Slowing Down

When life invites a change of pace

I sense a season of slowness setting in. 

I languished in bed all day yesterday, fighting exhaustion from the tail-end of a cold. I haven’t been sick since I had Covid two years ago, thanks to my anxiety about germs and my obsessive mask-wearing.

I had hoped to hike twice this week—big winter hikes with big miles to bag some of the last peaks my dog Laney needs to finish all the White Mountain 4000-footers. We returned to peak-bagging this month after a hiatus of more than a year, partly for something to do, partly to get back in shape, and partly because I wanted to finish Laney’s list in time for her to attend the annual awards ceremony in April, where she would stand in a circle of dogs and receive her patch and scroll for hiking the 48 highest peaks in New Hampshire. 

Photos from our recent hikes

I clocked a couple of 12-mile days with the dogs the past two weeks, but then Seth brought home a sniffle and a sore throat that left us both coughing, sneezing, and stuffy. I’ve forgotten how miserable it is to be sick, and how privileged I’ve been to quarantine for so long. I tried to jog a mile the night before and it felt like ten, so I took exercise and expectations off the to-do list and spent the day resting.

My dog Baxter is on bedrest, too. At the end of both of our long hikes this month, I noticed her lifting her left hind leg, hobbling the last few miles. I thought she had some ice in her paw, or stepped on something, but I couldn’t find an injury. We went to the vet for a routine visit and when I mentioned the leg thing, they moved it around and did some blood tests. We learned that she has Lyme disease—strangely, since she’s been vaccinated and takes a monthly tick-control pill. Then we got a referral to a canine orthopedist, who discovered degeneration in her cranial cruciate ligament. It’s the canine equivalent of an ACL injury in a human’s knee, and it requires an expensive surgery with a six-month recovery. She will spend the first eight weeks in confinement. The doctor said we should stop all activity except for short walks to avoid tearing her meniscus prior to surgery.

So instead of doing another 10-mile hike yesterday like we had planned, Baxter and I spent the day in bed, then we leashed up just before sunset for a short walk in the woods behind our house. Laney joined us, and together they sniffed along the trail, bumping butts as they trotted in tandem along the narrow path. I always struggle to slow down enough to enjoy a walk, and I assumed they would, too—we are so used to powering up and down mountains. But the dogs loved our change of pace. Instead of yanking them along like I do on a run, I shuffled as we paused at every deer track, every patch of yellow snow, every log, every stump, and they thoroughly inspected it. There was no hurry, no urgency, just the delight of discovering what other critters had been up to in the forest. 

Baxter and Laney stop to smell the tree trunks.

As we walked, I listened to the crows cawing as they glided across the treetops. My eyes followed sinuous trails left in the snow by small creatures—perhaps voles? I marveled at the almost-full moon suspended between swaying birch branches. I felt the crunch of snow beneath my shoes. I got lost following the maze of animal tracks, unsure if I was on a human trail or a game trail. It didn’t matter; both would end up somewhere. 

Something small snaked through the snow.

Attuning to these delights helped me appreciate the slowness, and it also got me excited. A secret I’ve barely shared with anyone is that Seth and I have been matched with two siblings in foster care—a one-year-old girl and four-year-old boy—as a pre-adoptive placement. I’ve been terrified to talk about this because it doesn’t feel real yet; because we’ve been through so much loss, and we still haven’t healed from our most recent one; because it feels overwhelming to take on two little ones when we have zero parenting experience. Yet it also puts us exactly where we would have been if the babies we conceived the past few years had been born. I always wanted two kids, a few years apart: a boy and a girl. 

We’ve started rearranging our house to turn two bedrooms into three, dividing our room in half with French doors I’d removed when I moved in fifteen years ago. The walls are literally closing in as we consolidate our two rooms full of clothes, furniture, and books into one, and add a crib to the other side of the double doors. I’m sorting through books I’ve read for the PhD I never finished, the notes in the margins of each one representing days of toil toward an academic career that never materialized. I tossed half of them in boxes Seth picked up at the dumpster behind the dollar store, to be donated or sold, excavating years of my life’s work to make room for a new dream. A new life. 

All of this overwhelms me, so I was calmed by my time on the trail imagining two little ones in tow, following squirrel tracks in the snow, feeling the softness of moss on rocks, and marveling at the moon together. It’s the vision I had for this life when I arrived in the White Mountains fifteen years ago. I bought this house because it abutted these woods, where I pictured my kids balancing on fallen tree trunks, finding salamanders under logs, discovering Jack-in-the-pulpits and red trilliums, and falling asleep with bedroom windows open to the serenade of peepers and wood frogs. 

If these two children come into my life, there will be much to slow down for. The dogs will sniff while the kids collect and explore. I’ll teach them how to tell trees apart from the leaves and the buds. We’ll catch a red-spotted newt and keep it in our terrarium for a few days before letting it loose in the decomposing duff of the forest floor. If we’re lucky, we might see cubs climb the old white pine for a nap while mama bear snoozes at the base of the tree.

This slower pace will suit Baxter as she heals from surgery. Later in spring she can join us on short walks to gain back her strength. In the meantime, she will have eight hands to spoil her with pets while she lounges in her dog bed and heals. 

Baxter, Laney, and I are used to moving fast and covering big miles, whether on the trail or on the road. But this season of life invites slowness, a relentement (as the French say) from the relentless push of our bodies and minds. I wonder what I will hear, see, and feel taking life at this new pace? Who will I be when my movements are measured by stumps sniffed and bugs collected instead of minutes clocked or miles covered? 

I’ll be a mother. 

It’s scary to say out loud, because nothing is for sure yet. We haven’t met these kids; will we like them, and will they like us? Will they become legally free for adoption? Can we handle caring for two tiny people after spending decades of our adult lives on our own? Will my new medication make my mental health more manageable? What will happen to my writing? My road trips?

Maybe the slowness will make the path clear. Maybe I will follow a deer trail and find myself somewhere new and unexpected. Maybe when I turn over a rotten log, I will find something wonderful. 

Wonder-full. Full of wonder. That’s how I want to be. 

Walking in the woods, I allow myself to dream. To believe. To savor the possibilities.

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