Family of Foxes

My friend Cara has baby foxes living under her porch. I suppose that sounds like a problematic first sentence, but I’ve stood on her porch, and it is well off the ground, plus, the view is epic. Think Terabithia. Nobody would fault a fox for setting up a home in this place.

I mean to write something about the adorable baby foxes, but now I am thinking first to tell about my friendship with Cara. We met in a writer’s group. For what I believe was two or three years, we saw each other once a month at a cafe called La Madeleine, in Bethesda, Maryland. For a couple of hours, we would critique each other’s work. Only one of us was in graduate school at the time. None of us had a book published, yet. I like to think that we all had a crush on writing, and we were willing to commit to date it. Hadley would roll her eyes at this and say, “Geez, Mom, EVERYTHING has to be a love story for you,” and she would be correct, but what I mean to say is this group I was in was past the talk of wanting to be a writer, and we were writing.

I remember one evening, when I was up for critique. The group was responding to a piece of writing that I’d slapped an ending on because in those days, when I hit any sort of conflict, the teeniest bit of tension, I did my best to Hallmark my way out of it.

What I’d done is taken something from a blog post I’d written, and pasted it onto my essay. I knew it read choppy, but I was hoping nobody else would notice. Cara noticed. She leaned toward me and nudged me like she was going to tell an inside joke. “I read this on your blog,” she said. “It worked there.” She sat against her chair, but kept her eyes on me. “It doesn’t work here, and you know why.”

I was writing scared; playing it safe. Cara was saying that my story needed more. It wanted to become more. I wasn’t doing myself or my writing any favors by resisting to discover what the story could become.

Which brings me back to the baby foxes. It turns out, the mama fox has been here before. She returns to this space every winter. Cara writes that the mama fox does this to “stay safe and warm and wait for her babies to be born.” Spring shows up, and so do the baby foxes.

I wonder if the mama fox was there when I visited Cara during those early motherhood years of chalk and water tables, and bubbles. We were so exhausted, Cara and I, and we were both so determined to write. Writing wasn’t something we wanted to do; it was something we had to do in order to be mothers, in order to live. It sounds dramatic, but there it is. Anyway, I wonder if the mama fox was there while she and I were – keeping safe and waiting for the life she would bring forth.

Probably not. That was long ago, and I don’t think foxes live that long. But maybe she passed what she knew about safety and reprieve to one of her cubs, and now it’s an heirloom.

“Soon,” Cara writes, “they’ll get too bold for mom and they’ll move on.”

If it is an heirloom, it is one for the mothers and not for the kits. This is a place to be born, it cannot hold all the boldness that one has and must use in order to grow and become. That kind of boldness must be out in the world.

It was Cara’s post that became the catalyst that launched Hadley into the world of Instagram.

I was holding back for the time when I would write a contract the likes of Atticus Finch; for a time when I knew without a doubt that Hadley could handle it; for a time when I knew she wouldn’t make a mistake; when I could be guaranteed she wouldn’t get hurt.

I was waiting for a time when I would stop being afraid.

This is not a blog post in defense of, or an apologetic on letting my teenage daughter on Instagram. I’m here to tell you about the family of foxes, and about my friendship with Cara.

I want to tell you about a long walk we took in the woods along Rock Creek, with not a clue where we were headed or even if we were on a path. Or a time she texted me a link to a cast call for mothers who are storytellers. “I’m going to try out, and I think you should, too.” So we did, and after, we went to an overpriced clothing boutique in Bethesda and tried on fancy clothes, bought nothing, and then shared dinner at a pasta shop telling each other story after story after story.

I want to tell you about the times I saw Cara perform her one woman show, “I am the Gentry,”*how for years I watched her boldly share and grapple with her story of living in DC, and then not living in DC.

I have always wondered if I’d ever be a good enough writer to both share and grapple with a story at the same time, but here I am now, attempting it. The mama fox sends her baby into the world because the baby has grown too bold. The mama fox doesn’t know what will happen or how things will change. She cannot say, “Look out,” “Remember that,” or, “I love you.” Even if she could, the baby cannot hear her for all the boldness within her she must use to discover the world and also, her self.

So the mama fox nudges her into the woods, the scent from touching the baby’s side, or face, or belly staying with her child so she remembers where she came from.

So she remembers home.

 

*Cara has created a podcast based on her show. The story is genuine, vulnerable, hilarious, and important. Cara is one of the finest storytellers out there, and I highly recommend her work.