5.20.2022

Goose symbolism is reminding you that we often take on the quests of our peers and family.  Therefore, it is essential to step back and discern whether or not this is something that you wish to pursue. In other words, Goose meaning is telling you to make sure that the path you are on is your own. Goose symbolism also prompts you to look deeply into your heart to ascertain that the choice is yours. This spirit animal asks you to be sure that it is not what someone else has wished upon you.

–spirit-animals.com

Ever since Forrest was eight weeks old, I've been in minor mental anguish, wondering whether or not we'd have a fourth. Each month when I'm fertile, I've made up my mind: in a year or so, we'll try for one more baby. And then as soon as that egg expires, I'm once again done at three, fully knowing that four is a boundary I will not cross, in order to preserve both my sense of self and sanity.

It's one way, then the other.

It's clear, and then it's not.

I always thought I'd have four. Not just because you did. But that's how I imagined my life, with a big overgrown family, re-creating what was lost when you died; the promise of full-house holidays and the guarantee of returned togetherness.

I remember at my best friend's wedding, a year after I had Everett, seeing her standing post-ceremony with her four brothers, all in a row like grown ducklings. And instead of focusing on the beaming bride, I stared across the church at her mother, who was looking at her children from afar. Her expression told me it is worth it. All of it. And I've never forgotten how that made me feel.

So for this reason (and many others) stopping at three feels as if I'm cutting myself short or taking the easy way out.

Chris and I have the same conversations every twenty-eight days, like we're dancing in circles to muted music. Some months I all but dare him to have a vasectomy, just to test how positive he is when he says Forrest should be the last. And yet I know he'll never make an appointment until my mind is absolutely made up. Because he's a good man.

But for once in our marriage, I don't want to push him. What if we're already where we need to be?

Chris just started an excavating business as a side gig to his Google employment. He's been doing a few jobs a month and has invested in equipment and insurance and all the things needed to create something, slow and steady through the coming years. And Marion and I began riding horses together. My doula certification became finalized with DONA, so I can take on clients with earned credentials attached to my name. I also got involved in a non-profit called empowerHER, whose mission is to connect motherless daughters all over the country, through retreats and mentor programs.

And Forrest is faltering out of the baby stage, something that I hate myself for welcoming, but I do not enjoy the frailties of newborns and sleep training and the current gagging scares that come accustom with finger foods.

Things seem to be happening. And I’m happy. I’m allowing it all to come and flow. The last thing I want is to ease into this feeling, enjoy it for a year, and then back-track with another pregnancy, postpartum and newborn care. And digging my mind out of the hormonal holes again.

And yet, as I write this, I know I’m going to forget all the awful shit and want another one.

That’s why I want my mind made-up now. That's why I talk of a vasectomy, flirting with the taste of permanency, but there's that tiny trace that knows all too well, of how capable I am of convincing myself to fulfill this prophecy of four.

Continually frustrated at my body's inability to be honest and consistent, I finally asked for a sign; from you, from Spirit, from whatever presence I feel each time I see a woodpecker fly in front of my windshield or certain sequential numbers on the clock. So one early evening, while out feeding the chickens, feeling the pulsing desire for my question to be answered, I said aloud, "Is it three or four?"

For some reason, without effort or thought, I pictured geese, flying in formation.

While waiting for this requested guidance, I had the idea to call my therapist; that intuitive voice told me to make an appointment, and knowing it was a positive step, I listened and didn’t question. It had been awhile since I'd seen her and she'd retired in the interim, but still offered to meet so we could catch up and talk over a casual cup of coffee.

Dr. Jaffe is this charming woman of wisdom with a natural sense of class; in the way of her South African accent, her mauve lipsticks, and the perfect purple jacket she wore when we met in Shadyside, quilted just enough for the fresh spring weather.

I brought her colorful fresh eggs in a pretty recycled pulp carton and in her sweet voice, she asked if I'd dyed them; never had she seen pastel eggs, and I was proud to give her that small gift, as a way of telling her how much I appreciate the relationship we've had since I was a young twenty-one year old.

As I was explaining my present life to her, how Chris works from home and helps with the kids and our daily routines of school and lunches and play and early bedtimes, it became abundantly apparent of how silly I've been, so worried about this imaginary fourth. I have too much to be grateful for to be dreading ahead, worried about pregnancy and all a baby’s first year entails.

And besides, I'm thirty.

If needed, I have time.

But I wanted to sit in a comfortable answer, one that could allow me to breathe and perhaps shift my mind into the next phase of our lives, as Everett rides without training wheels and Forrest becomes more independent and Marion and I embark on this special barn time together.

I drove home, tending towards three. And while cruising on the parkway with windows wound down, I happened to glance upwards, seeing three geese in flight.

That night, two of our chickens, Peggy and Chard, unbeknownst to us, got locked out of the coop; the automatic door closed while they were still free-ranging in the last minutes of daylight. This has never been an issue in the past. They file into the coop each night in a certain order, at a specific time, guided by internal clocks and the pecking order they've established.

Before the kids got up, Chris was out early filling the bird feeders and noticed they were missing. So in the cool, untouched morning air, with the birds singing and beginning their days, we walked our woods, until we found feathers and blood and tracked the torturous trail for hundreds of feet. Unable to find either or their bodies, it was obvious they were dragged away by the raccoons that prowl our property at night.

I was devastated. And worse off, guilty: I failed to keep them safe. But as everyone tells me, this is an inevitable part of chicken-keeping, so I let myself feel sad and then tried to let it go. And we changed the timer on the automatic door, giving the hens an extra thirty minutes now that there's more daylight in the season.

And then another attack happened. Around one o’clock the following night, while we were both in deep sleep, Chris suddenly jumped out of bed and began putting pants on. I sat up with my eyes half closed, hearing the dog get anxious, and before I could ask what was going on, Chris said, I think there's a raccoon in the coop. I just saw it on the camera. His words were nervous and rushed but at the same time quiet and spoken softly, like he didn't want to scare me.

I threw on whatever pieces of clothing I could grab within reach, stepped into my old boots and hurriedly trailed behind him, knowing what it meant when a raccoon gets in the coop: your whole flock is slaughtered.

He opened the coop door and shone a flashlight. There was a raccoon perched behind the chickens, right under the pitch of the roof. I was relieved to see life; they were frozen stiff on the roosting bars, too scared to move. I looked down and found Hei Hei, who the kids named after the chicken in Moana, dead on the floor. And sitting beside her remnant pile of maimed feathers, was Millie, alive, but not moving and apparently injured.

Get your gun, I told him.

I didn't know what the raccoon was going to do, so I just kept the light in its eyes while Chris ran up to the house. Soft whimpering cries involuntarily sang from my throat; I was in disbelief and sad and angry. And admittedly a little scared, alone in our woods with obvious danger in front of my face.

He came back and I held the flashlight as he shot.

Boom. Boom. 

The raccoon dropped to the floor with a thud, as the chickens simultaneously flew out of the coop and scattered into the midnight woods. But Millie still sat still. I picked her up and noticed blood on her backside and her leg was hanging at a funny angle but she ate and drank and I tucked her into the ground-level nesting box once we got our other remaining chickens locked back in, safe.

We couldn’t fall back asleep. I soon called an emergency vet office, and was told an avian specialist was scheduled to come in at eight, so after getting each kid ready for the day, I headed for the vet, with my chicken in a cat carrier. (I know that sounds pathetic to take a chicken to the vet, but people do it.)

After examinations and the option of $2,000 pin surgery to fix her broken leg, I knew I had to put her down. For a moment I fantasized about fixing her; of making her a legend who'd survived because of luck and will and money, but paying that was unimaginable. And even though I love her just as I love my dog, she's a chicken; surgery is not her fate.

To replenish our flock, I ordered four more chicks. So akin to last spring, I am hand-raising another batch in our unfinished basement. When their feathers mature enough for weighted warmth, they can be moved outside to the coop, and join their remaining six sisters.

Not until these consecutive night-time tragedies, did I realize just how much I love keeping these animals; how much I've learned and become accustomed to their company, each time I walk outside and am greeted by the goofy way they run towards me, squaking for treats. Or how they all sing loudly after laying an egg, a background noise that's become a part of our life up on the hill.

Being in my woods and caring for my chickens has given me both a sense of pride and peace. And I want more of it. Next spring, I’m planning on goats and ducks and eventually, whatever other animals we're allowed on our property.

When I signed Marion up for horse riding lessons, I didn't intend to get myself involved. I'd been feeling guilty for pulling her out of pre-school, and sought out something for her to do; it was originally all for her. But after the first time I took her to the barn, I felt it all again. It had been twenty years since I'd ridden and showed and had horse-themed wallpaper in my room, but it all came back and breathed a reviving air through me–the smell of the barn, the feel of breeches, the cheerful beat of a canter.

So every Friday morning, she and I go together, while Forrest hangs at home with Chris. And each time I get on that horse, I think of how I could be at the barn twice a week, alone, while Forrest is in pre-school and Marion in kindergarten. And then have a barn morning with her, say every Saturday, with a horse we own and can ride together.

A newborn doesn't fit within this scenario.

So then what does that mean…I'm choosing a horse over a baby?

Can't it mean I'm choosing myself? Can't it mean I'm allowing the time and effort and money and mental capacity that a fourth would inevitably gulp up, to be allotted to me?

But doesn't that make me selfish?

After the kids were put to bed on Mother's Day, I took a hike on the trail that runs through the woods behind our house. I went alone, not even taking the dog. I walked with my head down, focused on finding a blue jay feather, as a way for you to prove your presence on a special day. I kept hoping, kept half-ish knowing one would appear, but the trail showed nothing.

I guess you had other plans, because instead of my dependable feather, I heard geese honking their way home. I stopped, paused, and looked up. Thirty seconds later, they passed directly above me, in a V.

one two three four five.

For a moment I got confused. Five kids? And then I settled into an understanding that sank heavy into my belly and bones, the way cement hardens into an empty cavity.

There are five of us. There are five members of my family. And that is where my focus should be.

Alone in the woods, I cried and talked aloud to you and unconsciously placed my hand on my chest. It felt like there was a warm, radiant light beaming out of me. You were there, and I cannot explain it any better than that.

I had been done with this entry for a few weeks, and couldn't seem to finish. I'd add paragraphs then subtract them at an equal rate; there is just too much to explain and unload when it comes to this decision to be done at three children.

This morning, I took a horse lesson solo, without Marion; she was a sass all week, and I warned her multiple times that if she didn't speak kindly, she wasn't going to ride. So when she told me no in a spicy tone for the ninety-ninth time one day, I told her teacher it would be just me.

Inside the arena, as I was mounting my lesson horse named Maverick, I could once again hear geese, honking above the metal roof.

So finally, I Googled when I got home: spiritual meaning of geese, and that's when I found the explanation that begins this entry, about how a goose reminds us that we often take on quests of our peers and family.

The implications are obvious.

I'm understanding these geese as indicators to do what I want. Not have four to be envied by peers, with a full Suburban and a sprawl of kids and the upended question of how does she do it? And not to have four "just" because my beautiful mother had four, in order to protect myself from the pretend comparison I imagine between you and I.

I've received continued encouragement to follow the now and the life I see unfolding in real time, with the animals and my dream horse and doula clients and Chris pursuing a big machine passion and savoring these next years that I have with Marion and Forrest, as my daytime companions.

In my version of what's to come, I see a happy mother, whose children never stop needing her.

And her life is full, but the rim isn't over-flowing.