conflict is practice for all future relationships

Outside, in the sun’s negative space, the shadows cast long, bluish shapes across the snow. Chard and kale hang on under the cold frame through single degrees, perhaps detecting the minute—one minute!—of daylight we’re now gaining every 24 hours. Thousands of crab apples dangle from our trees, and I watch expectantly, like the empty-nester who’s filled her pantry, for the robins and waxwings to come home and feast.
The human-dog puzzle; there is always a way to snap together perfectly.

Inside, the dog sighs, spoiledly, from the couch. The kids are home, spinning their wheel of choices to decide what’s happening now. Options: ignore each other and do their own thing; get curious about what the other is doing and insert oneself, perhaps successfully, perhaps annoyingly; full-on brawl; collaborate for glorious moments on which Dan and I quietly eavesdrop, like explorers having discovered a rare, lost tribe.

Before tonight’s knock-down, drag-out over a Garfield comic book, we were all gathered at the dinner table eating grilled deer backstraps, Rosie asking “Is this from the roadkill you found today, Daddy?” as wide eyed and appreciative as the 1950’s daughter wondering if the bread-winner had brought home filet mignon again. 

Ravine: our new go-to game. It took us a few rounds to realize it’s a cooperative game; i.e. hoarding and scheming against each other doesn’t actually work in our favor.

It was a Saturday, and the kids and I had walked downtown to hear some live music and when the folk duo (Sheryl and Beau! Yeah!) sang they are one person/they are two alone/they are three together/they are for-or each other in their sweet voices, I grabbed both kids and pulled them to me, arugula glinting in my teeth, knowing this song was written for us. “Awkward,” Col said, rolling his eyes, as required, though not pulling away an iota. I remembered Col’s most recent bedtime confession: “I love you and Daddy the most and the same amount. And next, Rose and Rocket.” Being on par with the dog is a lofty place. These raw expressions of love are unwieldy to wrestle with in the light of day.

Later, we’re all gathered around the pellet stove (central source of warmth = a great strategy for forced togetherness), Dan and I playing Scrabble (sorry honey, “Zumba” is a proper noun), Rose snuggling the dog while reading Garfield (foreshadowing), and Col devouring a Stephen King book before his self-imposed scary book curfew of 7pm. I am thinking to myself, this family life is so sweet. 

Post-bedtime, a four alarm fight breaks out over the Garfield book. I have to physically separate the kids, and then do the kind of mediating that takes place at high decibels, everyone’s nervous system twanging with intensity. Somehow I’m able to remind myself, people are mad and exhausted. Siblings fight. Sometimes staying vigilant to accurate observations keeps the balloon of me from floating off into anxious projection.

Later, I do my bedtime rounds and check on each kid. I am an empathy vending machine. Press my buttons and I will stroke your forehead and care for your feelings. Rose tells me “I’m sick of being Col’s book supplier! And if he had been a little nicer about giving me my book back, I’d probably bring it to him because I’m ready to go to sleep.” My arms extend finding the softness of her scalp. “You just wanted some kindness, huh? A little consideration and appreciation for bringing this book into the house.” 

Next door, Col tells me that The Shining is so scary he wanted to read Garfield to relax his mind. My arms extend. “Oh honey, you just wanted some peace for your mind. You wanted to be heard about how important that was to you.”

It’s never about the book, is it.

The next morning I ask the kids to make an agreement about what do to next time Col wants to read a book that Rose checked out of the library. Together they make a plan, write it up, sign it and stick it on the fridge. Why have the same damn fight more than once?

Later that morning Col is reading the Garfield book on the couch. Rose is making a smoothie ten feet away and the sibling weather seems calm and stable. I realize that for them conflict is not a rift in their fabric; it’s part of the pattern. It’s not a problem, it’s practice for all future relationships.

Now, they’re in Rose’s room collaborating on an art project, which looks like this:

Col: Can I draw something in your new art-prompts book?

Rose: No, I want to save the pages.

Col: How about I just draw the parts that are hard for you?

Rose: Can you draw a cow?

Col: Sure.

Rose: Ok.

Col is too cool to tooth it up for photos these days, but I guarantee you, he’s happy to have been invited into Rosie’s habitat.

Dan is in the kitchen marinating a deer heart, shuffling pots of other marinating deer parts in the fridge, the roadkill pipeline having been quite productive this winter. I’m contemplating heading out for a cross-country ski with the dog, though am moving Sunday-slow, wondering how to wring all the sweetness out of this last weekend day. 

Maybe there’s time for a Scrabble game before I head out. But then we’d need more coffee.

“Are you making another pot of coffee?” I ask Dan. 

“Oh yes,” he says. “I’m making coffee great again.”

Another freaking birthday. Such a damn nice kid.

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