Taking Turns

Worrying about worry

Three years ago this week, my daughter Tessa was in a terrible accident. She is completely fine now, but that Friday afternoon in 2023, she went out for a walk in the mountains near her California college campus with some friends. A rock, dislodged by recent heavy rains, fell on her head and fractured her skull. The days and weeks that followed were some of the scariest times we have ever had as a family. Tessa’s strength, bravery, sense of humor and resilience were (and are) something to see, and got us all through. As a college freshman she was helicoptered off of that mountain, spent a week in the ICU, two more weeks in an Airbnb near campus with us, and then went back to her dorm room and classes and finished the semester. She somehow had no cognitive problems, and not even a concussion. There is a lot to be said about that time - by Tessa and less so by us, but this is not that.

Last week Facebook pushed a memory at me - a photo taken in the days before that accident. Jonathan and the kids and I went hiking in Yosemite Park during the first week of January that year. It was our holiday celebration and a last moment together before the kids went back to school for Spring semester. In a caption under one of the photos I say something about what a great way it was to start 2023, and how ready I was for a brand new year. Reading my words now, with the benefit of hindsight, is almost unbearable. I feel angry at myself for so naively expecting a good year. I can’t stand that we were cavalierly hiking around together, acting like that was a safe thing to do, unaware that the universe was about to spit rocks at our girl.

learned my lesson - no captions here!

In the years since Tessa’s accident, I have spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking about how I could have prevented it. Could I have raised her to be more fearful? Should I have encouraged her to take a Friday afternoon class? What if I had called her at the moment they were setting out so that she would have been one step behind that falling rock? I know none of these are really possible - no one could stop Tessa from being the brave and independent woman she is. No one takes Friday afternoon college classes if they can help it. There is no way to know the full range of bad things that might be coming at us, or how to prevent them. Living defensively doesn’t actually work very well, and is a lousy way to process the universe.

Living in the United States during Trump’s second administration it has become even more clear that there is no way to know what to worry about next. I was in denial before the last Presidential election, and thought Harris would win. I remember telling people at the time that there was no benefit to expecting the worst, since we would have to deal with it when it came regardless. I wonder if that was the right stance - did it keep me from doing something more to prepare ahead of him coming into office? Regardless, I never would have guessed that an invasion of Greenland, a systemetized snatching of people off the streets, the unavailability of childhood vaccines, or the survival of public radio would have been among my fears in 2026.

I don’t know what things that I am not imagining today that will come true in the future. There is no value in making tomorrow’s worry list today. I am trying to experience that as freeing, rather than terrifying. And I am trying to take note of the unexpectedly good things that happen - a poem that opens me up, when I thought I didn’t understand poetry. An delicious peach in the middle of winter. An election victory by a principled and unexpected New York City mayor. A gift of time, generosity and attention from someone I barely know. These are not of the same scale as the wretched cruelty and fascism coming from our Federal government, but they matter too.

I am steeled for Facebook to send me ‘memories’ of the weeks after Tessa’s accident when I was posting photos of her to let our friends know she was battered but not broken, that she would be OK. In these photos Tessa has black eyes, and I know that a patch of hair is shaved in the back of her head where the surgeon operated. But she mostly looks shining and strong and ready. Those dark days were illuminated by friends who sent us cookies and bagels and candies, who showed up in California to check on us, and most especially by Tessa’s friends who took care of her when we went home.

Amidst the terrible deeds we are witnessing in Minneapolis, we are hearing stories of community and fellowship that sustain. They matter too.

Taking Turns, John Roedel

let’s create a schedule where we can take turns giving up on hope for a day

~ so we all don’t do it at once

and when it’s your day,

just let me know what you need

i can bring you a hot drink,

the softest of blankets, and a funny movie we can watch together

on my day to give up, please just walk

me outside so i can place my hands on a tree so i can feel the hum of creation again

my love, on the days we can’t hold onto hope, we’ll at least be able to hold each other

By Maria Mottola, of course!