Verb. 1. To protect, as from enemy attack, by occupying a strategic
position. 2. To make for a place of safety or shelter.
I am accustomed to taking cover.
Three weeks and five days after I met my wife, I fled from school, from dorms, and from my misunderstanding of failure. My relationship with my father had yet to fray and snap; I still looked to him for advice: he agreed that a leave was better than a flunk.
She fled the room rented from the woman who spent four days and nights designing a crepe stand, then demanded the dishes done and the house mopped while she worked on procuring another prescription.
Then, a few months later, the summer of tenting fell flat when we packed a dozen baby ducklings up in a cardboard box and drove to Michigan, this time escaping my father and our difficult, shared words.
Recurring visits were an endless escapade of taking cover and seeking escape. I had just reached the legal drinking age and understood nothing about my parents or about the sovereign, grown person I was trying to actualize.
I had dropped out of college for good to help create the womb for my dying mother-in-law. For six weeks there was nothing more important and there was no place to take cover, and nothing to take cover from. We cooked rich meals. We combed her hair and had good talks and I found real answers about death. And afterwards, we washed her cold feet and eyelids and watched her bones burn when the door of the crematorium was opened for rearrangement, and we found that what was left was a newfound energy for life. We started a farm. We took cover in a thirty page business plan and wrote it well. I was a co-owner of a business. I owned equipment and a copy of a signed lease. The handles of the tractor felt right in my hands.
When the shrapnel fell there, I headed home - again. I took cover in something familiar. And then what was familiar became something new as I found a new self in an old place.
In between bouts of notable success - several published articles, the near-completion of a full-fledged scientific research project, a well-paid internship in science writing - I took cover, again and again, hiding from what I was supposed to accomplish and could never achieve. A college degree. A good enough job. An actual career. A real house with friends and baked goods in the kitchen. A confidence I didn't even understand.
Now, this summer, I am taking cover by creating home. I have built a blockade between me and Career, and although its substance is permeable, I am content with the barricade it creates. The study of birth and the beauty of newborns fill my magazines and computer screen as I swoon over stretch marks and breastfeeding. Novels fill my bookshelf. I keep wildflowers on my kitchen table. I keep decent distance from my family, and find new dimensions within relationships. My fear of failure and disappointment are flimsy and smoky; not as viable as the golden rustles of sunny leaves in late evening. The wars still rage (will I ever build this house? how can I pay the next bill?) but taking cover has become a new creature. Warm, like a simple silk; light and breezy. I no longer run away. Instead, I go towards what is.
I am accustomed to taking cover.
Three weeks and five days after I met my wife, I fled from school, from dorms, and from my misunderstanding of failure. My relationship with my father had yet to fray and snap; I still looked to him for advice: he agreed that a leave was better than a flunk.
She fled the room rented from the woman who spent four days and nights designing a crepe stand, then demanded the dishes done and the house mopped while she worked on procuring another prescription.
Then, a few months later, the summer of tenting fell flat when we packed a dozen baby ducklings up in a cardboard box and drove to Michigan, this time escaping my father and our difficult, shared words.
Recurring visits were an endless escapade of taking cover and seeking escape. I had just reached the legal drinking age and understood nothing about my parents or about the sovereign, grown person I was trying to actualize.
I had dropped out of college for good to help create the womb for my dying mother-in-law. For six weeks there was nothing more important and there was no place to take cover, and nothing to take cover from. We cooked rich meals. We combed her hair and had good talks and I found real answers about death. And afterwards, we washed her cold feet and eyelids and watched her bones burn when the door of the crematorium was opened for rearrangement, and we found that what was left was a newfound energy for life. We started a farm. We took cover in a thirty page business plan and wrote it well. I was a co-owner of a business. I owned equipment and a copy of a signed lease. The handles of the tractor felt right in my hands.
When the shrapnel fell there, I headed home - again. I took cover in something familiar. And then what was familiar became something new as I found a new self in an old place.
In between bouts of notable success - several published articles, the near-completion of a full-fledged scientific research project, a well-paid internship in science writing - I took cover, again and again, hiding from what I was supposed to accomplish and could never achieve. A college degree. A good enough job. An actual career. A real house with friends and baked goods in the kitchen. A confidence I didn't even understand.
Now, this summer, I am taking cover by creating home. I have built a blockade between me and Career, and although its substance is permeable, I am content with the barricade it creates. The study of birth and the beauty of newborns fill my magazines and computer screen as I swoon over stretch marks and breastfeeding. Novels fill my bookshelf. I keep wildflowers on my kitchen table. I keep decent distance from my family, and find new dimensions within relationships. My fear of failure and disappointment are flimsy and smoky; not as viable as the golden rustles of sunny leaves in late evening. The wars still rage (will I ever build this house? how can I pay the next bill?) but taking cover has become a new creature. Warm, like a simple silk; light and breezy. I no longer run away. Instead, I go towards what is.
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