthday, during which Isla was most likely conceived.

It's still confusing to me, how things were so much alike and yet so different. Their roads diverged.

Acceptance.

Acceptance is the name of the game these days.  Acceptance of things including:

• The limits of my control over life events
• The randomness of the universe
• The fact that not everyone has the strength or know-how to deal with shit, much as I might wish they did (this only makes me admire those that do have the requisite emotional badassery even more)
• My inability to change or sway other people, even if for their own good

Although I have not written about all of them (mostly because many of the other stories are not mine to tell), this past year has been trying in more ways than one.  Losing Mila was the defining tragedy, probably of our lives, but we were also dealt illness in the family, the premature deaths of young friends, difficulty getting pregnant again for no discernible reason, and a light sprinkling of job upheaval and familial dysfunction.

Acceptance for me doesn't mean that I don't ever get sad, mad, worried, or frustrated about these things.  It just means that I can now stop and recognize that this is just the way it is, there are some things I can't change or control, the universe is big and we are small, and I have a limited number of fucks to give in my little life (please see: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck) so I better spend them wisely, on the things I can change.  That's often enough now to make any momentary sadness/anger/worry/frustration diminish.  It brings me back to what actually matters, to this moment, and to what I am able to do with it.

I think this makes me wiser than I used to be.

Atacama and Patagonia, part 2: Torres del Paine.

View from the Glacier Grey mirador.

The W route in Torres del Paine.
(view at full size)

The day before Mila's first birthday, we got on a van and a plane and a bus to get to Puerto Natales.  Puerto Natales is the gateway to Torres del Paine at the southern tip of Chile, where we planned a kind of spirit walk along the W route from west to east, stopping and making camp for four nights along the way.  Like San Pedro de Atacama, Puerto Natales is a small town, but instead of hot dry red dust and sunshine, it was all misty windblown emptiness along a bay dotted with black-necked swans.  We stayed in a little b&b on an isolated point a couple miles outside of town, and lit Mila's yahrzeit candle around 11PM that night, shortly after the sun went down.

D and Gustavo, the stern-faced proprietor of our b&b, spent the next day applying pressure to our airline trying to get our packs back after they had been separated from us in transit.  Gustavo warned us that the last guest who had lost his bags had waited for five days before they were returned.  I sat in the living room looking out the panoramic windows, anxiously hoping that our luggage snafu wouldn't cause the cancellation of the centerpiece of our trip, listening to the wind, watching the horses gallop around the field next door, and writing this post.  Mila's candle kept a comforting vigil all day, a stoic little presence in our room unruffled by the screaming winds outside or luggage logistics.

Puerto Bories in Puerto Natales.

As dinner approached, a van pulled up to the b&b with our packs - a birthday miracle!  D and I did a happy luggage dance, proclaimed it a narrowly averted disaster, and had celebratory dinner and drinks.  As it got dark, we packed and got ready for our last night in a real bed and the official close of one year.  I waited for Mila's candle to burn out at the twenty-four hour mark, but by the time I climbed into bed that night, it was still burning.  I answered well wishes from friends and shut down my phone, and it was still burning.  I closed my eyes but I hardly slept that night.  At 2AM, 3AM, 4AM, I cracked open an eye and saw the warm glow from Mila's candle continuing to cast a flickering circle of candlelight on the ceiling.  It was still burning when we woke up early the next morning, going on thirty-two hours.

Bridge to Campamento Italiano.

We left the b&b and a few hours' bus ride and catamaran ride later, we disembarked at our starting point at Refugio Paine Grande, at the bottom of the first stroke of the W.  It was a clear afternoon but tremendously windy.  The wind howled in my ears, blowing away all other sounds and the warmth of the sun, and pushing me from side to side along the trail.

The first couple of days on the trail felt hard.  My pack was heavy.  My new boots still pinched.  The winds pushed me off course.  The trail was rocky and uneven.  I was footsore.  I was too cold and then too hot.  I wasn't yet familiar with all my gear.  Although our first two days were our shortest, it felt like it took forever to get to our first two camps.

Lago Grey.

That first day we hiked up to Refugio Grey to get to the true "start" of the west-to-east W route.  I limped in, feeling a little desperate as I saw the roof of the refugio finally appear among the trees.  I hauled myself up the steps onto the deck and set down my pack with relief as D went into the office to secure a campsite.  I was stuffing a Clif bar into my mouth when D returned and told me he had discovered the refugio was hosting a "buffet sorpresa de Navidad" for Christmas Eve.  I'd forgotten it was Christmas Eve.  There were a few spots left for the feast, which he snatched up.  When you're in the woods and someone asks you if you'd like chicken, beef, or lamb, you accept.  All three.  We pitched our tent, got changed, and crowded into the packed lodge dining room with our fellow campers, where the staff had laid out a huge spread of salads, roasted meats, rice, and boxed wine.  It started out civilized enough, but soon ravenous hikers were going up for thirds and fourths and dessert, elbowing, self-serving, and pulling progressively larger chunks out of what one of the servers told D was supposed to be purely decorative bread.

The second day we backtracked back down to Refugio Paine Grande and continued along the bottom of the W to Campamento Italiano.  I was still feeling slow and sore, and when we arrived at camp and saw signs that the next leg of our hike into Valle Francés - the middle stroke of the W - was closed due to inclement weather, I secretly thought it might not be so bad if we didn't have to go.

View from the first mirador in Valle Francés.

Bound for Campamento Torres.

D, however, wouldn't hear of not completing the full W.  The morning of the third day he pestered the guardaparque for updates.  Shortly after 8AM the trail into Valle Francés reopened, though the guardaparque warned us that there might be snow, rain, and not much of a view.  We hiked into Valle Francés with a Dutch couple, Maartje and Gert, who had pitched their tent next to ours at Campamento Italiano.  It was blustery and snowing in the valley that morning, and parts of the trail were steep boulder scrambles.  But despite the poor visibility and chill, once we arrived at the midpoint of the W something clicked.  As we climbed back down and moved on towards Refugio Los Cuernos, the weather started to clear and pulled back to reveal high mountaintops, deeply aquamarine glacial lakes, stony beaches, and rolling meadows covered end to end with round yellow shrubs.  My pack started to feel lighter as I got used to carrying the load, and I liked the feeling of carrying everything I needed on my back.  My footing felt more secure.  I loved walking the dirt paths through the woods and drinking straight from the glacial streams.  Our tent gradually started to feel more roomy as we figured out the best configuration of our stuff.  We saw wildlife - eagles, mice, and a bare-assed couple near Refugio Los Cuernos who looked to be about to start shooting a trailside porn with a selfie stick.

On the shore of Lago Nordenskjöld.

Heading from Refugio Los Cuernos to Campamento Torres.

At the end of each day there was camp, a hot meal that D would cook up on our camp stove, and faces that started to become familiar --  Chileans, Israelis, Germans, the Cocky American Bitch with her henpecked husband (who we saw at every campground where we stopped, but never, ever saw on the trail), and Maartje and Gert, who we kept running into all through TDP, and later, in Argentina.  And at the end of the evening, there was my sleeping bag in the warm tent with D.

D, my búho espíritu, at the base of Las Torres.

The fourth day was our longest day, hiking roughly twelve miles mostly uphill from Refugio Los Cuernos to Campamento Torres, where we planned to sleep and get up early the next morning to hike the last ascent to the mirador at the base of Las Torres.  Campamento Torres was a cool and shady campground with a small clear brook running through it.  We arrived there mid-afternoon, ahead of the wave of other campers, and pitched our tent in a private spot next to the brook, where we stashed a few beers D had sherpa'ed up from Refugio Chileno.  We changed into our night clothes and dozed off for a few hours.

Around 6PM, D rustled out of the tent to look around.  I was dreaming of hot chili and Oreos for dinner, with my brain solidly in end-of-the-day mode, when he returned, poked his head into the tent, and exclaimed that it was clear enough to see Las Torres and that we should go - now.

I scrambled to get my hiking clothes back on and get my head back into gear.  D stood waiting for me in the sun-dappled woods at the campground entrance, and as I approached, he looked, to me at least, like some kind of forest spirit guide.  I told him so, and he said, "Yeah, some people thought I was the campground greeter or something."

The beginning of trail to the base of Las Torres wound through the woods, scattered with the occasional rocks and roots.  We crossed small bridges over shallow, bubbling streams.  We passed maybe a hundred people who were climbing their way back down.  The trail wound around and up, and after about 20 minutes we rose above the trees and the trail changed from dirt to small rocks.  As we ascended, the rocks grew larger.  The last part of the ascent was a scramble over a large rock field, scattered with stones ranging in size from as small as a fist to some as large and flat as a dining table.  We picked our way over the boulders, turned a corner, and there they were.

Mist floated around the top of Las Torres, but we could see all three of the towers as well as the glacier whose snowmelt cut crevices into the rock and fed into a crystal blue lake in a basin at the foot of the towers.  We'd come after the rush, and the place was nearly deserted.

We found a big flat rock to sit on, pulled on our gloves and jackets against the cool breeze, cracked open a beer, and just looked.  I thought about what it meant to have made it to Las Torres after roughly fifty miles on foot, following the trail through uphill and downhill, through switchbacks and backtracking, through forest and meadow and rock field, and to feel like I could still keep going.  I thought about what it meant to have gone through a whole year without Mila, and to be still alive and strong and able to laugh.  I felt 2014 gradually stitching itself closed and wondered what would come in 2015.  We stank, we were hungry, and we were happy.

After a time, the sun broke through the mist.  It shone brightly through two of Las Torres and lit up the lake below.  The beam hit the middle of the lake, dispersed across the water, intensified for a bright minute, and then faded away again behind the mist.  I don't know if that was Mila, but in any case I like to think there's a little bit of her in everything beautiful: every soft breeze, every tree in the woods, every wildflower, every rolling hill, every mountain range, every stone, every stream, every calm blue lake, every mighty ocean, every great glacier, every starry sky, every sunrise, every sunset.

Related posts:
First birthday.
At the end of the world.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 1: The Atacama Desert.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 3: Argentina.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 4: Our trip in lists.

Unpause.

I had so many Big Feelings for the first several months of last year.  Grief yes, but also intense love and gratitude.  But as the year wore on and didn't bring much good news with it, the big feelings shrank and twisted into smaller, uglier feelings.

It didn't seem worth recording my small mean self-pitying thoughts for posterity, so I haven't been.  I won't lie, though, I definitely had them and sometimes still have them.  At their worst they caused me to have moments of physical anxiety.  I'd be driving to work and suddenly feel my pulse racing and feel as if I couldn't get a deep enough breath.  I didn't want to do anything that would etch those thought patterns deeper into my brain.

So I paused from the blog and just tried to live my life.  I read, got out with friends, worked.  I went fishing and crabbing with S and L, and we screamed with delight and sometimes terror upon any kind of catch or wildlife spotting.  (We saw a great white shark pass not four feet below our small boat.)  I signed up to volunteer at the SF SPCA and ogled the puppies.  I did -- am doing -- a lot of vinyasa yoga with M, which I think truly helps me get out of my own head.  By the time every class ends and I collapse into savasana, dripping sweat, I am too wiped to feel or think anything but how wonderful it is to lie flat on the ground, palms up, mind and body quiet.  I love it when the instructor sounds a singing bowl into the silence, the hum of infinity ringing quietly in my ears, the only sound I can hear.  I love when the instructor opens class with a little lecture on mindfulness or oneness, and says at the close of the class, "The light in me sees and recognizes the light in you."  And I love love love going to eat pho with M after class.  We show up at pho joints all over the city with crazy sweat hair and hands smelling like rubber yoga mat, and hoover broth and noodles and jalapeños into our mouths and exclaim over how lovely it all is.  And finally, D and I were lucky enough to be able to go to South America on an amazing, challenging, nature-filled, life-affirming trip over Mila's first birthday and the holidays, which I will write about shortly.

I think, I think I am somewhere different than I was even as recently as September.  It's 2015 now, and I am eyeing it warily, but hopefully.

At the end of the world.

I write this from the end of the world.  D is sitting across from me in the living room of our b&b, chatting merrily in Spanish with the proprietors' little boy.  We got into Puerto Natales, Chile last night, at the southern tip of Patagonia.  It is roughly 1,000 miles from the Antarctic Circle.  The ozone is thin here.  I have been using a lot of sunscreen.

The night before we arrived here, we found ourselves standing in the middle of a sandy plain in the pitch darkness, just outside of the town of San Pedro de Atacama.  We were with some people we had met during the course of our trip, and some we met on the street after our dinner as they loitered on a corner in town, drinking beers out of paper bags and looking for a party: some Poles, some Norwegians, a Chilean, and a friendly stray dog who had attached herself to our group.  The stars glittered thickly, infinitely above.  The Milky Way stretched across the sky, and alongside it we could see the Southern Cross rising, and the two Magellanic galaxies glimmering dimly, like a pair of clouds.  We all turned our faces to the sky, looking for shooting stars; and when they didn't immediately appear, willing the shooting stars.  Someone said into the quiet, "You can't force it."

Tomorrow, the day after Mila's first birthday, we go into Torres del Paine to hike and camp the roughly 50-mile W.  It is summer here, but the forecast calls for cold, wind, and rain.  I have come to think of it as a spirit walk, a literal walk to embody the symbolic one of the last twelve months.  I rail, still, against the shape our life has taken, trying to form it into complete circles, all 360 degrees intact.  It doesn't look the way I wanted it to.  But I am slowly, painfully learning that you can't force it.  So we will walk very far through the woods, and come out -- I don't know, wherever the trail takes us.

There comes the morning when I can feel that there's nothing left to be concealed

Moving on

A scene surreal

I know my heart will never be far from here

Sure as I'm breathing, sure as I'm sad

I'll keep this wisdom in my flesh

I leave here believing more than I had

And there's a reason I'll be back

As I walk the hemisphere

I got my wish to up and disappear

I've been wounded, I've been healed

Now for landing I've been cleared

Sure as I'm breathing, sure as I'm sad

I'll keep this wisdom in my flesh

I leave here believing more than I had

This love has got no ceiling

Related posts:
First birthday.
Atacama and Patagonia, Part 1: The Atacama Desert.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 2: Torres del Paine.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 3: Argentina.
Atacama and Patagonia, part 4: Our trip in lists.

Two wolves.

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

(source)

Whatever.

It's my birthday this Sunday. I'm going to be 31.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, but this year has been a pile of shit.

Heads down.

I've been quiet on the blog because lately, it feels better not to think too much about the situation we are in. I always do on some level, but better just to fill my conscious mind with fun thoughts. Like visiting little sis in Seattle soon, or wondering what D has up his sleeve for my birthday, or finally getting into Orange is the New Black.

So if I'm kinda quiet right now, I'm just doing it for my own health. Just heads down trying to get through the rest of this year from hell in one piece.

This month will be nine months.

Living a little.

I've been dieting and trying to eat healthy the last few weeks in an renewed effort to lose the last pounds.  D is fine with it because he's also been eating blandly -- clean fuel for running -- but I know it's kind of boring.  Some days he'll gchat me at work at 4pm after his run and ask, ravenously, What do you want to do for dinner? and I, with my stomach shrunken from three days of eating homemade chicken and kale salad, will shrug at my desk and type back boringly, Whatever, I'm not that hungry.

We've both been a little bit clinical about our bodies lately.  D must eat carbs -- no ethnic, no fat -- and be in bed early on Friday nights in preparation for Saturday long runs, and sometimes races.  I spent the better part of last month monitoring myself looking for signs and patterns like a prescientific human plumbing the night sky for meaning that's not there.

Saturday, D was overcome with an urge for Spanish food and to go out, so we went to a tapas place on Pier 5 -- super early, right at opening, so that we could snag a walk-in.  We sat at the bar as the tables around us were set and started to fill up.  The room was tall and airy, all outfitted in dark wood and copper and black metal.  We watched the kitchen staff at their work, and thought about how fun it would be to cook in a kitchen like that.  White cloud-filtered light shone in diffusely from a tall window, where a stout young dark-haired woman stood cubing red and yellow watermelons for pintxos next to an industrial stand mixer.  At the counter across from us, another woman torched caramel-colored little pucks on sticks until they glistened, while another put a pastry with a dense golden crust into a toaster oven and then pulled a metal tub out of the freezer and placed it on the counter before us, where it sat giving off cold vapors.  Behind them, storage shelves reached up to the dark raftered ceiling, with something delicious stored on every level -- bottles of gin, bitters, and wine; mismatched glass canisters upon canisters filled with dried red chiles; and all the way up at the top, wire baskets filled with ropes of hard wrinkled sausage folded over themselves into loops and vacuum-sealed in plastic.

Someone brought D a glass with a cucumber and some mysterious spirits in it and presented us with an assortment of tasty, expensive things on toothpicks.  This seemed familiar... a date night like we would have, not so long ago, when our enjoyment of things was uncomplicated.  And as we looked over our menus, things didn't feel quite as complicated.  It felt like a long time since we had been out to eat bad, bad foods just for fun, so we got everything: Spanish ham, chorizo coated with egg yolk and piled with crispy potato matchsticks, garlicky shrimp, three kinds of sausage, churros, and an apple pastry with a little football-shaped scoop of blue cheese ice cream perched on top.  My taste buds woke up.  The coffee tasted like chocolate, and the chocolate tasted like fruit.

The check came in a repurposed old aluminum saffron tin about the size of a brick.  We wondered how much the original tin of saffron must have cost, and guessed at it for fun.  I meant to look up the wholesale per-ounce cost of saffron, but I forgot.

Afterwards, we took a walk down the Embarcadero.  It was gray and windy but the wind smelled clean.  We looked at a new art installation that twisted out of the ground into the shape of two giant metal neurons firing.  We peered into other restaurants where we might go.  There was a seal in the bay, lazing around, disappearing and reappearing in the water, that we watched for a while.  We sat on a bench until it started getting dark, and then we called an Uber home.

It felt a little like taking a breath after holding it for a long, long time.