For our babymoon last summer, my husband and I drove a few hours north and took the ferry to Orcas Island, part of Washington’s San Juan Islands. Not quite Iceland, which we explored in a camper van before our daughter was born, but finagling three nights away on our own in a pandemic seemed like a small miracle. It was still slightly adventurous, going to an island without a hospital five weeks before my due date—and, as it turned out, only two weeks from our son’s birth.
While it may not be another country, Orcas Island feels like the edge of the earth. The horizon is an infinite ripple of islands and mountains, transformed by sunsets into a layered gradient of blues and purples, blurring the line where Canada begins and Washington (or the world) ends. One night as the last light seeped into the inky sea and bats began to swoop, Rob and I rehashed our favorite boy names and decided. Desmond.
I’ve loved the name for years, based on the incorrect assumption that it meant “of the world.” (A creative/bad translation of the French “des” (of the) and “monde” (world).) But I’ve taken creative liberties with the meaning, because it’s one of my great hopes for him—that he’ll become a curious citizen of the world who can see as much of it as he desires.
And so, when Desi was 8 months old, we made a passport appointment. Not for a specific trip, but for all our pandemic-deferred dreams of travel. Maybe Costa Rica. Maybe Mexico City. By the time she was his age, our daughter had already been to Spain. The point was not a specific destination but the possibility. I printed his application and filled it out, ready to go. And then my map of the known world got ripped to shreds.
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The peanut butter only touched his skin, but my baby’s entire body erupted in hives. His ears swelled and his nose started to run. Praying his throat wasn’t closing, Rob and I rushed to the ER, where nurses injected him with epinephrine and attached sticky monitors to his tiny chest. Peanuts, we soon discovered, were just the beginning. Blood tests revealed severe allergies to all nuts, and milk, and eggs. Sesame and coconut. Lentils, garbanzo beans and peas. A staggering list of foods that we needed to keep not only out of his mouth, but potentially from touching him at all.
I’d never spent a minute considering what it would mean to have anaphylactic food allergies, or a child with them. Now it was all I thought about. His allergies rewrote everything I assumed possible in a single Sunday afternoon. The very next day we purged our house of nuts and bought cutting boards and sponges exclusively for him. We learned how to use an epi-pen, to never leave the house without one. To wash our hands constantly, unsure where trace allergens might lurk. To decode ingredient lists for all the things you might not know mean milk.
The passport application got buried under a pile of handouts from the allergist, and I almost canceled his appointment in despair. How could we ever travel with him now?
But Rob reminded me that he could outgrow some of his allergies, and that I might outgrow some of my very raw fears, so we kept the appointment. We answered “none” to the question about travel plans and held up our right hands for the passport official, swearing we were his parents. But I felt like I was promising something more: That I wouldn’t give up my dreams for him. That we’d find a new map.
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A quick definition: I reserve the word travel for going places that require a passport. Or at least I used to. At the end of August, my family went on our big summer vacation. Not to Costa Rica. Not to Mexico City. We left the passports in their drawer and took our kids to Orcas Island.
Once upon a time, when my husband and I craved adventure, we’d head for the edge of the earth somewhere. Bike the Bolivian Death Road or camp on an Australian beach inhabited by dingoes (and Lord knows what else). Now, we take our baby to an island without a hospital. I make the comparison not to be glib, but to acknowledge my trepidation—and the obvious fact that children rewrite your entire life.
I didn’t want to go at first. It felt too risky, or worse, irresponsible. But slowly Rob helped me see that while we are of course responsible for our son’s safety, we’re also responsible for helping him live his life. And it doesn’t have to be one or the other. I packed all the food Desi would need for the week and screenshotted a map with the fire station, the island’s 24/7 medical service. We took four epi-pens. When we ate out, I brought his meal and cleaned every inch of the table and high chair with alcohol wipes. And we maintained our newly acquired state of constant vigilance (which pairs really well with vacation).
The truth is, I’ve always felt like if I’m traveling, I’m doing something right with my life. But I haven’t used my passport in three years and don’t know when I will again, which makes me think I must be doing something very wrong. An angsty restlessness creeps in that’s hard to shake. I unfold my map, turn it this way and that, but it doesn’t line up with the world around me: motherhood, or this precarious land of allergies.
But as our days passed on the island—my son running sand through his fingers, my daughter birdwatching with big binoculars around her neck, the two of them playing together on a pebbly beach—that restlessness faded. I began to see that nothing is wrong at all. Really, almost everything is right, and the thing that’s off is my map.
My old map, the one Rob and I used pre-parenthood to see a sunrise at the top of an Indonesian volcano and penguins at the southern tip of Chile, just doesn’t work here. I need to redraw my borders of travel, of adventure—of contentment—so I don’t miss the wonders of the world I live in now.
My son spent the week throwing rocks and double-pointing at the sky whenever he heard the rumble of a biplane or the caw of a crow. Squealing as his dad tossed him in the air and caught him as his toes splashed through the lake’s surface. He felt the delight of discovery, the enchantment of a new place, the thrill of exploration. He traveled. And watching him, so did I.
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Here’s what I’m always asking myself: How can I protect my son but also let him be in the world? It’s the same question I ask about my daughter, because it’s the central question of parenthood. It’s what we’re all trying to figure out every day, each of us with our own particularities.
Our last night on the island, we had dinner at our favorite seafood place, with picnic tables overlooking an oyster-farming bay. I’d eaten some cheese, so I needed to wash my hands before I could touch Desi. There I was, lathering soap at an outdoor sink, when a middle-aged woman appeared next to me. Startlingly next to me.
“Oh, just keep it running,” she said, which I took to mean she’d fill the water bottle she was holding when I was done.
“The water’s pretty hot,” I said, hoping she’d back up a bit. But instead, she came closer—reached right in and twisted one of the knobs. That’s when the sarcasm registered. My stomach lurched. My cheeks flushed in molten mother rage, over someone trying to get between me and my son’s safety.
“If you must know,” I said, swallowing the wobble in my voice, “I have a baby with severe food allergies, so I need to wash my hands really—”
“I don’t need to know,” she cut me off. “You don’t need to use that much—"
I yanked a paper towel, balled it up as defiantly as one can ball up a paper towel, and walked away. Back to my little family under the willow tree, golden light flickering through the branches, eager to tell Rob my travel story of the zealous local who thought she could intimidate a mother on an island at the edge of the earth.
What I’m Writing
Mostly the essay you just read! I want to be real about how much writing time I have for other artist-parents out there, or other parents craving time for their passions. More than likely, any publication I share here will be something I’ve worked on for months, if not years, and certainly that I started before my second baby was born. This newsletter keeps me writing when it feels impossible—and I’m grateful you are here for it.
I am still hammering away (with a very slow/small hammer) at a book proposal. Part of that includes the cringe-inducing task of building an author platform. By subscribing to my newsletter, you’re already helping me do that. THANK YOU. An awkward favor: If you enjoy this newsletter, would you share it with a friend? They can subscribe right here.
Who I’m Reading
Cartography: Navigating a Year in Iraq, by Katherine Schifani
My dear friend Kate published her extraordinary memoir this summer, a riveting story of her deployment as a counterterrorism advisor in Iraq in 2011, and as a gay woman serving under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Her brilliant writing captures the absurdity of war with unflinching honesty, humanity and even at times humor. I cannot recommend her book enough. Buy it here.
Other books I’ve loved lately:
A Hard Place to Leave: Stories of a Restless Life, by Marcia DeSanctis
The Pink Hotel, by Liska Jacobs
I’ll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood, by Jessi Klein
Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr
And this glittering gem from Joan Didion: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” (from Let Me Tell You What I Mean)
Where I’m Going
I may not be using my passport these days, but let me tell you what’s basically as invigorating at this moment in motherhood: SOLO WEEKEND TRIPS. (Sponsored by my intrepid husband and my father-in-law who swoops in to reduce my guilt.) Last month, I flew to Colorado to visit my friend Kate (same one whose book you need to buy!) and see Brandi Carlile play at Red Rocks Amphitheater. She sang this gorgeous song with Allison Russell that you should go listen to right now. I adore my kids but it was all such a huge breath of refreshing air, especially the bizarre weightlessness of being responsible for nobody but myself for 48 hours. I wrote the entire rough draft of this newsletter’s essay on my flight home. MAGIC.
Thanks so much for reading me. As Brandi so famously sings, “These stories don’t mean anything when you’ve got no one to tell them to.”
XO,
Kaitlin
Beautiful, Kait. Both our kids have passports but neither has used them yet. We're hoping we might pull off Mexico City next spring, but I can empathize with the struggle of my world narrowing so much since I had kids. And at the same time, my life is bigger than it's ever been.
Having to redraw the map is such a universal theme! While not a mother myself, I still connect with the need to redefine how to get somewhere when reality doesn’t match the initial dream in my head. I love your writing and can’t wait for more!