So Long Little Steve, Hello Keegan

Keegan was delivered by cesarean section at eleven forty nine. Brandi was on the table, swathed in blue and green. Before they led me into the operating room they warned me not to touch anything. Her hand was sticking out from beneath the drape and I held on to it for dear life. She said she was sleepy and her eyes kept closing but I wouldn’t let her fall asleep because I didn’t know what I would do if she didn’t wake up.

It’s hard to say he was born. When a baby is delivered cesarean, it isn’t quite the same. The classic elements of story, rising action, climax, resolution, don’t present themselves in a neat tidy manner. Blissful denouement doesn’t immediately follow the baby’s arrival. I was staring at Brandi, splitting my attention between a deliberately vague recognition of the doctors at work upon her and the objective truth of the blood pressure monitor, when I heard them say ‘Baby at eleven forty nine’. A blue green huddle spirited Keegan away from her. Brandi was asking me when she would see him. I was praying as hard as I could and fighting back tears with all my might. They came on like Spartan warriors, fierce as any I have ever known.

They brought Keegan to us and showed him to Brandi and then took him to the nursery and me with him. I had to leave her lying there. I felt no thrill, not even thankful relief. The doctors were still hard at work. I left her life literally in their hands and did as I was told.

He wasn’t as lively as they would have liked and they poked and prodded and monitored him for awhile before finally they were satisfied and left the two of us more or less alone. When he cried I stroked his chest or forehead and he seemed to like that. I asked them where Brandi was and when I could see her and they said that she would be in the recovery room soon but that was all they seemed willing to offer. It was several hours before I saw her and they had told me nothing so when her mom called to ask how things were going I could only respond with fearful uncertainty. All I knew was that there was just Keegan and me, so I focused on that. His hands were tiny but when he wrapped one of them around my finger I was impressed by how tightly he held on.

After what seemed like eternity they brought Brandi out and we were reunited. She had lost a great deal of blood but even pale and weak her appearance was to me like that of an angel. When they arrived late that night, the McCoy’s description was perhaps a bit more apt, and certainly more accurate. I looked like a zombie, they said, and Brandi a ghost. Admittedly, I felt utterly spent and exhausted. Keegan had been released from the nursery and was with us then and we all visited awhile before Cindy took over the watch. I went home and slept so hard that I awoke having hardly moved a muscle.

Keegan’s arrival was a miracle, and Brandi’s performance nothing short amazing. When she was lying on the operating table she told me, “I want two things … first, I want to hold him, and, second, I want some food … I’m starving.” Of course, it was awhile before she was allowed either, but when she finally came out of surgery, she smiled at me like she meant it. The only time she seemed down was when they told her she would be on a clear diet. “Does that mean no food?” she asked.

Common lore holds that childbirth is a magical experience, and in many respects it is, but it is also a frighteningly visceral face to face encounter with mortality. I would like to say it was beautiful, and maybe it was, like a mushroom cloud can appear to be, but I’m not going to. I could make some cynical comment about the massive amount of hospital waste our visit generated, but I won’t. I’ve already filled an entire trash bag with disposable diapers, and I don’t really even feel bad about it. At this point, I haven't the energy for such sarcasm. Right now, I can only be relieved that the color in my loved ones’ faces has returned to an appropriate shade. I’m just happy to be home, listening while Brandi and Keegan get acquainted in the next room. I'm content in the knowledge that my best friend has strength enough to laugh once again. In this, I’ll take product over process. For me, that is where the beauty lies.

The Adventures of Little Steve, Vol. 4

Okay, I’ll admit it. Having lent ear to your horror stories in untold number, I am willing to accept defeat. You have won. I am officially frightened.

For the longest time, I refused to acknowledge the profundity of such commentary. They are only trying to scare me, I told myself. I simply won’t believe it. Oh just wait, was often the reply. Everything will change. You’ll see.

The tales covered the entire spectrum. Toy after toy after plastic toy, my brother Jeb muttered, eyes glazed over like a veteran of some lost war. Catch up on your rest now, advised a plethora of sources, because, basically, you won’t sleep for a year. The smell, others said, faces covered with shell shock, or worse. Fun stuff? Ha! Yeah, that’s over.

A mother made the comment on the website Outside Parent that having kids is akin to entering an entirely new epoch. She called it Before Children; B.C. for short. I’ve heard this elsewhere, in different forms, from other people. I never really put much stock in it, but such insidious omnipresence leads me to believe I am missing something. Parenthood must be like combat. Until you experience it for yourself, you really can’t know anything about it.

Well, with less than a month to go before Little Steve’s arrival, I seem to be suffering from what one would call pre-battle jitters.

I’m suddenly worried about all sorts of things. What if there is something wrong with him, a chronic condition or disability? What if I panic and drop the little guy? What if he comes out looking like me, covered head to toe in fur?

No less worrisome than those genuine concerns are other, more evanescent ones. I realize my real life will change in tangible, concrete ways. But what about my invented one? What about my philosophies, my beliefs, my pipe dream? Is my fantasy of a less intrusive existence destined to be buried beneath an onslaught of plastic paraphernalia and Happy Meals? Toys, I hear Jeb say again. So many toys.

I’d really like to thank everyone who has been so supportive of Brandi and me throughout this grand adventure. We sincerely appreciate the efforts of you all. Thanks, Cindy, for spending the entire month of December making diapers. Alece, for the batch of Craigslist clothes. Sharie and Cadence, for the box filled with slightly used items (“boys love dinosaurs”). Lisa, Sandy, and Merry for their encouragement and advice. Dan and Vic, for the wonderful shower. Thanks to each and every one of you who has helped get Little Steve this far.

Did I not know you were all there, waiting to catch him should he fall, were he without your loving support and guidance, I would certainly be much more terrified than I already am.

Sticker Shock on a Mountaintop

Sitting here on my computer, surfing the internet for a jogging stroller while fighting off the global warming induced arctic chill with a gas burning furnace and a hot mug of Costa Rica’s finest bean, it’s pretty difficult to know where I really stand on the subject of energy. Certainly, the current direction leads no place I want to go, but when it comes down to putting my money where my mouth is, what other options am I given? Do I live without the stroller, the internet, the coffee? The only thing I really need is the heat. When it comes down to it, the rest I guess are luxuries.

Most of us would agree that we don’t support mountaintop coal mining practices but few of us could point out the place where the power we consume comes from, let alone source the myriad raw materials that go into each of the products we consume. Proponents claim consumers drive the free market, but this is only partially true; it is those with capital who control capitalism. Subsidies like Appalachia coal shovels alter the shape of the commodity market, obliterating the landscape and destroying natural processes. No part of the system has been left to function unmolested, unregulated. Individuals do not build the houses in which they live; industry does. They are constructed with singular function in mind; that of an efficiency for profit, not shelter. Farmers do not grow food for people; they produce crops for corporations. Consumers have little say in what products appear at market. They simply make their choice from among what is offered, often with price as the only determinate factor, and always without a clear understanding of what truly was their cost.

I have seen of late a number of exposes bent on revealing the actual cost, measured not in dollars but in death, of our having anything we want anytime we want it. Red Gold, The Cove, Food Inc, iLoveMountains.org; they all relate a similar story. Our way of living is killing every other on Earth. After a month of immersion, I am overwhelmed. Faced with this much reality, I want nothing more than to stick my head in the sand, order that stroller for Lil Steve from Wal-Mart, and sip my coffee.

Few if any of us are in a position to step out of line completely. There are very few places left in the world where one can go and practice a purely subsistence based existence, and even fewer of us who are capable. To live in these times is to be a part of this epoch of human history. Whether I want to be or not, I am part of the global community that is the dolphin slaughter in Taiji, that is genetically engineered crops in Iowa, and that is mountaintop coal mining in West Virginia.

What I gathered from all this, after calming my nerves with a cup of airlifted Costa Rican pura vida, is that we are, deliberately as well as inadvertently, asleep at the wheel. How can the practice of selling dolphin meat or producing electricity from coal dust be stopped when I don’t know where the products I consume come from or what it costs to get them here? How can I properly vote with my wallet under such circumstances? Simply put, I can’t, even if I wanted to.

For a year now, Washington has been abuzz with the term transparency. What a godsend that concept would be, if only it were applied universally. Who would buy a new jogging stroller for their Lil Steve if it had “Five mountains, seventeen thousand penguins, and countless generations of brook trout were destroyed in the making of this product” written on the side of the box? A few of us, yes. But not as many as before.

Personally, I don’t want to support mining operations that remove mountaintops in West Virginia or ruins the Bristol Bay salmon run. But I do want that jogging stroller for Little Steve, and I don’t think that those two desires are necessarily at odds. If subsidies were removed from commodities and actual environmental costs of production were assumed by consumers, I believe the free market system would force that capital be moved into cleaner, more efficient processes. The price on that jogging stroller might, and most certainly would, go up, probably a lot. But if that is the actual cost of keeping around a salmon run or mountaintop, things that are of infinitely greater consequence than Lil Steve having a new stroller, I would be happy to pay it. At the very least, I would know that what I got was what I paid for.

The Adventures of Little Steve, Vol. 3

Winter has arrived in the Bitterroot. As if this wasn't obvious enough from the solidly frozen water in the dogs' dish or the icy glaze on every window pane, my good friend Jake Pintok called from the comfort of his desk in the Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor's Office to inform me that it was eleven below zero down in Sula last night. Personally, though the moon rising over the mountains was an amazing sight and bluebird skies are always appreciated, I could go for a little less cold and a little more snow. Brandi is of the opinion there is white stuff enough to test our new dog sled up at Lost Trail this weekend, but looking out from my writing nook at the rock hard skiff currently struggling to simply cover the grass in the yard, I am inclined to believe that the runners will probably be riding on pine litter instead.

The real disappointment in finding winter has arrived in Montana, for both Jacob and I, is the knowledge that neither of us put any meat in the freezer. Jake doesn't have much excuse, as he had smaller elk in his sights on several occasions and passed them up for a shot at a big bull, but then again he has the luxury of still having plenty of meat in his freezer from the bull he took two years ago, since he has yet to crack the nut of getting Lisa and the boys to eat venison. Brandi and I, on the other hand, live off the stuff, and though not completely decimated, the stock of steak and ground chuck stored in our freezer from the young bull I took last season is fast dwindling.

Hunting big game is hard, and it certainly isn't for everyone. It takes leg work and the ability to coldly and calculatedly take the life of one of God's beautiful creations. Even when it works out, it isn't necessarily as cost effective as buying half a beef from one of the kids in the local 4-H chapter. It is however, for most of us who engage in the practice, a connection to our farthest past, a link to the natural world and our place in it, and an endeavor that takes an infinitely greater responsibility for itself than ordering a quarter pounder at the McDonald's drive-thru.

So I'm sorry Little Steve. Your dad failed you in his oldest duty, that of putting meat on the family table. Will I save those final few packages of elk in hopes of ensuring that you grow up eating the stuff? Yes. But I have to say I'm more than a little disappointed with the way this season's hunt went, especially what with having wasted several opportunities. I'll tell you more about that later, when you'll better understand.

Stories of hunting success aside, things have been going rather well for Little Steve. At the very least Doc Laraway says he is progressing at a normal rate. He seems to get the hiccups quite often, and he occasionally sees fit to batter his mama's insides looking for a way out of the cozy cocoon she provides for him. Sitting here feeling my toes go numb, this rushing desire to get out and face life only serves to demonstrate to me the naivety of youth. If he knew how cold it was here in the house, I don't think he would be in such a big hurry to escape her warm confines.

The Adventures of Little Steve, Vol. 2

The name Little Steve just kind of fell out of my mouth. Brandi and I were on the phone, and my mind was grasping for a word I could ascribe to this weighty new addition, some sort of endearing title that would humanize the sudden impact this tiny object had made upon our lives. I hadn't given what we would call it more than a passing thought; all I knew was that I didn’t want to call it “it”. So I called it Little Steve.

If you have ever seen the film The Tao of Steve then you know where I’m coming from. More than being the basis for my belief, the movie only serves to reaffirm what I have always known to be true. Steve’s are cool. When I was a child, and no one was yet familiar with the name Cobey, I longed to be a Steve.

From the beginning, we simply assumed Little Steve was a boy. Brandi was certain of it. I shared a similar opinion myself; several nights before her pregnancy was confirmed, I had dreamt of a male infant. It wasn’t until after we had already spent a couple months calling him Lil’ Steve that we even considered the very real possibility that Little Steve might well be a Little Stephanie.

For generations, Williamson progeny have tended towards the male, at least on our branch. My father has two brothers; I have five. My uncle has two sons. It wasn’t until my brother’s daughter Arianna arrived that a female member was actually born into the family. Since then, however, Williamsons had produced nothing but girls. Seemed the tide had finally turned, ad infinitum.

All of the old wives' tales lent credence to the possability that we would continue this new trend. Little Steve’s fetal heart rate was high, supposedly typical of females. The Chinese gender prediction calendar pointed unequivocally toward our having a Little Stephanie. We solicited the opinion of a handful of other quizzes and legends, all of which suggested a feminine outcome. Our attention turned from the list of boy names to the list of girl ones.

The McCoy’s came to visit the weekend before our Week 22 pre-natal exam, and we encouraged John and Cindy to attend. Her mom was thrilled at the prospect, but Brandi’s dad politely declined the invite with an assurance that he already knew which name would follow the descriptor “Little”. As we headed out the door en route to the doctor’s office, John told us to bring him the envelope.

As soon as he placed the ultrasound transducer on Brandi’s midsection, Doc Laraway was inquiring whether or not we desired to know the sex. He walked us around the image, pointing out legs and buttocks, drawing out the suspense, but the conclusive evidence was apparent even to a lay person. That was boy stuff there. The Chinese, old wives, and Brandi’s dad had been mistaken. Against the odds, Little Steve truly is a Steve.

Taking out the Trash

It was our first Saturday in Hamilton together since my return from Alaska, and we had intended on walking down to the Farmer’s Market with hopes of finding some fresh eggs to replace the ones now sizzling in the frying pan. While I set about burning breakfast, Brandi busied herself pulling played out pea plants from her garden and throwing them in the compost bin. She was only half done when I called her to come eat, so after Little Steve had his fill of pancakes we headed back outside to complete the task.

Our yard was in desperate need of some attention. It hadn’t seen much in the way of maintenance over the summer and had grown dry and dusty from constant dog frolics and indiscriminate watering schedules. Large quantities of husky down lay accumulated in every crack and crevice. As I could see it might be awhile before we’d be ready to leave, I grabbed a rake and began combing the ground.

I was still scratching at the hard pack and dead grass when Brandi finished her garden project, and her expression told me that a leisurely stroll through the Farmer’s Market had just been eclipsed by the more pressing needs of our own little plot. What better time to put in some work, we concluded, than Labor Day weekend?

Brandi had collected a large mound of pine needles and other debris when the snows had retreated last spring. It was slated for removal by our landlords, but months later remained heaped in a corner. After borrowing a wheelbarrow from one of Brandi’s co-workers, I scraped the ponderosa’s latest castings into several more piles, and we filled the pickup to capacity with woody detritus. Then we were off to the dump.

Admittedly, I had already given serious consideration to the roguish impulse that urged me to simply chuck the entire mess over a steep bank along one of the surrounding forest roads. It was all organic; with time, it would decompose. Bob had informed us that there would be a charge to dispose of it at the dump when he loaned us the wheelbarrow. I hated the idea of throwing away perfectly good money, but at least this way the worthless mess in our yard would one day be someone else’s pay dirt. Or so I thought.

We haven’t lived in the valley for long, barely a year, so it might just be a case of ignorance on my part. There may well be someplace here that processes organic material I have yet to discover. Still, I think the situation in the Bitterroot indicative of the general attitude toward refuse that prevails in this country. Our yard waste, I soon came to learn, would never realize its full potential as fertilizer. It wasn’t destined to become humus; it was nothing more than plain old rubbish.

I wasn’t aware at the time, but there is no landfill in Ravalli County. All waste generated in the Bitterroot Valley is taken to the transfer station in Victor for transport somewhere else. No effort is made to separate or categorically process the waste. My heart sunk as we were directed into a large steel building and told to empty the truckload of tree litter onto a concrete floor strewn with garbage.

A truck was parked on either side of us. One was filled with old broken furniture, the other household waste. The owners were busy dumping their loads upon the stained pad alongside ours. A small excavator stood ready to shovel the entire mess into a large compactor that oozed Styrofoam, broken glass, and kitchen litter. It smelled as if the entire building was rotting. We finished cleaning out the bed of the pickup, paid our fee, and drove away with the same thought bouncing around inside each of our heads.

“Would have been better off just dumping it in the woods.”

Although I sometimes postulate that a certain amount of organic detritus is in fact a necessary addition to a landfill if there is to be any hope for decomposition, I don’t see this tactic as being an effective waste stream management strategy. Gone are the days of perfunctorily plowing our waste out of sight, out of mind. Ravalli County in no way lacks open space; that it has no landfill only serves to underscore the gravity of the situation. Waste production has reached such a magnitude that nothing less than a comprehensive, systematic approach can possibly manage it.

Our breakfast nook is filled with recyclables. Paper, cardboard, glass, metal, plastic, are all arranged in neatly ordered stacks. There is little opportunity for the proper disposal of recyclables in Hamilton, so we haul them with us whenever we visit Washington. We have begun washing plastic baggies for reuse, and Brandi almost has me trained not to forget the fabric grocery bags when we leave for the store. Now that we have a compost bin, trips to the dumpster in the alley have decreased significantly. Even so, we need to do more.

Truth is our expectations, as a culture, are in need of a complete overhaul. Our entire attitude must evolve. We can no longer afford to pitch refuse haphazardly into landfills. We must resist our craving for disposability and lower our tolerance for garbage in America. Most importantly, we must come to grips with the fact that, since there truly are differences between pine needles and trash, there must be different ways with which to handle them.

The Adventures of Little Steve, Vol. 1

If you have ever floated swift water then you know that sometimes the only thing you can do is point your boat downstream and paddle hard with the current. Humanity may be graced with free will, but this frequently serves only to set us upon a course that no later action can alter. Still, let it be said that while such tides may well serve to steer us unto unknown waters, these voyages, however daunting, are oft considered the most rewarding of our lives.

I was still in Alaska when a chemistry test confirmed Brandi’s suspicion that she was pregnant. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. Her senses had been alerting her to the fact for awhile, haunting her thoughts both asleep and awake, and she had grown more and more convinced of its certainty with each passing day. Several less than subtle dreams indicated that my own subconscious mind had already sided with Brandi, and although I continued to maintain a skeptical facade, I was actually just as positive as she. But I didn’t tell her so.

We hadn’t really planned things to happen this way, and when Brandi called me with the news I’m not stretching the truth in saying that she wasn’t exactly ecstatic. Frantic would be a better description. She didn’t say hello, but rather greeted me with sobs.

Perhaps I grossly overestimate my own importance, but I think things would have gone better had I been there by her side. I know it would have made it easier on me. Having to face the situation alone was a terribly unpleasant experience, even from my perspective. When I imagine Brandi, sitting on the cold tile of the bathroom floor with only a plastic stick for company, I am awash with guilt. She is my hero, for that reason and a million others beside.

Until I was in the doctor’s office, staring with awe at an ultrasound image of what I’d begun affectionately referring to as Little Steve, I had maintained an air of plausible deniability about the matter. In keeping with my general approach to life, I preferred to consider Steve’s existence a myth, a legend akin to Bigfoot, until I had something more to go on than the opinion of a popsicle stick. But the tiny being swimming about Brandi’s insides was undeniable, and the silly look developing on my face while I watched Little Steve’s antics was even more so.

Now that we are back under the same weather pattern, with the full support of our family and friends, things are better. I’m still a bit concerned, about such things as the dirty diapers I accepted responsibility for by insisting we use cloth or emotionally scarring our daughter by calling her Little Steve, but I’m no longer worried about Brandi. She is like a tree in the storm. Though she may sway, she is quite unlikely to break.