momtemplative

[momtemplative]

The Long Game

A conversation about schools reopening:                               Part one (uno, un) of presumably many.

There was one year I celebrated the First Day Of School with such vigor and rebelliousness that the moment I got home from the double-drop-off, I stripped down to my undies and ate pesto from the jar, on the couch, like a crazy woman. 

Last year, the first day of school was delayed for four days because of construction and I had a full-on meltdown. Get these kids out of the house!!

Now, here we sit, atop an entirely different perspective. That Holiest of Days means nothing. 

Finish lines and dates-to-look-forward-to-with-certainty during this pandemic are as arbitrary as the outcome of a toddler game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. I’ve been applying a lowered-gaze to these long, long days, a here-and-now approach to get us through to the finish line of school starting. Not thinking about the Long Game has been a survival tactic to avoid an onslaught of overwhelm and to allow more room for joy and sanity. (There are plenty of tough days that happen organically, without the pressure of trying to figure it all out.)

Back in March, I thought, (many of us thought), ok this is crazy, but they’ll surely get back to school in the fall. And what an epic celebration THAT First Day will be! 

Especially after this four+ month stint of no school, no sitters, no public places open (safely), no playdates or kid swaps, no summer camps or extracurriculars, and no travel! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t holding up the First Day as a beacon of hope, grabbing at it like fruit for a starving soul that hangs way beyond my reach.

Up until last Wednesday, we could still speculate about school as some far-off agenda. Of course there was no way school could start up again as per usual, but I pushed that slippery little thought out of my mind every time it landed.

Now, heavy with reluctance, I am beginning to mourn the loss of the reality I was hoping for—to have Opal back in school and Ruth in preschool three full-days a week! (That was new, for the two years prior, she attended preschool for three half-days, which just barely covered my part-time work load.) The generous portions of un-scheduled time (that far surpass the needs of my job, which I will not be doing for the foreseeable future anyhow, since giving massage to elders with dementia and Alzheimers is such a dangerous gig right now) were joyfully staggering to think about. 

Once the facts came to light, hard and fast on the computer screen, it no longer worked to play dumb about what the fall might look like. They announced this week that BVSD (Boulder Valley School District) would be opening schools for two days a week, a “hybrid model,” starting one week late, end of August. Half the class will attend Tuesday and Wednesday, half will attend Thursday and Friday. On the not-in-person days, kids will do online schooling. (Kids can also opt out of this for fully online, at-home schooling.)

The kids will be required to wear masks and keep their distance. There will be partitions and well-spaced desks and lots of outside time. The precautions will be thorough and lengthy, but necessary.

Joseph G. Allens, assistant professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard says, “On prevention, we are seeing that in many hospitals, the number of infections of front-line doctors and nurses has dropped way down. Why? Strict controls are in place focusing on just three things: mask-wearing, hand-washing and air-cleaning.”

This is positive news for the kids who are old enough to be mindful and take precautions. Luckily, Opal is old enough to be developmentally capable of following all the rules, not only because that is who she is, but because she understands this is what needs to happen for the public’s health. Five years ago, she may have had good intentions, but would’ve been developmentally unable of doing what needed to be done. Five years from now, she may be nursing a rebellious phase—who knows. So, we rejoice at the fact that she is eddying in the safest spot—age and development-wise—that she possibly could. (Not to mention her motivator-of-wise-choices is far more ubiquitous and scary than simply aiming to be a ‘good girl.’)

Ruth, who is four and still taste things from the ground, is another story altogether. And to intensify that reality is that she’d be in a classroom of 11 other small-children-examples. When I imagine a birds-eye-view of her classroom, I see piles of children, not individual bodies, all heaped onto a particular play area like puppies on a teat. The personified opposite of social distancing. 

And because we have grandparents to think about, we have chosen to keep Ruth from the fray of preschool for the time being. (I acknowledge we are fortunate to have this choice.) This is devastating and confusing for her, she is longing for her friends and teachers, the world she cultivated for the prior two years, half her life. She still doesn’t understand why school stopped so abruptly, why she never got to say goodbye to her class, why she can’t see any of them now, except for on a screen. 

(Ruth sometimes refers to The Virus as almost a villain-character. She’ll be lying in bed and suddenly, disgustedly, shout, “THAT VIRUS IS SO RUDE!”)

For the last few days, I’ve been saturating myself in news articles about how schools plan to re-open next month and the safety of it all—for grandparents, for teachers, for us. I vacillate between, this will be weird but fine and yikes and wait, is this the best approach? 

There is a staggering amount to consider, and yet a minuscule amount of certain information out there. Almost every article I read about young kids and COVID—can they spread it??—is filed under the opinion section of the paper. Info feels sparse and mostly speculative. I don’t trust it. At least not on her grandparents’ lives. Schools in Europe reopened months ago, where is the research from that?

Brian P. Gill, senior fellow at Mathematica, (a nonpartisan public-policy research and analysis firm), had some optimistic things to say. He said, “When reopening schools, he’d most recommend a staggered start and to reduce the number of students in schools and classrooms. “We believe this can dramatically slow the spread of COVID-19—even if children are not especially good at wearing masks or maintaining physical distance.”

I really don’t know who or what to believe at this point. I find myself glomming on to the positive bits, sharing a hopeful thought or article with friends, accompanied by a prayer-hands emoji. Then I will read something that troubles me and I turn leaden and sink to the bottom of my mental well. I usually don’t share those articles. It cycles back and forth like this. 

But returning to the bricks-and-mortar plans for Opal’s upcoming school year:

I try to imagine what this will all look like. The rooms will be half-full of socially distanced little bodies, all looking like mini-surgeons in their masks and ranging in age and size and from approximately 5 to 10 years old. Opal is on the older end, and I imagine her classroom to look like theater—where everyone has an excessive personal bubble and the plastic partition creates a glare from every angle and warps the images on either side. Connections will have to be made in code, sideways, or way too loud to overcome the cloth curtains that cover mouths. I imagine the resurgence of note-passing, like when I was a kid and we’d fold them into little origami packages and pass them along to the desired recipient, hopefully out of the teacher’s gaze. But in this case, they’d need to be tossed rather than passed—the closest desk will be six feet away.

Will they be able to see the preposterousness in all of it? Will they be able to share a good laugh about it or will it all seem like dreadful torture? I’m sure perspectives will vacillate from one end of the spectrum to the other, the way they do now. 

I do solemnly wish that everyone enter the first day of school expecting nothing less than chaos and confusion, and because of that, they will offer each other more slack and kindness. This sucks equally for everyone, the whole dang village. There’s got to be some solace in that?

(And can I get a moment of silent mercy for all these teachers, even the grumpiest ones? I cannot fathom the ninja-brainwork required to hold all these pieces together. The effort is heroic.)

We would probably consider kiboshing the whole operation if it were to last any longer than two days. That’s plenty manageable. And Opal wants it so bad. The sense of purpose, of community, of life-beyond-the-walls-of-our-home. She told me she’s dying to see the eyes of all her friends, even above a mask, as long as it’s not on a screen! Preach.

I am well aware that this equation doesn’t help parents who are trying to get back to work, but, again, I appreciate what Brian P. Gill has to say about it:

“As parents ourselves, we would much prefer that our child’s school be open for a predictable two days a week than a highly unpredictable cycle of opening and closing. But more important than our own preferences are these facts: Unpredictably difficult experiences create more stress and more downstream health problems than predictably difficult experiences, even if the experience itself is equivalent in all other respects. And for children, more predictability yields better emotional health, a key predictor of life outcomes.”

SO here we are, bouncing around the map of this pandemic with, what often feels like, no real direction. At the entrance of yet another entirely foreign trail to blaze—with kids, with grandparents, woven into the threads of our decision making more than ever before in our previous lives.

We want to give our kids the moon, but for right now, maybe the best thing we can give them is predictability. 

Joseph Allen said it well, “I wish it was different. We can continue to push for things to get better — and maybe our government will course-correct. Until then, we must forge a path forward with the reality we have, not the one we want.”

[momtemplative]

Dog Days.

The “dog days of summer” refer to the weeks between July 3 and August 11 and are named after the Dog Star (Sirius) in the Canis Major constellation. The ancient Greeks blamed Sirius for the hot temperatures, drought, discomfort, and sickness that occurred during the summer.

Temperatures have been in the 90′s for over a week now, and they anticipate another solid two weeks of the same.

In our home, we’ve concluded that the most successful way to overcome this heat is to be soaking wet, as often and for as long as possible. We bought a cheap, blow-up, 6 x 8 feet pool in May and it has saved us nearly every day since it’s inception on our back deck. We fill it with hose water from the deepest frozen bowels of another world and erect two umbrellas so we need not wear sunblock. We can create an outdoor environment where we are shivering on a 100 degree day! That feels like power, like we’ve outsmarted yet another restriction that has been placed upon us during the pandemic. Go team!

(And yes, in spite of pools and parks now being open, we consider COVID to still be very much happening and prefer to err on the side of no crowds.)

Our sanctuaries are shrinking, but I raise my hands in praise that we still have sanctuaries at all. The vast out-of-doors (as Governor Polis likes to refer to it) is so much a hotpot of swelter by mid-morning that the kids and the dog are instantly miserable. Opal (sensibly) refuses to voluntarily subject herself to the heat. 

Nope, she says, No-can-do. I’ll get a headache.

Ruth will excitedly agree to a walk, then start complaining by three houses down, and plop down on the sidewalk, refusing to go home, petrified with indecision and frustrated with all hot things. (A few days ago, she sat on an ant colony between the sidewalk cracks—that got her up and moving right-quick!) So, I’ve stopped offering walks by the time the sun has slurped up the dew from the grass.

Step into our backyard during the meat of the day and you risk a face full of brightness like a sledgehammer. Our benevolent, Great Eastern Sun turns aggressive during these summer months, dis-regulated like a mommy bird force-feeding her young. By this point in July, only the most hardy of our plants survive. The many backyard quadrants we curated early on during quarantine—the sandbox, the ninja-course in the Russian Olive tree, the swingset and slides—are all simply too burny right now to enjoy during the thick of the day. We lack mature trees in the back, so it is a sea of steamy heat while the sun is a glaring bulb overhead.

When Ruth drops something over the railing, we all silent-scream NOOOO as if that item will be lost to the ground-is-lava recesses of the backyard until the sun sets and we can retrieve it without being bombed from above. There goes Barbie until after dinner, honey.

The shade and the sun take on a Marvel Comic strip nemesis quality. There can be only one. When a cloud moves in overhead, we comment on it until it passes, as exciting as the Goodyear Blimp.

Oooh, what a difference! Amazing! We going to get rain? I felt a breeze!

Ruth says, Is it nighttime?

No honey, just a cloud.

The gaping canvas of a hot summer day can feel stretched and pulled in all directions—more proof that time is not linear. And each of these lengthy days that we organize to the best of our ability, and with the resources we’ve got du-jour (how we slept, how the body feels, the emotional barometer of the house between young-ones...) eventually slip by as another box, then a row, on the calendar. Some are chunky with challenge and discord, others silky-smooth with ease, most are a combination of it all. 

We whittle new routines into the wood that is daytime, footholds to keep us from having to start from scratch every single morning. Right now, we are on COVID schedule 24b (roughly): the Dog Days Edition. 

Opal has her own things, especially in the morning. Ruth needs a block of full-engagement playtime early on, otherwise she is left in a state of wanting for the rest of the day, like a dolly with a talk-mechanism malfunction—PLAY WITH ME PLAY WITH ME PLAY WITH ME!!! 

Granted, she will do this anyway, (especially now, having no playdates with friends) but it’s much easier for me to draw a clear boundary once we’ve had our special together-moments. We may be on the deck early in the day for playtime, this and that, and Ruth may dabble in the pool, but we’ve gotten into the rhythm of having our official coming-together-pool-time be right after lunch and before afternoon chill time. (Shout out to Jesse who gets to join on weekends.)

As we chew our food, we all start to itch for the frigid water, our date with the polar melt that awaits just passed the sliding glass doors. 

Tiny cheap Walmart pool? No. It’s a world of wonder.

Opal loves to do running jumps into the pool, ending with a combination of grace and fumbling chaos (and, pray-god, NOT a trip to the ER). She warns Ruth, but every time, Ruth clutches her dolls as they are hit with the swells and yells Oh-PAL!!! 

We just found an old boogie board in the garage which Ruth adopted with hilarious seriousness, using the wristband and adopting a surfer’s stance as if she’s gazing into the distance at the waves. She essentially just sits on it, climbs on it, yells at it, repeats. It works as a fantastic lifeguard boat for dolls that have fallen in the water, which then turns to a pontoon-type boat that gets scooted from one end of the pool to the other. 

There is crawling and dancing (always, music) and running in circles. There is a game called Leg Swing, which is clumsy and never successful, but one of Ruth’s faves. Many of Ruth’s indoor toys have made it into the pool and are now filled with an ominous sloshing sound of water. Our patios table is a collection dismembered doll parts, an attempt to dry out the innards. 

There is the Bug Rescue Society. Last week, Ruth rescued a wee, harmless flying thing from certain death in the water, then it befriended her and refused to leave. This is a kid who screams at the sight of an ant, but this bug was special. She named him Pascal and played with him for over a half-hour, no exaggeration. She took him on tiny boat rides and let him crawl on her hands and eventually settled to rest on a towel in the sun with Pascal next to her. I was sure he was dead, but upon closer inquiry, no, he was choosing to be there. 

And lately, Opal and I (and Jesse, when he can join) have taken to doing a full-in-plunge upon entry, which is more than a pleasant shock to the system. I had a strange stomach thing last week—woozy and nauseous—and it was hijacking my mood. (And, when I’m with the kids all day, every moment, I am like a mommy mirror to two smaller mirrors and—like it or not—my mood SETS THE TONE.) I did a full plunge into the icy shallows of the pool, which consists of me sitting down then lying back in one fell swoop since the water is just deep enough for me to put my entire head under. I was utterly healed—body and mood, cleansed and hungry.

I have started taking my woes to the dipping pool—the neck-tightness, the overwhelm, the stressors and emotions of the moment, whatever is there—and the instant my body is covered in that alarmingly frigid water, all the negativities dissipate and we are all kid-screams and raucous silliness. 

Our tiny pool is a poetic reminder of what happens when you appreciate what you have right now. Last year, it may have felt pittly, pathetic. Now, it shines forth like a beacon of reprieve. 

And no matter where we were earlier that day— regardless of morning meltdowns or grudges—or where the rest of the day has to take us, for that instant as we emerge onto the blessed deck in our suits and with our drinks and towels, we are all in complete, joyous alignment.

Then, we are cold. Ruth is blue-lipped, shivering and chattering. Physical sensations, I repeat, that feel victorious in the face of these high-caliber pandemic Dog Days. 

The party moves indoors to a warm bath—an even smaller body of water!—where Opal and Ruth warm up and play, amiably or not. Either way, we are on the smooth, familiar trajectory into the rest of the afternoon. 

July 14, 2020

[momtemplative]

Unblinking Eyes.

It’s an unsettling thing for a child to see their parent really, truly cry. 

I’m always telling my kids that there are no shortcuts through our emotions, we have to walk straight through. But for them to see a vulnerable, lost, weeping woman where their mom used to be—that’s a different story. 

However, we sometimes don’t get to choose when we’ll be summonsed by Big Emotions. Especially during a pandemic. This is a story about that. 

One morning a few days ago, Ruth and I went for a walk.  It was creeping up on wild-hot temperatures but the morning chill still lingered in the trees and on the grass. Ruth wanted to take a different route and I agreed, a new path was in order. We wound up heading towards Opal’s school, the same track we’ve tromped countless times to drop off and pick up Opal over the last five years. I wasn’t thinking about playgrounds (which have been off my radar for months); I was thinking of the extensive row of well-established Russian Olive trees along the parameter of the soccer field. The shade, the potential to run, skip, hop, like dogs doing agility training.

We were met with two big signs saying PARK NOW OPEN. How welcoming, I thought. Then, our eyes simultaneously turned to the playground, Opal’s playground, which, during the average school year, is usually teeming with children. Even during COVID, when the PARK CLOSED SIGNS loomed large, I’d still see a handful of kids playing out there when we walked by.

There it was, in all its glory, baking in the sun (I could practically SEE the germs shriveling to dust and falling to the ground with teeny screams of demise). Outside has always been my safe zone. Add sunshine and social distancing and NOTHING can touch us. The magnetism toward that playground was raw and real, and not just for Ruth, who wanted desperately to play somewhere that was not constrained in the parameters of our walls and fence. But for me, who craved an iota of normalcy.

Can we go on the playground mom?? PLEEEEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSEEEEE???

I paused, like putting the fork down between bites, and thought it over—Ruth’s eyes on me again like an unblinking owl.

YES.

How goddam remarkable it felt to be able to use that word with my child, who has been getting the same pull-chord reply about most things for the last many months. Sorry, honey, we need to wait until the virus is over. Sorry, honey. Sorry, honey.

After 20 magnificent minutes of climbing the rope structure (everything else was too hot) and pretending the ground was lava, we saw another kid approaching from the distance with his grandma. It was time to go anyhow, Ruth’s cheeks were scarlet and slick with sweat. An area on the back of my neck was sizzling from sun exposure. (I was not thorough with our sunscreen.) Ruth wasn’t happy about leaving, but she seemed to understand that our turn was over, now it was this little boy’s turn. That’s how playgrounds work now—in shifts.

We took our time back through the shady pathways beneath the Ponderosa Pines on one side, Russian Olives on the other. No bugs yet to taint the crisp pockets of air. We held hands and skipped and scampered and hid like squirrels. There was joy. There was freedom.

As we made our way back home, Ruth noticed a plastic straw on the ground, red and white like a straight candy cane, and she grabbed it before I could stop her. Yuck! I said. That’s trash, baby! No touching. (In our former life, I encouraged picking up trash and throwing it away, but now all I can see is a conduit of dangerous germs. How confusing this all must be for a child!) After our beautiful, sun-sanitized play session, it was the thought of the germs on that straw that hovered over me as we walked back home with our hands-in-pockets so we wouldn’t touch our faces. 

When we returned home, Ruth was delighted to share our morning adventure with Opal. I won’t go into detail, but to say that Opal was displeased would be a wild understatement. Jesse also said he felt like we should talk about these things as a family.

These things. I hadn’t realized that an empty playground, first thing in the morn, in the blazing sun, when the world was opening back up again and people can actually sit in restaurants, was “these things.” The troubled feelings from our household eclipsed a marvelous, playful morning. It made me realize the complexities of this whole pandemic, how we all grapple individually with what feels right and no decision is simple. 

I was in a whirling phase of fresh emotion that screams FUCKIT FUCKIT FUCKIT. How can we possible get it right?? 

I managed to get the girls lunch and to get Opal out the door (she and Jesse had already planned to head to Boulder), a few tears leaking out as if from the bulging edges of a levy, pressure building. I got Ruth set up with a show, safe and sound, and hustled down the hallway into the guest bedroom to utterly brake down. 

The tears weren’t for the playground, or for Opal and Jesse’s unfavorable reaction to us going. The tears were for the months of feeling trapped in a web of rules and regulation that only half the people are following. The months of maintaining some semblance of normalcy for the girls while also saying, sorry honey, can’t do that right now, and the soul-exhaustion that brings. The months of tightness in this house, and at times, asphyxiation. The countless emotions that needed to be closed up and stored for later, like a stunning array of brown bottles, lining the shelves of an internal world, an emotional apothecary, until life provides more breathing room to sift through it all.

To my surprise, Ruth was standing in the doorway watching me sob, naked, but for a pair of tighty-whitey cotton panties, silent as she’s ever been. I wiped my eyes with my hands, gave her a tender smile and waved her over to come sit on my lap. She wanted to sit facing me, like she wasn’t comfortable taking her eyes off me.

Hi sweetie. I bet it’s tough to see mom crying like this. But even grownups have Big Emotions. And sometimes they don’t come at an easy time. Having her little body there was nice, I’ll admit. The tears slowed. 

It will pass, honey. Don’t worry. There was more room for my breath. We gazed at each other for a handful of long, slow seconds— it was as if she was taking in this new version of me, holding up the visual of Beloved Mom next to this collapsed and slick-faced woman.

I said, May I hug you? She leaned in wordlessly, hid her face in my neck—right at the tangle of muscles that give me trouble—those tiny arms around my chest. I was conscious of my hands being too cold on her back as I gently rubbed along the grooves in her spine, fragile as a string of pearls.

Thank you, I said.

She took my hand and we walked down the hall to where her Rapunzel show was blaring to an empty room. Strange-but-perfectly, Michelle Obama came to mind, like the image of an angel or an archetype, so I switched it over to PBS where Michelle was reading, “Oh the Places You’ll Go,” by Dr. Seuss. I hadn’t read that book since high school, but it spoke directly to my insides, as things seem to do when you are ready to listen with your whole being.

By that point, I was still a little peculiar—as if I’d woken up from a long nap in the rain—but settled enough in my own skin, my own pressure valves safely in tact. 

Of course, I wasn’t thinking of it at the time, but every one of these unrehearsed instants is a moment of modeling for our kids. I wasn’t trying to hide my emotions from Ruth, they just felt larger than what I was comfortable with sharing with her tiny, inexperienced being. But it happened anyway, and Ruth got to see that I was finding my way through, bumps and all. And, most importantly, Ruth got to see that I came out the other side, fully intact, ready to tell the tale.

And ready for a hard drink.

But on you will go though the weather be foul. On you will go though your enemies prowl. On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl. Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak.          —Oh the Places You’ll Go, Dr. Seuss.

July 5, 2020

[momtemplative]

Fresh Windows.

The world is beginning to open up again.

I know this because we have guys here right now, upstairs, to fix our floor-to-ceiling window terrarium—that drafty, better-in-theory bit of architecture that every house on our block has had to reconcile. Too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer. A strange, glassy appendage that we’ve been scorning since the day we moved in.

(The scene as I write: our parakeet, Cleveland, is chirping behind me like he has something crucial to interject, like the man who blows into the party through wide-parting french doors. An episode of Fancy Nancy plays to my right, one of the few shows both of my daughters can enjoy in spite of the wide chasm of six-years between them. I hear Nancy use the word “pedestrian” and immediately vow to use that word more often. Ruth is eating a mini-ice cream cone, dipped in dark chocolate, the grand moment from which the rest of the day hinges.)

My environment, the basement corner that I set up a few years ago with a card table and chairs as a ‘creative space,’ suddenly feels dated and fading. My collection of owl figurines stare at me with empty eyes like “is this as good as it gets?” The framed photos—Tina Fey, sitting Zen-like in the midst of motherhood chaos, a killer collage Opal made from Mad Libs and Toca Boca stickers—look drab and dusty. The situation needs Amy Adams from Enchanted to flutter in with her princess gown, ultra-perky song and well-trained rodents to update the space and give everything a refresh.

That’s the thing about domains, habitats, environs. They can either be something you move through to get to the next thing, or they can be the end-point where you place yourself, reside, and settle. Locations provided for settling and residing require a bit more attention. I tell this to Jesse every time I am sick but still need to clean the room I’m resting in before I can recover.

On that note, back to the window box. We have hunkered down in this sweet little house for over three solid months, battening-down-the-family-hatches and maintaining a strict no-visitors-inside rule. We canceled the window-replacement twice before now because of COVID. Our home has become an insular place, feeling, at times, very separate from the outside world. 

Now, upstairs, they have literally blown out the front of our house, and I can feel it. 

When those old, tired windows came down, exposing the entire front room to the elements, the workers taped over the hole with plastic from the inside like a gaping wound. I imagine a cartoon aquarium, where one glass side is removed but the water holds on to its rectangular shape, edges and all, for longer than what makes sense, before it spills onto the floor, reluctantly, inevitably, like a singular wave extracted from the ocean.

That feels right as a metaphor for the re-emergence into society. The windows have come off, the glass has come down, and yet, I’m feeling slow to spill.

In one sense, I’m thrilled about the reopening. I’m thrilled about the prospect of school. I’m thrilled about having drinks with friends and one day getting back to work. It all has to happen incrementally, but I’m thrilled that it’s happening.

Yet, I don’t want to forget this time, have it fold into the larger creases of days/weeks/months, diluted and half-remembered. I want to collect a handful of mini-COVID narratives to share over dinner for years to come—sweet, technicolor ballads that my family can help me finish and that leave other listeners satisfied and longing for more. This quiet journey we’ve all taken in quarantine is worth something. I want to be deliberate in choosing the moments that are to be frozen in amber for generations to come.

Of course, we want life back to some semblance of normal, even as we see the numbers rising in Boulder and I feel we may be in for a longer hull than presumed. Of course, I want Ruth to get her play-fix with her peers so I don’t feel so on-the-hook for another round of Barbies and Dino and chase-me-in-circles. Even dear Opal, who has had her fair share of mixed feelings about school is asking, can we get on with it already? Of course, I want Ruth to feel free like a puppy off leash. Poor girl has been reacting to everything lately with the phrase, BUT I FEEL TRAPPED. 

Therein lies the feeling of ambivalence.

We have become accustomed to the echo of one another’s voices. We have taken play to grand levels of theatrics and commitment. We’ve made a fine art of over-the-fence social time. We’ve discovered new laughter-pitches in each other and ways to snuggle and tune-in and then take space when the closeness feels like too much. It’s been a masterclass in seeing-through-tough-emotions. We have come to know each other in a different, more soulful, way. 

I used to wake up every Saturday morning with anxiety, fearing the uncertainty of open space, craving the crutch of a schedule. Now, after having weathered 100+ Saturdays in a row—a veritable submersion boot-camp that I would have never signed up for voluntarily—I have grasped the fact that I can no more position myself to muscle through a day than a tree can man-up and brace itself for the wind. 

The girls have traveled a long and winding road during COVID, relationship-wise. Things have vacillated between being Best Friends—complete with hand-holding and a theme song—to Opal wanting to connect and Ruth saying NOPE and Ruth wanting to connect and Opal saying NO WAY, and back to Best Friends again. 

Relationships are a beautiful and strange dance, with or without a pandemic. But within these long and quiet days/weeks/months of COVID, we have had the involuntary opportunity to know each other with the rest of the world muted. The spaces in between the words, the thoughts, the movements—those were previously drowned out by the hubbub of our go-go-go situations. 

I certainly don’t plan to heave-ho into the way things were. The buzz and the headaches and the often feeling like there was not enough bandwidth to go beyond putting out the most superficial of fires. So much running, running, running. 

There has surely been some deep, meaningful value in these long, empty, at-home COVID weeks—value that could fortify future days, if we are intentional about it. 

June 27, 2020 

[momtemplative]

Puzzle Pieces.

1.  An Arm’s Reach Away

I am out in the RV as I write this, in the passenger seat, with the door open. My notebook is in an uncomfortable but sustainable position in my lap. The wind is going wild, but I’m fully contained, an animal happy to be in the nest of my cage. My pages don’t even quiver, legs are covered in a weighty blanket. It’s a perfect view from the inside, looking out. Safe and unthreatened.

But, crispy, near-dust leaves keep blowing in through my door and onto the page, like tiny reminders that I’m not separate from the Big World, as much as it can seem like that when inside the perimeters of 287 West Elm. I brush off the page, and more leaves promptly replace the original ones. It’s as if a coded conversation is taking place.

And my god, the wind sounds exquisite. When was the last time I slowed enough to really listen to the wind? Gusts like this are typically a thing to brace against, to muscle through. But to have a moment to really listen—the grand-sweeping ocean tones that gain momentum like timpani drums. The intricate rattling of the brittle leaves of the choke-cherry as light percussion, quick and flickering, an arm’s reach away.

2.  Inside Out

I am building a block tower with Ruth when I experience a sudden wave of melancholy, pronounced and map-able: starting at the forehead, dropping to the jaw, then to the back of the neck.

This heavy-looming cloud comes on hard and fast, like a baseball through the window. It supremely contrasts the easy, relaxed surroundings of our morning. It is immediately clear that these shadowy feelings have nothing to do with this moment in our home—they are seeping in from the Outside, bubbling up from the past.

Since the pandemic took over, roughly three months ago, the busy part of life—the external actions, the go-go-go—has been turned down, for better or for worse. And, as Thomas Moore says in a recording of his talk, On Writing, “when the external acts decrease, the internal acts increase.” 

I walk down our road and wonder, what’s percolating in that house? What’s being tended to and what’s being drowned in booze or snuffed out with weed? What grievances will get resolved by sheer exposure during this crisis? What issues will turn to full-blown explosions—behind closed doors as well as on the city streets—before they dissolve into the ethers, leaving nothing but room to move forward in a new way?

As these notions came to me, I had unconsciously grabbed Ruth’s toy pony and was petting it, smoothing its hair, again and again. I was off in another land, no idea how much time had passed as I worked through my own insides. Thankfully, Ruth is lost in her own playtime moment, too, facing the other way. She is the voice of four different dolls engaged in a complex discussion about needing to share. 

3.  Messes

I’m typing at breakneck speed with the few moments I have left before Jesse needs to get ready for work (at home) and I make my way into the day. My half-mug of green tea is ice cold. My eyes are puffy, framed by tiny pink tubes because of Ruth’s current nocturnal tendencies, and the inside of my face vibrates with exhaustion. Long, heavy eye-blinks. And the short moments of visual blackout are, mercifully, empty.

Many hours later, I wait until Ruth looks busy with her Playmobil set and pull out my laptop. The instant my gaze shifts ever-so-slightly to my computer screen, she sits on the edge of the tray with countless tiny pieces, launching them into the air like the detonation of a toy box. Next thing, I clock in twenty minutes cleaning up the spill. Then, without thinking, I gulp down three squares of dark chocolate (as one of the few things I can control, and because it is too early to drink), down-the-hatch, like a vitamin.

There was a meme going around on Facebook: Cleaning with a toddler is like brushing your teeth while you are eating Oreos. 

This sentence struck me with as much spot-on-ness as any spiritual text ever has. Something about just naming it. Granted, Ruth is not a toddler anymore, but she is still the queen of dumping out, un-doing and requiring a constant stream of re-starts for my to-do list, especially where clean-up is involved. 

Magic sand in the fresh-vacuumed carpet? Playdoh in water then smeared onto her arm like a spa-day treatment requiring bath #2? Laundry basket full of clean, folded clothes emptied into a mountain on the floor and used as a turtle shell? OREOS! I will yell, and Jesse will understand from the other room and I will instantly feel better.

It seems like just so much terrain to cover in these lengthy days, let alone try and keep it tidy. These ordinary moments are occupied by aggravation, empathy, my talkative physical body (looking at you, neck and jaw!), the body of my wild-puppy preschooler, suppressed laughter, expressed laughter, suppressed annoyance, expressed annoyance, claustrophobia, pockets of heavy-heartedness, free-floating joy—all the organic stuff that repels sanitization. It is all here. Like peeking into a dumpster or a dirty closet and seeing the entire universe.

[momtemplative]

Summertime.

Summertime is fucking awesome for a kid.

I remember entire days—chunks of days— that were spent at the pool, with Will Smith’s SummaSummaSummaTime bumping through the loud speakers while we ate nachos with fake cheese for lunch with our wrinkly, chlorine-sodden fingers. For months, everything smelled with a hint of chlorine and freedom. Open expanses of time were glorious.

Then I had kids. 

With kids and summer, there is a lot to consider, a grand choreography to uphold. I always lose sleep before summer. It feels as if my role jumps from “parent” to “coordinator of peace and good times for three straight months,” (even typing all that was exhausting), where everyone is entertained, but not too entertained, happy, but not overly happy, everyone has a routine, but plenty of time for spontaneity, and so on! YAY!

Like all grand puppet-masters, I feel deeply anxious before the show even begins. Damn you, summer!

Summer is just the right length where we can get through it, at times gliding through mercifully, at times, hanging on to all the tow-ropes and oh-shit handles we can find along the way. The number of kid meltdowns and sibling fista-cuffs greatly increases as we near the finish line. The phrase, “We’ll try and get you some space,” is utilized daily. Then, when school starts again, we all heave a sigh of relief that is audible for blocks. 

I wasn’t fully aware of the amount of time and energy that went to keeping the machine-of-summer afloat. Until COVID and our involuntary exposure therapy. We were thrust into “summer” two-and-a-half months early, without warning and without any external supports. It felt like some bizarre test in endurance. Like our human capacity for resilience was being evaluated for future generations. There was no more just getting through. We were thrown in way too deep for that. We had to figure out how to function, how to grow and maintain sanity because, for this version of summer, there really is no finish line.

After the first two COVID-weeks of being at home with the kids, no work or school (or online school at that point), no activities or playdates, no outside world to depend on, I fell apart. As in, to pieces—the way one does when they are trying to hold everything together. The uptick in fights, tantrums and explosive emotions, with no end in sight, was too much to process.

After a few hours of wallowing, I picked myself up and pulled down a pile of books from the shelf that have added perspective in the past—Siblings without Rivalry, The Wisdom of No Escape, Care of the Soul. The words were nice, but nothing cut through the wall of despondency. So I pulled out my phone and searched “Siblings Fighting” on my Janet Lansbury podcast, smearing tears as I went.

(A note here on Janet Lansbury. As a parent of young kids, no one person has benefited my faculties, mental health and wit more than Janet. Her podcast is rich with real-life wisdom that changes the experience of parenthood for the better.)

In the random sibling-titled podcast that I discovered—from years ago, but still, obviously, totally current—Janet was replying to a woman who had three young kids and was losing her mind trying to maintain tranquility in her house. The woman said something to the effect of, it would have been so much easier if I’d only had one.

To this, Janet replied with what felt, to me, like a beautiful and classic snap-out-of-it moment. She said, No. I disagree. Followed by something to the order of this: When you have one child, you can still live under the illusion that you can keep everyone happy. When you have two kids, you start to see that it’s really tough, damn near impossible, to keep everyone happy and peaceful, but you may still try. With three kids, you have the gift of experiencing first hand that the jig is up! No matter what kind of tiny-statue-winning show you maintain, there is no way in hell you can keep three young kids peaceful all the time. So you are forced to stop trying. 

I came to the conclusion that COVID is my third child. 

And with that thought—like the scene in Mary Poppins where the messy room gets magically tidied as if from an internal intelligence all its own—my insides were completely fresh, organized, and updated. My energy quadrupled.

With the externals turned down, with nowhere to go, and all of us cohabiting the same tiny shoebox of a house, it’s not going to be business-as-usual for quite some time. And we’ll all fare better with adjusted expectations. We are all in a fishbowl and, while clocking in endless hours together, I saw right-quick the laundry lists of things I feigned having control of: my girls and their interactions, potty training for Ruth, the weather (which rules if we can or cannot get outside), my mood, Jesse’s mood. 

Janet says, wake up expecting turmoil—then you won't make it your job to live free of it, get rid of it, fix it, numb it. Discord is healthy. Emotions are healthier. Don’t dive in and ride the waves with your kids, stand back and watch, give them space, be there for them to come back to shore. The last thing they need is a mom who is also out of breath, scraped up and with sand in her ears. I don’t need to be Queen Empress of their journey as siblings. I don’t need to have a say in every nuance, every detail and pixel of this habitat. 

And, she says, give yourself permission to flounder, too. Always, but especially right now. Some moments just feel brutally claustrophobic—we can be ready for that. A few days ago, I started crying while Jesse was giving me a shoulder massage. No warning, just did. I had a major-headache and I couldn’t think straight. Opal said, “Mom, are you crying?” SO defensive, I said, “I feel like I’m under a magnifying glass!” and ran out of the room. And sometimes it just goes like that. (I apologized to Opal soon thereafter.) If my emotions are coming out sideways like this—at 42 and with thousands of dollars under my belt spent on therapy—imagine what our sweet kiddos are going through!

And sometimes things settle organically into their rightful place, without force or manipulation. Today, I was lying on the floor in the hallway—not an unusual sight in the middle of the day for me to have my legs up a wall for a short period of time. This time, Ruth was in the bathroom in the tub, the door open to my right. She was acting out a full drama with her Elsa and Anna barbies. Opal was behind her bedroom door, which was closed, reachable by raising my right arm. She was doing her singing lessons over Skype, crooning her gorgeous little heart out. Jesse was behind door number three, our closed bedroom door, easily reached by my left hand. He was talking on the phone in hushed tones to who-knows-who. Three completely separate worlds were happening peacefully, simultaneously, all within my arm’s reach. It was a tiny little subculture, and I was in the middle, observant and spacious, not expending even the slightest molecule of energy. 

If anything, I was bolstered as a part of this whole, the Grimes system, my family.  And there were a few cherished minutes to get lost inside of that settled feeling, which is becoming less and less rare, before Ruth hollered that she needed to pee and I snapped back to attention. 

So here we are, nearing the end of the first official week of summer. No public pool or Will Smith or finger-paint-yellow nacho cheese. I can’t quite fathom a summer without any of the norms—camps and playdates and travel. For now, no public places, parks, or our blessed little library.

Things are starting to slowly open again, though I suppose they have been for weeks now. We have taken two magnificent walks with our close friends—socially distanced and masked. It’s still strange, but a step forward, no doubt. Cultivating moments of connection like these, situations hinged in community—even if virtual—are key in maintaining some sense of equanimity as time moves forward. 

(PS: This is utterly different from the work of the puppet-master.)

Though time feels anything but linear. I flash-forward to the image of my daughters ten, twenty, years from now, reminiscing about the COVID era with their friends. (Six feet apart on walks, remember? The masks, OMG, the MASKS!) I think back to when I was a kid and scour the already-murky memories for some example of a comparable viewpoint, something I can offer to my girls, tell them I had been through something similar when I was their age. But I come up with nothing, nada. 

We are all writing this story as we go.

May 27, 2020

[momtemplative]

The Tender Stuff Inside.

(Photo: that’s me with my favorite doll, Joey.)

The girls blast into my bedroom, where I’m writing. They are like a gorgeous little whirlwind, circling each other, braiding their paths to get to the cat. It’s early morning, so they are still in their jammies. Opal in her Snoopy T-shirt and unicorn shorts. Ruth in polka-dots from head-to-toe. Both with their own respective brand of bedhead—Ruth’s is a bird nest in back, Opal’s is yarny in front. They are the raw kind of perfection that unwittingly holds your gaze longer than typical. They pet the cat, who is abruptly awoken from her slumber at the end of our bed, and they chase after her as she jumps and runs down the hall. The two of them are gone as fast as they came, the room soundless in their wake, and me, bemused.

This led me to think about my parents. How they must have looked at my sister and I in this way, in the mornings when we were young, fresh-hatched, pure in our dishevelment. And that thought eased something deep in me, as if my parents and I were sitting on the same side of the table, enjoying a bit of inside information. 

When I turned back to my notebook, I considered this common moment of primal adoration that all parents are wired to feel, extra potent just after their children have awoken from sleep—that indescribably vulnerable place. The previous night, you may have wanted to send them packing. But in the morning, with the bedhead and the softness, all bets are off. They are precious and they are yours.

And to my great surprise, this line of thinking led me directly to Donald Trump. It took some waxing and imagination, but there it was. I thought of when his kids were young and not yet calcified into toxic mini-me’s of Trump’s breathtaking narcissism and greed. What would he have been like? 

I see a young Ivanka (Ruth’s age) come around the corner, early in the morning, with her version of bedhead, puffy cheeks and eyes that have yet to lock into the hyper-focus that is required on the day-side of lucidity. I see Donald (Daddy, does she call him? Father?) sit up in bed and look at her with astonishing humanity—the kind of genuine father’s smile that can continue to fortify her, years later, when she is a struggling teen. 

When I imagine Trump as a father, doting and warm, if only for a moment, it’s as if a bulldozer has barreled over and demolished each page of the news that reports another lie, another act of denial, another self-serving, bullying choice, that benefits only a very few and sends the rest out to pasture. 

Somehow, turning back the clock and imagining him before, feels impactful to my own psyche. Beneath the unhinged song-and-dance of our current POTUS, visualizing him in the thralls of a lovely and truly involuntary father-experience allows for a view—fiction or not—of the tender stuff inside. 

June 8, 2020

[momtemplative]

Watching My Diet.

Of Words and Images, That Is.

As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested.—Oscar Wilde, from The Picture of Dorian Gray.

1.

When I was pregnant, I was astounded by the amount of shit-advice people felt entitled to force upon me, thanks to the visual whistle-blower of my growing belly.

I kept the book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin next to my bed like a sacred text. The second half of the book contains a collection of empowered women sharing inspiring stories of their natural birth experiences. I read at least one story every night to off-set the deflating stories that were pushed at me. (One, still clear as day in my mind over a decade later, came from a woman who had never had kids! She said, in low tones and with concern in her eyes, “It’s the most painful thing you will ever experience. You WILL NEED DRUGS.”) 

I would often fall asleep with Ina May’s book on my chest, thinking maybe the positive messages would cause seep into my being, like a topical treatment.

Now, during the era of COVID19, the news is an IV drip of mounting catastrophe into all of our collective veins. And the way we receive news during these current times is 24-7, on screens, visual, relentless and without limits. (PS: as said in Time, “media images can be so intense that they can cause symptoms of acute stress or even PTSD.”) 

Like many, I find myself falling into the habit of using my few-far-between windows of space to either read updates from the Post and the Times, or to check social media. While informative at best, these word-venues are, nutrient-wise, anemic crumbs not suitable for a bottom-feeder.

So why the impulse to keep going back?

According to Time Magazine, “The human brain is wired to pay attention to information that scares or unsettles us—a concept known as “negativity bias“. Meaning, our brains are predisposed to go negative, and the news we consume reflects this.”

On a personal level, my intake of news is rising by the day—sometimes seemingly out of my control. I’ll just be grabbing my phone to check the weather and suddenly I’m well into an article on the pandemic, as if in a trance. 

Without clear boundaries and a bit of mindfulness, the news and media we are ingesting can be far more toxic than beneficial. The effects of constant negative-news consumption are real and complex. 

And I feel the wear-and-tear in my mental state, to be sure. I’ve been taking in the news every night, just before bed, via my tiny phone screen as if that makes it less potent and more manageable. Not the case. I can easily slip into helplessness, along with tasting the vinegar of potent rage in the back of my throat, even as I’m trying to settle in for sleep. 

Anxiety and stress create cortisol, which can wreak havoc throughout the physical body and beyond. My neck and shoulders feel like they are clutching with white-knuckles for some unseen disaster, pretty much all the time. Yoga and breathing provides a world of help while doing it, but the muscle memory is so deep, that the bad patterns often return within moments of back-to-life.

This is not to say the solution is to bypass the news entirely. But if we are in this for the long haul, deliberate choices need to be made, for the stability of everyone.

2.

Last week, my dear friend, Steph, mailed a box of crafting goodies to my girls. An eclectic mix of junk-drawer extractions and art things—things that have the potential to clutter up a house. But, when assembled in a package with intention and love, feel like vintage treasures from another world. Girl scout patches, circa the early 1990’s, ribbon in original packaging from the Carter administration, an untethered bouquet of white plastic glitter flowers. And in the midst of this treasure chest: a hardcover copy of the Oscar Wilde book, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

It was a fancy, old-timey edition that I had read through and written-in during college, using the same red ink from the same red pen the whole way through. My handwriting is young—an un-mastered version of my current script. But my brain is searching and inquisitive. I’m not sure why Steph wound up with the book, but there was a time when I passed out Oscar Wilde books like a communist would pass out propaganda and I likely forced it upon her.

Back then—over twenty years ago, more than half my current age—Oscar Wilde spoke to me in a way I was not accustomed to being spoken to, and brought about feelings that literature rarely provided. I indulged in Him, collected photos, quotes, and bought multiple used copies of his books. He became an unwitting spiritual guide of sorts. I carried the story of his tragic incarceration and subsequent death with me the way a god-fearing man would hold the image of Jesus’ crucifixion close to his heart. If they sold Oscar Wilde on a necklace, I’d have bought one, for sure.

Placing my hands on the cover of that book—while my girls squealed and unpacked the rest of the boxed treasures—was not far from the feeling of placing my hands on a body to massage. Flesh—living, breathing flesh. Cracking open the book brought with it not only the slight sigh that takes place in the inner ear during a good stretch, but also a swell of emotions. I flipped through the pages, feeling saved.

The article, What You Read Matters More Than You Might Think, in Psychology Today discusses the difference between “deep and light reading.” Deep reading is defined as reading that is slow, immersive, rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity. It is distinctive from light reading, which is little more than the decoding of words. The author continues by saying deep reading is great exercise for the brain and has been shown to increase empathy, as well as inspiring reflection, analysis, and personal subtext to what is being read. 

A passage from The Picture of Dorian Gray—”Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there is in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”

Another passage (how can I resist?): “In this country, it is enough for a man to have distinction and brains for every common tongue too wag against him. And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.”

How I missed that man. And what a time for him to pay a visit.

3. 

Last weekend, I was feeling particularly ill-at-ease. My speech had edges like so many sharp river rocks. Tears and sadness rotated through in unpredictable gusts. 

On the particular day I refer to, a book called Ordinary Magic, Everyday Life As Spiritual Path all but did a swan dive from my bookshelf and landed at my feet. The cover-image was dated and sun-bleached. The font and spacing came directly from the early 90’s, which is when it was published. I have a vague memory of buying this book at Half-Priced Books in Columbus, just before I made my move out west, in 2002, eighteen years ago. It’s a collection of Buddhist essays that focus on sectioned-out, topics—creativity and community, for example. It did not take long to realize that the editor, John Welwood, steals the whole dang show. His intros to each chapter sparkle with the quiet wisdom of one who is not the headliner, but knows his own worthiness.

(As with Oscar Wilde, I could include countless quotable phrases, but a taste is all you need.) In his introduction to the creativity essays, Welwood said, “By being still and receptive, instead of busily trying to find solutions, we give our intelligence the time and space it needs to find an appropriate way to proceed.” I read that line and gently set the book on my lap to take pause and think to myself, Thank god.

Another account of being liberated by the right words.

The Unknowing. Yes, that is the landscape we all inhabit now. How do we work with such potent feelings of lack-of-control? A classic solution would be to distract the hell out of ourselves so the low hum of anxiety doesn’t seem as loud. Or, we could try to re-frame our reaction, teach the brain that there could be another approach. 

Our lives are, in many ways, on hold as we await a vaccine to protect our collective physical health. But our mental health is not on hold. Our intellect is under non-stop media siege and our sanity begs to be nourished and protected now more than ever. An essential piece of that puzzle (the puzzle of avoiding going clinical insane, that is)—more so than what’s contained in a bottle or that can be purchased online with a credit card—may very well already live on our bookshelf.

John Welwood also said, “What is fresh and alive comes only from the unknown.” I’m pretty sure I’m going to have that phrase tattooed on my forearm  in old-english script after this whole thing is over. 

May 17, 2020

[momtemplative]

Once Upon a Time.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there lived a Grammy and a Grampy who lived in a wonderful house in Boulder, Colorado. Two young girls, who happen to also be my kids, would come to visit them every Wednesday afternoon. Grammy would meet them at the front door with big hugs and their favorite lemonade in the fridge and their favorite snacks and fruit in bowls on the table. Their mom, who happens to be me, would then go to work massaging old people and then have the rest of the night to herself, time she would fill with heavenly kid-free activities—she would often see a movie in the theater or meet a friend for a drink, or maybe have an acupuncture appointment or hit the library for some writing. Such luxuries! Their dad would bring the girls home and put them to bed, and it would all seem so balanced and beneficial for everyone.

Then, abruptly, most of the parts of that simple paragraph were no more, as are most of the parts of many of the paragraphs for most people. No Grammy and Grampy’s house. No old people to massage. No movie in the theater or friends to chat with in-person or acupuncture or library. Two months later, we ask ourselves, is this the new normal?

Last week, I visited my in-laws for the first time since early March. Opal (she already visited them the previous week with Jesse) and I drove to their house in North Boulder, parked on the street out front, and sat on the sidewalk next to my car, using it for shade. It was toasty in the sun. The maple tree in their front yard still had no leaves to soften the emboldened springtime rays. Grammy brought a chair out into the yard that looked like it belonged in the lobby of a haunted hotel, wooden and upholstered—a benign artifact when out in the light of day. She plopped down. She mentioned the warmth a number of times, while wearing a thick yellow sweater, dark pants and heavy, black shoes.

Opal pulled her booster seat from the car and used it as a pseudo-stool while I sat on the sidewalk with my legs in a V (while Opal concerned herself with the red ants circling my bare knees). We joked that if this went on for much longer, we’d have to equip ourselves with more advanced accouterments for front yard hang-time. I just read about how people are now starting to use masks as a form of boutique expression—sewing sequins and affixing the fabric with dried flowers, like facial art. COVID lawn furniture could be the same: custom-made social distancing party goods—fancy awnings with RV lights, swanky travel chairs and shag-carpet lawn rugs. Kanye could develop his own line. There could be catalogues to order from.

For now, though, the front yard presented more classic, minimalistic furnishings. Grammy brought us a plate of fresh cookies and placed them at the halfway point between us on the lawn. Then she returned to her chair to sit down. I got up and put the goods in my front seat. Then, a moment later, Grammy remembered a few more things. She disappeared into the house, returned, and placed a bag of spicy chips from Trader Joes and a loaf of fresh local sourdough bread at the halfway point, and sat down again.

Nothing like this can happen with Ruth in the equation. She’s four. She would block, slow and question every minuscule action with a sort of stop-motion interrogation. Why are you doing it like that? Why does it look like this? Why is everyone acting so weird?

Ruth hasn’t seen her grandparents since early March. She doesn’t understand social distancing and masks are for Halloween. As for hand washing, well, she still picks her nose constantly. So we’ve kept her visits to video chats only.

While at Grammy and Grampy’s, our time went on like this, with Grammy dropping off merchandise for us in the yard before our very eyes, at least five times, like a part of some wonderful off-tempo choreography. We laughed and chatted as it went. When Grampy came too close with the oranges for Opal, she said— “Freeze! Leave them there on the grass please and my mom will pick them up.”

To that, all the grown-ups shared a sweet, impressed look. My expression said: Wow, the ten-year-old has more confidence and command around protocols then the cotton-picking president.

All the while, bees circled the hundreds of dandelions; they’d land, relocate, land, and relocate. The peony bush just began to launch forth. I know what glamorous blossoms it will grow up to have—soft pink ruffles like a doll dress growing upwards. But for now, it had a dozen stalks with finger leaves reaching, unabashedly, for nourishment.

Tiny purple flowers peppered the lawn, less like the star of the show and more like shading for a backdrop. Opal picked one and handed it to me, and it struck me as a tiny cluster of purple balloons.

I considered for a moment what kind of fairytale world would support a tiny purple balloon cluster. Then, Grammy sat down another pile of goods for us on the lawn. This batch was arts and crafts to take home for the girls to play with, together, and without her.

Everyone is doing the Grandparent Experience differently. It’s a supremely individual thing. Some friends have grandparents living in the same house with them and their children. Some friends continued to visit with grandparents, even as the other compartments of their social lives shut down. Some, like us, agreed with the grandparents on the importance of keeping our distance. (My parents live in Ohio, 2,000 miles down the road, so distance is built in to the equation. Insert sigh here.*)

Our little family-of-four has, for the last eight weeks, spent the lion share of our time in the house. We are (presumably) not little fleshy vectors of contagion. Hell, we are more pristine and untouched by the outside world as we have ever been or likely ever will be. Even if Ruth cannot keep her distance (or her fingers out of her nose), now seems to be a pocket of time when the stars are aligned for us to be the safest to come in contact with.

Add on the fact that Trump is determined to ‘liberate’ the world—May 1 was his target date—and that many local businesses are lighting their OPEN signs (though I don’t plan to get a haircut anytime soon), it does seems like the next conversation to be had is, when’s the grandparent party and who’s bringing the sangria?

I checked in with the oracle of the internet to see if I was on the same page as the rest of the country. But, as per usual for the duration of this craziness, I found myself searching for answers from a vacuum of uninformative noise. I keep hearing, “Let the states decide,” but there is nothing from Polis except that he is joining the republican governors to reopen many non-essential businesses, and that he has a plan. There was much written about taking precautions with grandparents at the beginning of the story, back in March. Lifetimes ago. 

The only thing I could find that has been posted since March (and it’s May!) was an excerpt from a larger article from April 21, from a website called CNET. (—?) Two small paragraphs about visiting the elderly—“While the decision to hang out with your grandparents is a personal one to be made by your family, just remember that these are the people who are most at risk at developing a serious and potentially fatal illness if infected with the novel coronavirus.” Buzzkill.

A few things to consider:

1.  We could all be silent carriers. From the Associated Press: “A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, which means it’s impossible to know who around you may be contagious. That complicates decisions about returning to work, school and normal life.”

2. With the impending re-opening of businesses and retailers, comes more exposure for all of us. Flash forward to fall, when schools start again and the kids are on top of one another, we’ll be much more likely to be silent (or loud) carriers than we are now. What this all says to me is, we better get on with it! Knowing full well that we will likely need to dial back the interactions and reinforce more social distancing come fall and the presumed second wave.

3.  It’s been proven that the virus is much more likely to be contracted while inside, and that outside is a much safer option for (socially distant) meeting. Seems obvious but good to consider. And thank god it’s spring.

The conversation across my in-laws’ lawn veered in numerous directions. It was the most satisfying of small-talk bits, precious little morsels that, during a typical era, would have likely gone overlooked. We were catching up, which is something you don’t typically have a chance to do with local family. (Also to be noted, we were without the fantastic but impressively distracting Ruth.)

Grammy asked if she could come and park on our street and watch the girls play in the front yard from her car. 

Grampy said, “Yea, I wonder when we can start doing Wednesdays again. I miss Wednesdays.” Then, he rolled down the driveway on his bike, a white scarf around his face that, with the shades, made him look like an outlaw.

“Soon,” I said. “Hopefully, soon.”

[momtemplative]

A COVID mammogram.

I hadn’t stood among people in so long that the idea seemed ludicrous. And terrifying. I hadn’t been out in a public place in over six weeks. (Jesse does the weekly grocery shopping.) When Jesse asked if I was nervous about my mammogram appointment, I said, no. But I was nervous about going to a hospital—germ kingdom—and being in such close proximity with people who are in such continuous close proximity with sick people. I’m most certainly not alone with those concerns; I had just been reading about how it is becoming more common for people to avoid medical care due to fears of COVID, and how dangerous this can be. So, reluctantly, I kept my appointment. 

When it was suddenly the day before, it occurred to me that I needed a little practice run. I needed to see that people in small, spread-out groups were not so scary, just people and not vicious germ-spreaders. (Hopefully.) So I geared up with hand goop, sani-wipes and my cloth mask and headed to Home Depot for some flowers. My nerves rattled steadily from the moment I left my driveway to the moment I pulled into the parking lot. 

There were a ton of cars. Why did I think it would be empty? My shoulders hiked into my ears as I pulled into a parking spot. I video-chatted to a friend as I sat there, as if I were making a recording for myself: “You can do this. All these people just want plants like you. And mulch. You are all here for the same reason. Get on with it!” (A teacher of mine from long ago used to make herself motivational self-talk videos. I recently watched quite a few, so that concept was fresh on my mind.)

The sky was doing a heavy, melancholy thing—purple-grey clouds swirling like low-hanging thoughts. The wind hit me with an obnoxious gust as I exited the car, like when Ruth sneaks up on me and guerrilla-attacks my hair, leaving me looking disheveled and dumb. I returned to my car twice before I finally committed to a cart.

There was a young kid, probably college-aged, sitting alone in his car, with his windows up, as I walked through the parking lot. My first instinct was annoyance that he didn’t have a mask on, then logic slowly caught up to remind me that he was indeed, in his rolled-up car. I instantly changed gears to take pleasure in seeing his chin, his full-face, rather. I had the instinct to yell through his window, “Nice to see your face!” with a thumbs up, while wearing my mask, but I thought better of it. It isn’t until now that I write this that I step back to look at myself, thinking, dear god, what has become of this woman?

I’m pleased to report that everyone had masks on. Good thing, because this was one of those particular outings that I guarantee I would’ve straight-up judged someone’s character based on whether or not they were wearing a mask.

There was not much inventory in the outdoor section and that was just as well. I  only wanted a few pretty things to plant. And to be out in the world again. I grabbed a few small pots of blue-purple plants with tiny petals, a few magenta snapdragons for Ruth, and for Opal, the most insanely violet peony I have ever seen. (It reminded me of the African Violets my grandmother, Lenna, used to always have in little pink plastic pots in her sunroom. Same eye-straining shade of purple.) Then I broke my back on two bags of soil.

My Home Depot experience was lack-luster and underwhelming, as I suppose, is optimal. The outside cashier had a tag on that said, “I CARE about you, please stand 6-feet away.” This was impossible to pull off while paying. Two humans, (at least one with very conflicting feelings), two masks, two feet away. For the record, the cashier was wearing shorts and had a tattoo of a giant spider that covered the back of his entire right calf muscle. I had the thought, “He had the tattoo before COVID and he’ll still have that sucker after it’s all over.” 

On paper: a success. Like taking a newborn baby to Target for the first time, or coming out of a long illness to get back to work. But I could feel a headache creeping up from the base of my skull. I wanted to just curl up in my car and recover.

The next day.

Signs that read HEROS WORK HERE lined the entrance of Avista Hospital like political signs during a campaign.

The main entrance was closed, a printed sign pointed me to the ER entrance. What did I envision behind the closed doors?  A bustling scene of gun-shot wounds and blood-sodden bandages, dozens of people bent over coughing like they swallowed gravel? The mind is an amazing thing. And more than ever, I am seeing the power (and danger) of speculation.

What was behind the sliding door to the ER was, in fact, a quiet scene of two ladies behind a counter, staring at oversized computer monitors, wearing masks. There was also an RN named Justin (as said his name badge), in a face-mask, standing close to the entrance. I took a moment to absorb it all, and as I turned his way, he was already pointing a purple thermometer at my forehead. “Oh, hey—” I said, muffled behind the mask. I must’ve passed because he handed me a green circle sticker that said something in Spanish. I liked these people. 

Next stop was the lady who had me sign all the papers—also named Heather. I remembered her from my last mammogram because of her name. And her hair, which was sprayed solid into a perfect 80′s feather, on the top and sides. The back, however, was long and straight and hung free of chemicals. This time, her facemask cut perfectly between the calcified feather-layers, which I took in as a delightful detail.

Side doors led me to the main entrance of the hospital, where it is usually bustling like Union Station. But it was empty, quiet like the streets of a ghost town, save for a janitor in an orange vest and surgical mask.  

Typically, the mammography office is stocked with magazines of the sort I would never purchase on my own accord—People, Us, Vanity Fair, Oprah—so I purposefully neglected to bring anything to read. But today, the magazine rack was empty, except for one laminated sign saying “No Magazines Due to COVID.” I also forgot a bottle of water (I’m out of practice for packing for the outside world) but breathed a sigh of relief when I remembered the basket of bottled water the mammography office keeps by the door. However today, no water. The Keurig machine was covered in a white sheet as if it had died. I was instructed by Jesse to touch my phone only when absolutely necessary, so I sat quietly and looked at the wall.

The sum total of ladies in the waiting room was only me, unless you count the woman ahead of me who barely sat down before they called her name: “Hi-roo?” Then as they walked down the hall, they said, “Oh, sorry, it says here you go by Lucy.”

I sat by myself in the waiting room for near a half-hour. I’m not sure what Lucy had going on but it took a while. NO complaints, I was happy as a clam to just sit on my ass and think about filling the four corners of my torso with breath. There were four chairs in a row on each side of the room, but the two middle chairs of each were caution-taped off with scotch tape, so people could only sit on either end. 

After the mammogram—which is uncomfortable to begin with, but throw in wearing Jesse’s N-95 mask and it was downright obnoxious—I sat for another 20 minutes in the examination room and waited for the results. No magazines, no phone, only the hum of the radiology machine and the shwoosh of the waves that played in a relaxing nature video on the wall behind my head. 

I turned my chair around to have a better view of the waves and considered the strange and unexpected calm I had felt in my body since the moment I entered the hospital—in spite of the boob-smooshing mammo, uncomfortable mask, and being in very close proximity to other (highly exposed) nurses. 

My assessment: this was the affect of clear-enforced protocols. 

It made me think of how we, as a culture, have been children without a parent (or with one highly dysfunctional one) in this pandemic. We are given unclear rules that some of us follow, some of us rebel against, and that leaves everyone in a state of high-alert exhaustion and confusion.

The radiology tech returned and said, “It all looks great!” before promptly excusing herself so I could get dressed. What a fucking relief.

I slid my mask off and put in on the counter in order to put my shirt back on. Then, I realized what I had done, and lurched for it with a slow-motion grab—Nooooooo—and the peace and perspective I’d just been cultivating shattered in an instant. I was mortified.

But then, I wasn’t. 

I laughed, quiet but out loud. Softening with myself, at the utter inconceivability of getting it all right. The troubling impact of the hyper-germ-awareness boot camp we’ve all undergone over the last 6-weeks-plus was apparent. 

Then I thought of an image I saw in the Washington Post, of people on the beaches of Florida that reopened this week. One beach in particular was teeming with scantily clad people, holding beers and standing too close, and not a single mask in sight. It glared with the phrase FUCK IT ALL, WE’LL DO AS WE DAMN WELL PLEASE.

It makes me think of the kids at the park, back when we went to parks, who run amuck and fend for themselves while their parents are absorbed in their phones. Poor dears, scrambling for guidance.

[momtemplative]

MASKED.

1.

In a house with two young kids, our quickest sanity-stabilizer in this COVID era was to head outside and go for a walk, or a bike ride, or to roller skate. We’d pay close attention to the proximity of passers-by, but typically the grassy fields by the bike paths were an open canvas for the kids to blow off some steam. And we’d all return home a bit winded and slightly more stable. 

Then, a little more than two weeks ago, a strong recommendation came from Governor Polis for everyone to wear masks in public. But what, pray-tell, was “public” referring to? 

Here’s what the CDC endorsed: wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.

So that’s what we assumed Polis recommended as well. That night we even had a happy hour gathering with our neighbors, all at least 6-feet-away, but without masks. We didn’t feel like we were being sneaky or non-compliant, we were simply following the guidelines as we understood them. 

But then we started seeing people in their yards wearing masks, and on walks wearing masks— in addition to 6-feet! There was an eerie infiltration of mask-wearers, and, with that, the non-verbal communication of an abrupt change of protocol. Our sacred, oft-traveled, 1,000-step bike path that loops around the block started to feel unfamiliar, as if it were a movie set peppered with strangers, wearing homemade cloth curtains over their cheeks. 

We quickly felt like a minority out there with our bare faces.

2.

An afternoon walk was once a favorite time of day—quarantine or not. Quickly though, in light of the current mask situation, and before I began to wear one, my brain started to get stuck in a grinding pattern of managing everyone else’s whereabouts in accordance with my own. I noticed that I was judging those who were masked, at least in part because I was sure they were judging me. 

Their judgment and my judgment felt cut from the same cloth: judgement as a way of controlling the uncontrollable. There is so much confusion about protocols. So much fear of the radio broadcast of white noise and speculation that is to be our future. All these feelings get lumped together into just trying to do it right. I returned from one particular walk stiff as a board and deeply grumpy.

“Jesse,” I said, “I’m not going on a walk again without a mask.”

3.

I opted out of any domestic sewing of masks at first, and started with my old-lady cardigan tied around my face like a waist. I then upgraded to a bedazzled bandana that I bought to fill Opal’s Easter basket last year. I love the happy fabric, but it wouldn’t stay up over my nose for anything beyond the liquor drive-through (my singular biweekly errand). Store-bought masks are not an option. They’ve been back-ordered for weeks and if the stock is replenished, it needs to be saved for the blessed healthcare workers.

By the next weekend, Jesse and Opal wore masks that they made from a YouTube video, using mustard-yellow t-shirts and rubber bands, while on a bike ride. That ride turned out to be very brief because, according to Opal, it was so hard to breathe. 

4.

The solidarity and confidence that come from wearing a mask are helpful and significant, sure. But the act of wearing a mask changes the experience entirely. 

On a purely physical level, it muddles your peripheral vision, steams up your glasses, makes it hot and very hard to breathe. 

On a social-emotional level, the masks create a real separation between people. It feels similar to being at a costume party—even if the invite list includes most of your friends, everyone is suddenly anonymous. 

I walked behind two people (in masks) and a dog from a block away that I thought were my beloved next door neighbors. I even hollered at them. (They didn't hear me.) Then I got closer and realized it was a different dog and very much not my neighbors. It’s all very disorienting.  

5.

One week in, and Opal has taken Polis’s suggestion as gospel. Of course, I don’t blame her. Sometimes when we are out and about, so is the rest of the neighborhood. During those times, the mask feels safe and dare-I-say comforting. (Like we are good, complaint citizens. Go us.) But other times, there is nobody outside. I tell Opal, “Sweetie, we can keep our masks around our chins until we see someone (dozens of feet away!) and then put up our masks.” 

Opal’s reply: NOT A CHANCE.

I try to imagine what it would be like to experience all this at age ten. What other such details has her system become accustomed to over the last month? Zoom call playdates, online school, little sister around all-the-effing-time. Maybe some feelings come out sideways? Maybe everything seems overwhelming and busy even though very little is happening?

In the olden days, before COVID, any sort of outdoor trek was soul-nourishing for all of us. It ticks a lot of boxes: sunshine, fresh air, exercise for me and the dog and the kids, a brain reset. Now, masked, such an activity is beyond taxing. Ruth has no desire to keep her mask on and she’s a runner. We can bribe her with a lollipop to stay in the stroller, but the girth of the BOB, along with the leashed (80-pound) dog requires skill and intentional footing on an average day. Trying to juggle it all through a face-drape is the emotional equivalent of walking through tar. A guaranteed headache.

Returning to our backyard, with its creaky swingset and patchwork yard, and removing our masks (along with the associated invisible constraints) is beyond restorative.

“That’s the best part about a mask,” Opal said. “Taking it off and having the air taste so fresh and cold again.”

6.

On Sunday morning—a few days ago and two solid weeks into the mask-in-public rules of conduct—the kids were scattered on the floor watching Frozen while I folded laundry and Jesse tinkered away at the sewing machine. Project: to sew face-masks that fit each of us properly. It was a lovely scene of the times. I would imagine Norman Rockwell painting such an episode if he were alive during COVID. A family of four (plus cat, plus dog) in their natural weekend habitat. Slow to dress, sipping juice or coffee, and, sewing face masks.

“Ruth,” Jesse said, “Come on over here and try this on to see if it fits.” Ruth scurried over to him to try on her mask like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Later that day, I walked our dog wearing the mask Jesse so lovingly crafted for me (after three fittings). It was exquisite, hands-free, spacious around the mouth. He even used the sweetest yellow-petal, summer dress fabric. When I returned, I kissed him straight through the mask.

7.

In spite of a good fit, it still takes exponentially more effort to greet someone while masked—you have to yell or over-gesture to compensate for the fact that both of your faces are completely erased. Because we wear ours primarily outside, most people are in sunglasses with their masks. But if not, they are far enough away where eye-reading is not an option. It’s all a straight-up guessing game.

More often than not, for the sake of simplicity, it’s just me and the dog these days. Typically, I have my dog’s leash in my left hand, and a steamy bag of his shit in my right that gets carried for countless unpleasant blocks. This is due to the lack of public trash facilities on the neighborhood routes I find are easier to navigate within the guidelines of 6-feet-between. Bike paths are pretty tight if there isn’t open space to veer off on either side. And now I’ve got my mask on, and fogged-up sunglasses. The uniform is similar to that of someone on Halloween in a last-minute ghost-sheet costume, with just the eyes cut out, cobbling along with both hands full. This is not a “path is the journey” sort of moment. I’m lucky if I can twitch out a head-nod or an elbow-wave to a passer-by.

It feels important to counteract the separation that has become synonymous with health and life. But I’d be lying if I said I was able to muster a greeting every time.

8.

In our culture, masks (when not worn in a medical setting) often represent sinister actions—bandits or bank robbers or the KKK who want to hide defining features.

For many Asian countries, mask-wearing was a cultural norm even before the coronavirus outbreak. In East Asia, many people are used to wearing masks when they are sick or when it's hayfever season, because it's considered impolite to sneeze or cough in public.

The 2003 Sars virus outbreak, which affected several countries in the region, also drove home the importance of wearing masks, particularly in Hong Kong, where many died as a result of the virus. Says the BBC news: “One key difference between these societies and Western ones, is that they have experienced a contagion before—and the memories are still fresh and painful.”

I recently read a story about two black men who were wearing masks at Walmart—fully in compliance and trying to keep themselves safe—when they were accosted by police. It hit me like a whip how individualized each of us are experiencing this pandemic. I skoff at my mask because it’s a pain-in-the-ass. But I’ll never be faced with also having to weigh the risks of racial profiling.

Delving further, I read that to-mask-or-not-to-mask has become a way to take a political stance. Trump supporters carrying “My body, My choice” signs, with an illustration of a crossed-out mask—this is a common image to see in the media right now.

The Washington Post said: “Even as governors, mayors and the federal government urge or require Americans to wear masks in stores, transit systems and other public spaces to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, the nation is divided about whether to comply. And it is divided in painfully familiar ways — by politics and by attitudes about government power and individual choice.”

So, clearly, it is about so much more than just a mask.  

9.  

This just in. 

In a press conference that took place a few days ago, April 20th, Governor Jared Polis and state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy outlined how life may change in Colorado as soon as next week, when “shelter-in-place” shifts to “safer-at-home.” They are essentially the same, just with a select few businesses opening with strict distancing rules and incremental shifts toward less physical distancing over all. Polis mentions nothing different about mask-wearing. Meaning, still wear them in public, especially if you can’t get 6-feet-between, especially if you’ve been exposed or have symptoms.

I noticed an immediate difference on my walk following his announcement. There was a family of four playing frisbee in an open space without masks! My initial feeling was wait, WTF? (And yes, I realize we are living in a strange state of affairs for my initial reaction to a beautiful family frolicking in a field to be contempt.) There was a man throwing a ball for his dog in a park that still had many visible CLOSED signs—also NO MASK. (Again, WTF??) I then gave a wide, grassy birth to a group of mask-free bike riders. 

I notice my mask feels more like a burden on my face without the unifying solidarity of everyone doing it. We all seem to be getting different memos.

There’s a huge relief that people are back to having faces, to be sure. I miss people. I love faces. But I have to admit that in spite of my hemming and hawing, I’d gotten used to feeling protected. It’s impossible to make sense of any of it. Even little Ruth came in yesterday and gave a tiny cough. “I’m sick,” she said, “Since I didn’t wear a mask today.” 

Circling back to the facts, the only thing worth grasping at right now, I am challenged to find any bit of news to suggest that our household need to be wearing masks while out on walks—under any level of regulation thus far. Neither Jesse nor myself are working outside of the house. We don’t visit with friends or family. (Big sigh.* We miss everyone terribly.) The odds of us being silent carriers are beyond slim. We are not immuno-compromised. So wearing masks these last few weeks—while still on socially distanced walks—could probably be categorized as an act of cultural alignment, an act of doing everything we can for the cause. 

As of right now, this moment, I do not see our mask-wearing as being impactful to our macro OR micro community. So, for the sake of preserving the sanity of our tiny culture for the long haul, I vote that we wear our beautifully-Jesse-crafted masks on our chins, like flattened feathers at the ready. 

“As it (the “safer-at-home” regulations) rolls off April 27, we need to figure out how to run the marathon now that we’ve run the sprint,” Governor Polis said in his most recent press conference. “I hate to break it to you, but the easy part was the sprint.”

[momtemplative]

One-Act Play

1.

It was the summer of 2004. I was living at 940 North Street in Boulder, in the strange kind of rental property you can only get away with in your twenties. It was dilapidated and half-swallowed by shrubbery, but also rustic and quaint, a slice of woods in the middle of town. (A raccoon had babies in my ski boots out back.) It was few blocks from the mountains and a few more blocks to Pearl Street. I used to ride a hand-me-down bike that was heavy as wrought-iron down to the Trident Coffee Shop on Pearl Street and pretend I was a “real” writer. 

(I parked and tripped over the very same bike during the very same summer to greet my buddy, Lisa, and her friend, Jesse, who were enjoying a drink at an outside table at the Corner Bar. That was the first time I met Jesse, and the summer of 2004 is when our romance began. But that story is for a different day.) 

I had just quit my job after a year of working as a receptionist at a chiropractic office. I’d had it with a passive-aggressive boss and no growth potential. I was living with my former African drum teacher and his girlfriend. They ascribed fully to the phrase you-only-live-once and they buzzed with a sort of free-spiritedness that would make my mom cringe. So when I quit my (responsible if people-pleasing and self-sacrificing) job, fate had it so I was living with them, with their input that said, Good Riddance. Now what do you really want to do?

In a bold act of maternal generosity, my mom wrote me a check that covered tuition for the entire month of the Summer Writing Program at Naropa’s Jack Karoac School of Disembodied Poetics. (Naropa, a Buddhist college in Boulder, CO.) I signed up for one week with artist /dancer, Michelle Ellsworth, and used the extra on rent and groceries. (I’d been in Colorado for all of two years and I was barely able to make ends meet even before my new status of being unemployed.)

I picked Michelle randomly;  I liked her picture in the brochure. I can envision her now, as clearly as if I had a Fotomatic print of her in my hands. Clear blue eyes like crystals you hang in the window to shoot rainbow-slivers into the space. A wide, shiny smile. She spoke to our crowded class with a quick, giggly cadence, like the tick of a wound-up clock. Any details blur into the oblivion of non-essential memory, but her imprint, like that of a fossilized leaf on a river stone, hasn’t faded in the slightest.

2.

Our assignment was to write a one-act play about anything.

940 North was entirely furnished in one afternoon from the Habitat for Humanity Thrift store, and its décor was mostly provided by an old lady’s estate sale. I had emptied out the closet in my bedroom to make a writing nook. I had an ancient laptop and a borrowed printer. We definitely did NOT have Internet; I had to use the computers at the college for that. This was still an era where Internet could be used intermittently and intentionally—for checking email and other specific to-dos that required only a finite amount of time. This was before Internet was available and necessary for us to receive continuously and at a heavy drip.

I had not slacked. I didn’t procrastinate. To the contrary—I cleared my calendar for this assignment, took it way too seriously and tried WAY too hard. I wanted so badly to be awesome at this, but after two complete afternoons, I could barely pinch out a coherent sentence.

On the due date, Michelle said, “Ok, let’s go around and have everyone tell us about their play.”

Bla, bla, bla, blur, blur, everyone did their assignment, no problem, until the spotlight landed on me with, it seemed, the sound of brakes coming to a screeching halt. I cleared my throat and shifted in my chair.

“I didn’t finish it.” I said. I felt a clenching desire to fold up and hide. The back of my skull droned like the sudden onset of a fever.

She smiled without a fleck of irony. “Then tell me what you did instead.”

Okay...? So many eyes on me...”Honestly? I re-organized my closet. Then I stared at a blank screen.  Then I ate a bunch of potato chips. Then I typed a few words and printed a page, tossed it into the trash, hung out with my roommates and cleaned my toilet. It went on like that for hours, two full afternoons.”

“Well then that’s your play,” Michelle said, giddy with the proposal. “Anyone want to help Heather out with this one?” Four hands from four complete strangers shot up.

3.

Low, behold, later that week, the five of us lined up on stage like human-cogs in the grand machine that was to be our performance.

I, PERSON ONE: typed furiously on a typewriter, then I pulled out the paper and handed it to the person to my left. Then I started again, and it went on like this.

PERSON TWO: crumbled up the paper and threw it into a bucket of water, then put a hand out my way for another paper to crumple and dunk. Our movements were stiff and mechanical.

PERSON THREE: pulled the paper out of the bucket, squeezed it then smoothed it flat on a towel. Then she looked up to pretend-talk to an invisible person, while pulling another paper from the water.

PERSON FOUR: grabbed the wet paper from the towel and handed it to the next person.  Then he shoved a handful of potato chips from a bag open directly in front of him into his mouth, before grabbing and passing another one.

PERSON FIVE: placed the wet paper overtop a balloon that was held steady onto a table with tape, and then another wet paper and another.  

It went like this, a factory line going going going through at least six cycles, each of us doing our part to assemble a visual-thought from beginning to end, without fighting or judging—just reporting.

When the last piece of paper whizzed out of my typewriter and was handed to the next person, I froze. Then, each of the four remaining performers did their respective actions and froze, until PERSON FIVE was the only one moving. He plastered the final wet paper to the balloon and held it up for observation. Then the scene went dark, and, applause.

The idea that there is information (dare I say wisdom, creativity) in the non-doing, the over-doing, and everything in between, shattered my archaic notions of black-and-white thinking. It created grand pockets of space for curiosity to germinate. Curiosity— the grand antidote to perfectionism.

4.

I could not undo this teaching even if I tried. 

I pull it out now as a sort of valuable overlay to everyday life. It breathes oxygen into the mundane moments, and works as sort of a salve when shit doesn’t go as planned, which is the New Normal. Let the record show, I’ve had young kids in my life for the passed decade-plus, so I’m accustomed to lack of control. And yet, I’ve always also had certain chunks of the day when I was guaranteed some sense of command over my own actions. While Ruth was in preschool, 12 hours a week, I worked and did adult life, making choices that actually happened. At a bare minimum, I had that.

Now we are dwelling in the land of a thousand distractions, with no reprieve. There is no boat off this island. No departures in the near future. It often feels like the how the day unfolds is entirely up to some larger sources that I have utterly no influence on. Is Ruth in the mood to play independently for any stretch of time today? Is she up for watching a TV show while I do a little writing? Will she spend more than five minutes on an art project without descending into coloring her eyeballs with face paint or covering an entire palm in glitter glue? One never knows. One can only pray.

Truth: It took me an hour to write and send a three-line email this morning. The staggering disruptions became almost comical. Ruth fell down FOUR separate times. This is an extreme example, almost as if her nervous system could sense my focus was elsewhere and ran a smear campaign against Mom Completing Any Singular Task. But, if perhaps a lighter version, this is a typical day.

Before Michelle, I may have regarded these off-script moments as those of non-doing, small fails to wrestle with until I can get my “actual shit done.” But today I can see there is so much more there. Choices, aggravation, empathy, my physical body, the body of my wild-puppy preschooler, suppressed laughter, expressed laughter, suppressed annoyance, expressed annoyance—all are contained in these moderately priced moments.

Then you add a blizzard. In the last four days, we’ve gotten multiple feet of snow. The world is covered in a suffocating wool blanket, itchy and hard to breathe underneath. The snow outside—higher than the dog’s belly!!—squeezes us between the walls of this house, everything inside seems tighter and louder because of the outside’s sound-deadening insulation.

So there’s my one-act play for today.

[momtemplative]

Saturday Afternoon, MACRO and MICRO

Definition of Macro: large-scale; overall. ie., THE FOREST.

Definition of Micro:  extremely small. ie., THE TREES. Definition of Macro, here: The wild world at large.

Definition of Micro, here:  The tiny home we inhabit, where we “shelter in place.”

MICRO—I sit here in our tiny RV that is parked in the driveway. It’s where I “go to write”, a creative parlor with wheels and a view of our magnificent choke cherry out the window that is just starting to think about blooming. (I don’t blame it for being hesitant.) 

Months back, Opal and her friend pretended this RV was a rescue vehicle for dogs—all dogs but mostly pit bulls, a breed Opal feels is highly misrepresented. From where I sit, in the passenger seat swiveled to face the rear, there are four black-and-white photocopies of gorgeous dog portraits staring at me. One pit bull in particular looks straight through me.

I’ve purposefully resisted straight-up news, aside from my nightly installment of “Good News Network” and NPR’s weekly “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” radio quiz show. But living without allowing for the outside to seep in feels unhealthy in its own right. Selectively permeable would be the proper thing to practice now. 

So I crack open my computer and dip my toes in the NY Times live coverage of the Coronavirus.

I can hear Jesse’s future voice in my head: How was writing?

Me: Good, but I’m feeling a tad suicidal now.

Him: Why?

Me: I read the news.

Him: Now why would you go and do that??

MACRO—“With President Trump having undercut the new guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by immediately declaring that he would not wear a mask himself, it was far from clear how many Americans would ultimately embrace the recommendation.”

MICRO— I return from the RV to find a house party of three people in my living room. Thankfully, my family did not get the memo that in this moment, life on the outside is complex and backwards. Ruth is on Jesse’s shoulders, no pants, shit-eating grin and fresh-cut bangs in her eyes. She shakes like a puppy with over-large ears and Opal twirls in her No ProbLLama nightgown to the Imagine Dragons song, Zero. Inside our little bubble, things are bumping! The sun floods the living room and even the anti-social cat seems obliged to hang out—from an appropriate distance.

MACRO—Governor Andrew Cuomo warns that, as infections passed 113,700 and deaths 3,500, New York State would reach the worst point of the coronavirus crisis within a week or so. He also said the state was using the machines for coronavirus patients at a rate that would exhaust its stockpile in just six days.

MICRO—Three boxes are stacked one atop the other in front of our door like a cairn. One box is for Jesse’s birthday next weekend, the others are for Ruth. 

It’s looking like COVID-19 will spit us out the other end proficient in at least one new talent—Opal’s is roller skating. She insisted on using my skates, which she found while foraging for activities in the garage like a squirrel for food. After a few days of wearing those up and down the down-stairs hallway, and back and forth on the sidewalk out front, I was certain the future for her ankles was bleak and we ordered her a pair on Amazon that were her size.

Ruth observed all this unfolding and with no intention of leaving empty-handed. Unfortunately, toddler-sized skates are much harder to come by. So, many weeks into the future, Ruthy finally got her own skates that go over her shoes and are, frankly, awesome. She also picked out the tackiest Olaf helmet—with a carrot-nose that actually protrudes—after instructing me to “search on Amazon for Olaf now please.” 

Each of those treasured items are contained in the boxes on our porch. I jump into our current porch-sanitizing routine (bleach wipes and spray lined up on the porch without apology)—wipe box, open, wipe down package inside, wash hands thoroughly. 

You can practically hear Ruth buzzing as suits up for a jolly, though quick to be exhausting, skate around the block. Her uniform killed, and would have worked as well for Halloween, Burning Man, a rave and a roller derby—mixed patterns for shirt and pants, knee pads and skates from Trolls, Olaf helmet. When she velcroes her final skate, I hear a faint, prayer-like utterance from Jesse: dear god. She is an eye-full that could save a life.

MACRO—Trump is getting help with the November election. His campaign just rolled out a new ad, titled “Hope,” featuring appreciative quotes from Gov. Cuomo and Gov. Newsom of California. With the lives of their constituents at stake, they’ve given him the made-for-TV sound bites he was never able to extract from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

MICRO— Thank god for these kids. If I were being force-fed the news then led to an empty house with, maybe, a roommate-peer who is also stressed and bloated with sad information, or if perhaps I were old and alone, I’d be struggling in an entirely different way. Sure, I have my moments of fantasizing about what it would have been like if COVID and shelter-in-place came at a time before or children, during a time when I could have relished cleaning and reading and making a weeks-long retreat out of an unsavory situation. But the fact is, these kids keep the scales level.

Not to mention the fact that affection is built-in. Even though Ruth is less interested in snuggling than she is in building block-towers or submerging every toy she owns in water, we seem to be touching constantly, in this or that way. Hugs from Opal and Jesse, snuggling on the couch for a show, holding hands on our walks around the block—it’s all-inclusive. The fact that this is not the case for everyone is something I am well aware of.

MACRO—Jared Kushner has embedded his own people in the Federal Emergency Management Agency; a senior official described them to The Times as “a ‘frat party’ that descended from a U.F.O. and invaded the federal government.” As The Washington Post reported, Kushner’s team added “another layer of confusion and conflicting signals within the White House’s disjointed response to the crisis.”

Kushner, you can’t shatter us.  Young girls in roller skates win every goddam time.

MICRO— Our block continues to be paradise. Any interest we had six months ago in selling this house has been waylaid and, thus, we are appreciating our home base in a truly different way. 

As we make our way down the block with two girls on their respective wheels, we holler at our beloved across-the-street neighbors, friends of 14 years. They sit, mysteriously, at a card table in their front yard, as if they are having an invisible garage sale. We exchange a boisterous, level-12-volume conversation from across the street, talking over each other and at the same time, expressing everything we possibly can in the tiny window we have while the girls scoot away on their skates. 

The corner that turns on to the bike path and is covered with ancient ponderosa pines smells musty and earthy and perfect. Like every camping trip ever taken. Every hike through the woods. A momentary dose of equilibrium.

When we circle back, our neighbors are still outside.  

One of them asks, “Hey, have you guys been wearing masks outside?”

“No, Governor Polis just suggests it for any public place—grocery, whatever.”

“We saw a few people driving by with them on.”

“Yea, so did we, we saw a few people out walking with them on, just outside.”

I guess the point is, if it’s not gonna hurt, you might as well do it. Hell, if we are in this far—as is shelter-in-place—then we might as well take it all the way. To pick up the slack for people who aren’t doing what they should be doing. (We are actually yelling all this in conversation across the street.) The idea that some people would still not be doing what they are supposed to be doing is ludicrous.  I’ve vented my rage at the college students of America over St. Patty’s Day, but they are all home by now, are they not? So who are we talking about here?

Fact is, as I just learned today, there are still five states that are not mandatory shelter-in-place. (I’m sorry, what??)

MACRO—“I can’t lock the state down,” said Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, which has recorded more than 600 confirmed cases and at least 11 deaths. “People also have to be responsible for themselves.”

MICRO— Opal has been loving her evening ritual of putting Ruth to bed. She says it’s one of her most ‘special times of the day,’ though it happens only a few times a week. She takes her little sister down by the hand, gets her jammies on and teeth brushed, reads to her, the whole precious nine yards. She does that tonight, leaving Jesse and I to the quiet of ourselves and our space-sans-kids in the family room. 

Jesse promptly dozes off in the rocking chair. I lie on the floor with eyes closed in star-pose, taking up some glorious space. These days are taking a toll. But it’s also true that I laughed so hard on four different occasions this afternoon that I buckled over twice, slapped a knee and wet myself. 

So much is going well in our tiny Microcosm that sometimes it’s easy to forget the Big Picture Macro. Ignorance is indeed not far from a certain cheap kind of bliss. It makes sense why people do it, why people feel the need to avoid discomfort. But, ultimately, the mind knows when it is missing something. The soul knows when it is being cut-off. Our beings can feel when humanity is suffering, whether or not we choose to admit it to ourselves in so many words.

“Mom!” Opal whisper-yells from down the hall. “Ready!” Meaning, she’s ready for me to come and finish Ruth’s bedtime with a song. But by the time I get to Ruth’s snug and utterly safe kid-room, she is fast asleep.

4/4/20

(all quotes in italics come from the NY Times live coverage of the coronavirus from the previous week.) 

[momtemplative]

Four Seeds.

Very little experiential information comes in from the outside world these days. The ports, energetic and literal, are closed for the foreseeable future. The ships have been docked.

So, every piece and part and bit of this house—as well as the people in it—suddenly feel like they are all posing for extreme close-ups. Corners that had been ignored for time immemorial are now simply untenable—how did I not notice that mess before? The top shelves that were wooly with dust are now slick and glossy. Random shoe boxes that had morphed into being part of the shelves (we began to stack things on top of them) have been cracked open like time capsules—so that’s where all the finger puppets went! Jesse even cleaned out his desk when he brought it upstairs and found the plastic polka-dot costume-jewelry rings we used to get married at the courthouse, two weeks before our actual wedding twelve years ago!  

There are many treasures yet to uncover.

We also observe the bliss that comes from the alignment of two glorious things: decent weather and a spacious backyard. When we bought this house twelve years ago, we had no idea that our backyard would become such a cherished commodity. That, come Spring of 2020, we’d be rejoicing every single day we stepped foot on our chipped-up deck and muddy yard.

The yard is the scenic backdrop to a heavy percentage of our day. A few days ago, the dog gallivanted passed with a dead fetus of a mole rat dangling from his lips, and then dropped the rubbery carcass at his feet. I screeched and Ruthy heard that screech and ran my way yelling “What is it, Mama?!!” And, well, it felt as if all of humanity was contained in that tiny moment.

A while back, we planted five bean seeds that we got as a gift from my sister-in-law’s baby shower. We—Ruth and I—placed them deeply in rich soil in a medium-sized terra cotta pot. During the few days, Ruth treated the pot like a tiny sandbox for her toy figurines. I reminded her that dirt-play was for outside and told her we need to protect the baby seeds if we want them to grow. So, she flooded them with water then covered the soil with an entire bag of cotton balls to “Keep them warm.” 

I reluctantly removed the terra cotta pot from the front window where it received the best lighting and radiating warmth, but where it was equally under threat of Ruth’s tiny fingers and endless curiosity. I placed the pot temporarily on the porch, safely out of reach but still in the (albeit chillier) sun. Then I promptly forgot to bring it inside that night when the temperatures plummeted. (When I awoke and peered out the front door to see the little pot out there, soil nearly frozen, my heart sank. I figured those guys were goners.)

The pot wound up on an out-of-reach shelf, then the kitchen table, then the back deck. It went through multiple re-locations, temperatures and lighting variations, all to keep it safe from little fingers that love nothing more than the feel of dirt.

It felt like one of those social experiments that was forced on the youth of yesteryear in school, where they had to pretend to be a parent to an egg, a watermelon, a doll, something non-sentient. There I was, taking painstaking care of my terra-cotta pot filled with, what appeared to be, just soil.

If I’m being honest, I was sure we had abused those five little bean seeds well beyond growth. I tried to imagine their little cosmos beneath the soil. Was it a forgiving place? Ahhh well, I thought. Damn shame.

Until, a few more days later, Opal called from the kitchen— “MOM!!! LOOK!”

I found her peering at my terra cotta pot with a wide grin. Behold, there were four tiny sprouts that had harnessed all their imperial magic, their godly juices, their tiny but most potent life forces to come forth into the world.

Once they broke through to the open air, nothing could hold them back. They grew so quickly you could almost see it with bare eyes. We paid close attention and reported on them numerous times a day. “How are the spouts?” “Honey can you check on the sprouts?” “Is the soil dry?”

I returned them to the front window because I couldn’t resist the accommodations, even if I did notice occasional dirty piles around the edges of the pot alongside a Daniel Tiger Figurine waist-deep in the dirt. But at that point, the sprouts seems less vulnerable, more teenage-like. If they were out in the garden, they'd have to hold their own with any-which backyard creature. I figured now they could handle—benefit from, even—some light adversity.

They got so tall I had to tie them with pipe-cleaners to a stick, for lack of a trellis. I’d have waited a bit longer to plant them if I had expected them to thrive so suddenly and so wildly. We needed just a little more time before they could go into the outside vegetable bed. But they were clearly outgrowing their home in the pot, like the hermit crab in the book Ruth had been reading in preschool before the shut-down.

Then one morning, Ruth emerged from behind her play tent wearing a backpack for pretend school, slouching from its visible weight on her shoulders.

“Whew, this backpack is HEA-VY!” she said, fishing for the acknowledgement of her strength from either Jesse or I or both who were in the vicinity.

She trailed off in another direction, audibly talking to herself about the plants.

Jesse and I exchanged a look of precise understanding and quick-stepped in her direction.

Indeed, Ruth had crammed the entire potted plant into her small backpack.

I gasped when I saw the sprouts, a good 10 inches tall now, shoved to fit in there, like unruly hairs manhandled into a fitted cap. To her credit, she must’ve put the pot into her backpack with some level of care, because there was very little dirt in there. She even packed the little tray underneath! She also left the zipper open to give them air. But the sprouts— those fragile strands that had already weathered so much—were discolored from their bends and from where the leaves had snapped or bent straight in half.

Oh dear. I said.

“I just wanted to bring them to show and tell,” Ruth said. Eyes waiting and hungry, like gaping vessels for us to tell her how she should feel right now. 

Jesse said. “Oh honey, it was an accident. You didn’t know.” Sweet girl was as proud of those small-scale bits enchantment as I was. Proud enough to take them to pretend show and tell. 

I extracted the terra cotta pot from the backpack with nimble surgeon fingers. I placed it on the kitchen table, the way a paramedic would lift a body that had sustained an uncertain amount of injuries onto a gurney. I tried to smooth out the sprouts as if I were running my fingers through hair, avoiding the larger knots. I released a bloated, audible exhale.

And that is where the four wounded sprouts currently reside—in their own little personal ICU—until we receive further information. Time will tell.

March 30, 2020

[momtemplative]

Opal’s Dream.

Opal woke up from a dream yesterday morning. She remembered the main details.

“I was coming home from school. It was a great day, but it was smoky outside. I had told someone we were all mad (”as a country?” I said. “Yes,” she said.) at the Chinese people for starting COVID, so all the Chinese people came and set our houses on fire. We had to go to the fire station to sleep. Or maybe the swimming pool. Not sure, but I know Sabine was there. Alex was there, too. The dream ended when the fire station turned black and I woke up. I know it was 6:23am when I woke up because I looked right at my clock.”

Psychological assessment aside, this certainly speaks volumes about the climate of our culture right now. 

[momtemplative]

Nine Days. (COVID-19)

To say day-to-day life has changed since I last posted (March 9)  feels like a gross understatement. Nine days feels like the gestation period of some unknown force that continues to grow.  

I’m writing, but my words feel like sheets of paper in a cyclone. Nothing cohesive. Self-judgment says, does anyone really want to hear what you have to say in the midst of this barrage of COVID-19 thoughts/opinions/posts/news? Then I shut up and write, even if it’s just something, even if it’s not pristine.

Nine Days, in list form:

1. Thursday, March 12, 2020—THE OUTSIDE TURNS DOWN. 

We get the news that schools are going to be shut down for many weeks, probably more. When that happens, the lighting in our house shifts. It’s as if the outside turns down, like half-drawn curtains. And those who live inside the walls of our little house—Jesse, Opal, Ruth, myself, and the pets— take on a fresh-rinsed potency, as if we know we are on the brink of something big and we are in it together.

2.  Friday, March 13, 2020—TARGET

We take a trip to Target. Ruth begs to wear her tap shoes, which I reluctantly agree to. The people at Target are amiable; nobody is concerned about keeping a distance yet. We are pushing carts as two-way traffic down aisles, brushing elbows, as we would on any large-crowd shopping day. Moms exchange nods of camaraderie, like fellow Harley drivers on the highway. The overall feeling is generous and very much we-are-in-this-together. What is different, what is startling, is the very, very low inventory. Some of the shelves are completely empty, (toilet paper, cleaning agents) which, in spite of the music, crowds and fluorescent lighting, feels eerie. 

The lines are 10-12 people long, cards filled to the brim, and even though I don’t hear one short-tempered word, most of the people in the lines are wrapped comfortably in the tiny glare of their smart phones. It’s amazing how deeply grownups crawl into those little screens, even in public. Ruth walks by them with her tap-tap-tap shoes, duct taped at the buckle and two sizes too big. They make a startling, gloriously sharp sound against the linoleum. 

Imagine a line of adults raising their gaze with each step of her foot, like a face-only version of the wave, a beautiful cascade of heads that rise to meet the sound. Each face spreads into a smile when they see where it originates: tiny girl, impervious to her impact, shiny-star tank top and tutu, like a Disney+ version of Madonna’s Like a Virgin.

Back at home, emails flood our inboxes with some variation of ‘COVD-19 closure’ in the subject line. The library. The Rec center. Stores dropping from Main Street like birds shot from a wire. Restaurants and coffee shops are sweating hard, offering discounts on gift cards for later and curbside take-out.

We are getting wind of the fact that we need to slow the spread of this virus so as not to overwhelm the healthcare systems—to ‘flatten the curve.’ We need to stay in as much as possible. Not be in big groups. Probably not see the grandparents for a while. Wash our hands like crazy, scrubbing while singing the ABCs from start to finish.

It sure looks as if we won’t be going to Target (where Ruth who touches every surface with all ten fingers then promptly rubs her eyes and picks her lip) for a while.

3.  Saturday, March 14, 2020—SHOULD WE??

Every out-of-house action feels strange and other-worldly. Even the most benign of outings suddenly beg the question, wait—should we?? Do we really need to?? Going to the kid-gym and kid-yoga just two days earlier suddenly seems outlandish. A planned gathering with friends that felt wonderful yesterday feels out of the question today. 

4.  Sunday, March 15, 2020—COMMUNITY.

There is an amazing video going around of a community in Italy who are quarantined, but still singing from their balconies as an etherial chorus. 

A family-walk around the block feels potent and perennially safe. Our next-door neighbor joins us with her dog. We wave at another family of neighbors who are perched on their porch in the sun, their toddler wearing the hilarious mirrored sunglasses of a studly lifeguard. Then we cross and take the bike path behind the houses that are on the other side of our street. Another neighbor exits from her sliding back door, her dog lurching out from behind her. Yet another neighbor steps out into the light wearing pajamas and with his small dog under his arm. Everyone feels hungry for sunshine and familiar connection, but we all keep our distance.

When I was 13, I took a spring break vacation with friends to Arizona, where we visited the “Biosphere2.” The headlines read: “Eight explorers join together in a daring, high-profile study of sustainability and the new science of biospherics—the study of closed systems that mimic Earth’s environment.” Essentially, eight people lived in a sealed-up dome, a mini-earth, for two years to study sustainability. We could see them all through the glass. I remember waving, though I don’t know how accurate that is. I think of that right now, as I wave to my friends through their windows. 

Even Opal is weighing her options. Just after lunch, she says to me, “I’m going to try and make Ruth my friend. We may be together for a long long time and I want to have fun with her.”

The girls laugh so hard at dinner tonight, we wind up calling a moratorium when they are unable to take a drink without spraying it across the table. This is very unusual.

5.  Monday, March 16, 2020—RAGE

The media is rich with photos of college kids whooping it up over the weekend for St. Patrick’s Day. Seeing photos of hundreds of young bodies smashed together in a bar makes my blood curdle. I can practically see the virus spreading. 

Let’s talk about neuroscience for a minute. The brain isn’t fully developed until the age of 25. Therefore, to leave hundreds of thousands of 18-24 year olds to their own devices to make good choices around self-quarantining is like requesting the same from a litter of wild animals. Is there a psychiatrist out there observing this with some sense of concern? Where are the leaders in this? I don’t just mean parents. I’m also wondering about teachers, staff, the adults who own the bars, ANYONE who has some sense of perspective and enough maturity to help float those who aren’t as evolved.

Concurrently, parents are home from work, doing their human duty of staying home/keeping kids home to slow the growth of this thing. Healthcare workers are AT WORK so we can stay home and everyone can get a handle on this thing. Grr. It really is infuriating.

6. Tuesday, March 17, 2020—WHAT IF IT WERE MY IDEA?

Today I have a random memory of having insomnia for close to a year when I first moved to Colorado fifteen years ago. It was agonizing: the mealy brain that would wake me up with an indifferent shrug and leave me unsettled and restless for hours—a fate far worse than jolting into a leap of wide-awake!—left me feeling dead-brained and disconnected for weeks at a time. The only thing that helped me to recover was to pretend it was all my idea. I have no recollection of how that notion ever came to me but there it was. I’d wake up at 3am and force myself to say, well, super! I was hoping to be up tonight! I have so much to do, after all! Filing, for example, was a big one. Before going to sleep at night, I’d actually pile things by my bed to do when I’d wake up during the night. It positively worked. In under a week, I was sleeping like a mouse.

I got to wondering if that hypothesis could be applied to this COVID reality. Perhaps, I could say to myself, now is as good a time as any to face down some mortal fears and learn about what it’s like to live in quarantine with a four and a ten-year-old. I’m not talking about Pollyanna-Sizing in the least. Just talking about broader perspectives to keep sanity in check.

7. Wednesday, March 18, 2020—A FEW GOOD THINGS

Some parts of this feel tenable, dare I say nurturing. The first few days of this have felt like a combination of a snow day and a meditation retreat. It is part family love-fest, part novel bio-spheric experiment. The weather is warm and inviting so we triple our number of family walks and clock in hours in the backyard. (Backyard, oh how I love thee.) Time feels abundant and luxurious. The slow-drip news of this international trauma infuses the ordinary moments with a sense of urgency, of faintly (or not) facing our individual mortality. Each choice is whittled away by the updated COVID rules du jour. Gratitude lists brim with things that may have previously been taken for granted: health, family, running water. 

I clean the hell out of the bathtub today and enjoy every moment of it. I cannot for the life of me remember an instance when I took my time cleaning the bathtub like this, doing small circles on the tile like Mr. Miyagi. I typically rush through my cleaning with some sense of discontent, feeling that it’s taking up space that could be used for something worth relishing.

I typically feel paycheck-to-paycheck with regards to time. But now, time is one thing we have more of than we could possibly use. Usually, my brain has the feeling of being pulled down the road by pack of strong wolves. A lurching feeling. Now—not the case. I feel a shit load of feelings, but rushed and overwhelmed are not on the list.

While I clean? The girls are content reading books in their individual ways. Jesse is in the living room in the rocking chair he continues to scoff at, feet up on the rocking foot-stool, MacBook in his lap as if he’s rocking it to sleep. In that moment, there is a settled feeling inside the places where rushing and overwhelm are usually expected. This is one part I do not mind about the new norm.

8.  Thursday , March 19, 2020—SNOW / CREATIVITY IS REQUIRED FOR SUSTAINABILITY 

There is at least ten inches of snow on the ground—an abrupt change in weather—and I want to start drinking well before lunch. Cozy as it is, all I can think of is our lack of ability to escape into the out-of-doors. 

Yesterday I felt heavy and blue, like the adrenaline was wearing off and the novelty of our situation was waning. My face felt leaden and I was short-fused with everyone, making audible sighs of exasperation that drive me bonkers when done by someone else. I miss my friends. I miss my routine and my work and Sunday morning writing-then-yoga. I know everyone does, but I do too. I want my Big child to continue to enjoy being with my Little child without constant management. I want to know HOW THIS IS ALL GOING TO UNFOLD. 

Then, moments later, I am telling Opal how we need to try and be patient with each other. We can get what we need with kind words. We are a team. 

I am struggling to find balance. One moment, I am a parent who remembers that Opal feels the same feelings as I do around all of this, yet with less perspective and practice on how to be with those scary inner-bits. The next moment, I am fed up with her vague grumpiness and I just want everyone to work together dammit!

The koan is how to feel spacious in a scenario where there is very little limited space.

Today I awoke feeling brighter. Opal has a Girl Scout meeting over Zoom at 2pm. Something for the schedule that did not originate from a member of Grimes Home Base! Yay! We are both as excited as eager peaches. Facetimes, Skype, Zoom calls are going to be the wiring the keeps us tethered to our relationships. Such irony, when, not long ago, the internet felt like the very thing that perpetuated our universal disconnection. 

People are starting to get innovative with their use of the Web, and it’s inspiring as hell. Creativity will save us. Some of my favorite local musicians are doing “QuaranTours”—live shows on line. A famous kids’ book author is teaching the art of doodling. Late night Talk Show hosts are doing shows from their living room, with kids climbing on their shoulders and cheeks shiny without the help of a make-up crew.

9.  Friday, March 20, 2020—WE NEED A BROCHURE.

Last weekend, we invited our dear next-door neighbor over to watch Frozen 2 with us. She ate our Pirate Booty, sat on our furniture. The things you do with a friend on any given, normal day. This weekend, she texted to see if we wanted to watch another movie, this time with her fiancé who had been traveling last weekend. I felt the need to explain that so much has changed since last Sunday, at least for us. Had it for them? Our tactics had been distilled down to the essence. At this point, we have decided not to let anyone else in the house right now. They totally understood.

Then I ran into them while on a walk today. They were walking towards Elvis and I on the sidewalk and I crossed the street away from them, not at all realizing who they were. I was just doing my usual COVID-cross-the-street-to-give-room move. I was also absorbed in a Podcast. 

I crossed-back to see them. I was genuinely giddy with the prospect of their company. I realized I hadn’t been with any adult other than Jesse during the past week. I must've oozed with fervor! But, quickly I felt awkward because I was standing only a few feet away from them! I stepped back but that also felt wrong. Then I was aware of them being aware of me, and I thought, what is happening to us? These are my friends! But because we are not all on the same page, it can feel a bit clunky. Even still, our interaction was supremely satisfying. I wanted them to stay with me for the rest of my walk, but they had plans to go play Scrabble.

Oh how hungry I was for diverse conversation! Those few minutes on the sidewalk together were rich with talk-points and humor. Memorable. I’m still finding my way with enjoyable FaceTimes, but long-distance sidewalk chats are thus far my jam. I had a fantastic chat with a neighbor a few doors down while we were shoveling, and with another neighbor from my porch to her on the sidewalk. Both were far enough away to comfortably toss a softball. Both lasted only a few moments. Both were lavish with depth and hilarity, but concise, as if there were no time to waste.

March 20, 2020

Photos—Top: gel print by Opal. Middle: quick portrait by Ruth. Bottom: me rainbow-organizing markers (who has time for that on an average day??)

[momtemplative]

We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.

Joan Didon, The White Album.