A Small Hint of Normal

We recently enrolled our kids in "covid-safe" swimming lessons and I sat behind the glass watching them as the instructor took them out, one at a time, to practice a back float or putting their head under the water. The whole "covid-safe" piece is probably a lot of sanitation theater, but there is a lot of social distancing and mask wearing and instructors with face-shields. If we were to take a kid 13 months ago to a business with these sorts of measures it would have felt draconian and the whole lot of parents would have run screaming. And yet, these measures are now considered normal and standard and it's how we're keeping people safe. 

My kids didn't bat an eye at the face-shield and they didn't attempt to go closer than six feet from one another. We have all adjusted to the new normal rather quickly, haven't we? We human beings have this amazing ability to adapt; there is more resilience built into us, I think, than any of us would have taken credit for on March 13th of 2020. We are capable of so much stretching, of overcoming great obstacles. That is, I believe, one bit of beauty intertwined in the chaos and trauma of the last year.

Tears streamed from my eyes as I watched my kids belly float, kick, and put their faces under water. My daughter looked up at me after she had her turn floating with eyes aglow and a smile ear to ear. She was alight; she was buzzing with the accomplishment and the pure joy of being in the water again, attempting to learn something she had just begun to master when the world shut down.

I looked at the elation written on the faces of my children and it was the first moment in a long, long time that I realized they are going to be okay. Another unsaid and hushed insecurity in the back of my mind is what this year will have done to their development; I wondered, in the quietest hours of the night, how this year has ruined or broken them. 

But they're not broken. They're not ruined. They've navigated a year of absolute weirdness with grace and agility and gentleness. They are versatile. They are strong. This year will define them. But for my kids, in this privileged world, they are going to emerge kinder, more flexible, and with more joy for the activities, travels, and adventures they undertake.

Yesterday, my children were raw joy. It is the first time I felt, in a very long time, that they are okay. It was the first time in a very long time that I realized I, too, am going to be okay. It felt conceivable, even, to dream of some existence in the near future in which I could be so entirely present as to be filled utterly and wholly at something as simple and wondrous as watching my kids learn to swim.

Are We Done Yet?

I think one of the things that cannot be stated enough is the baseline anxiety that has existed for basically every person I know who has taken the pandemic seriously over the last year. I was one of the first people vaccinated because of my job and after I received my second shot, the sense of relief was palpable. If I got sick with Covid, I probably wouldn't die. What marvel and privilege to find myself the recipient of a cutting edge vaccination. I didn't realize how heavy the last twelve months have been. Though I knew that I was statistically unlikely to die from the disease, what if I did? What if my children grow up without a mother because I became a victim of the global pandemic? What if I got Tim sick? What if I got my higher-risk parents sick or spread it, unknowingly, to someone around me? What if the disease lands someone I love on a ventilator and they are unable to be active and do the things they love because recovery is brutal and trying and a 100% recovery is not a guarantee?

Those thoughts have been circling in my mind for so, so long. With my shot, I was able to put that portion of my brain dedicated to fear to sleep a bit. I was able to breathe.

And yet, the anxiety still exists to some extent. Tim came down with a headache and a cough and a runny nose and I have stayed, amazingly, non-symptomatic. I am fine, though I am usually the first person in the house to get sick. And so the world starts spinning again: is it Covid? How ill will he get? My mind naturally goes to the place where I think about parenting these children alone. I cannot run this circus by myself; it is a nearly impossible production which requires two well-adjusted people to orchestrate day in, day out, forevermore, ad infinitum. 

And so that anxiety I thought I could put fully to bed is still very much present. My brothers and their wives haven't been vaccinated. Many of my friends are waiting to become eligible because of their younger age bracket. I don't think I will be able to release a true sigh of relief until every human being who truly wants to receive a shot is eligible, can get an appointment, and is fully protected against the Rona.

The last year has been so very, very brutal from a mental health perspective and I have the sense that we are so, so close to re-establishing some kind of new normal. And yet, we aren't there. The fact that Tim will go for a Covid test tomorrow proves just how not normal life is now. And yet, it was easy to schedule online, which is a far cry from the early days where you had to sell a kidney to get an appointment and most were just guessing whether or not their symptoms were related to the virus or not.

Onward, friends. The toil is not yet over. Be calm, be brave, it'll be okay.

Snow Day!

Today was the aftermath of the snow day. The day after an enormous storm that shuts down a city is my favorite kind of day because it is a gift of freedom you cannot anticipate. I was supposed to be teaching at a clinic about an hour from the house today, but most of our sites were closed because the snow was deep enough that travel was tricky. It was the gift of a day back, a day to be cozy and quiet with my family and enjoy the peace of an unexpected break. 

It was entirely lovely, unplanned, and a balm to my soul.

Incorrigible Fuckers

The snow that has had the media and weather people all abuzz finally came. It dropped between 2 and 3 feet and now the world is quiet. My favorite thing about these enormous storms is the lack of sound afterward, how the entire world is muted.

I've had intermittent phases of well and unwell during this pandemic and this week has been something of a low one. I read some article about how hover-parenting combined with distracted-parenting is the most toxic of all parenting (this includes putting your baby in a blender head first, I guess?) and us gen-x/millenial parents are doing both of those things almost constantly and our children are on the fast track to be deranged killers who live in our basements forever while feasting on the crushed hearts and souls of their parents (and the broken dreams never realized by the little incorrigible fuckers).

So many things about the way parents are spoken about makes me feel like digging my nails into my palms and screaming; we are all trying so intensely to foster the growth of these kiddos and if others are so invested in the welfare of our children, then maybe we should invest more in families, maternity leave, childcare, early childhood education, and some semblance of support for parents and children. Because I can tell you with certainty that raising children has never been easy, but doing so in a complete and total vacuum because of a global pandemic presents challenges none of us are organically equipped to handle.

One thing about the pandemic is that it laid bare fractures and inequities, things that we had successfully buried, forgotten, or hidden. Race relations in the country were exposed by a hostile Trump administration and the pressures of Covid-19. The number of black and brown families disproportionately impacted by this virus is a statistic undeniably related to socioeconomics and underlying fractures in a health care system that prioritizes and provides more accessible and higher quality care to the wealthy. This was exacerbated by the shut down of schools in which we saw at risk and vulnerable kids suffering disproportionately in comparison with their privileged peers; our kids were in school 70% of this school year and it has entirely to do with the school district and the resources at their disposal.

I think the virus also laid bare the lack of support for parents and left many of us isolated, alone, and making decisions for our kids in a vacuum. And so I find it particularly rich when articles come out raking us over the coals for screen time or for being distracted parents or for not fostering a rich environment in the absence of school and extracurricular activities.

Meanwhile: individual parents are doing their very best to deal with their own mental health crises, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and isolation.

I take full responsibility for my children and their needs. But in the wake of a world that changed inalterably overnight, I feel justified if my children watch an extra hour of television every day. And if, at the end of the day, they are watching some STUPID show I would prefer not to watch, I am absolutely going to take out my phone and text with a friend who gives me solace and comfort and some semblance of normalcy. And at bed time, when we're all exhausted from a day of too-much togetherness, I'll still read to my kiddos and tickle them and listen to their soft whispers as fatigue descends.

But I refuse to feel even an iota of guilt for that extra screen time or for an increase in distracted parenting. I refuse to own the richness of experience a village could provide these children. I am just one person. One mother who loves her children intensely, but who cannot be an entire world for three young people. When the world returns to some kind of normal, then we'll dig deep and see what we can do to provide these kids enrichment and the social skills they have missed and the opportunity to swim, play piano, and whatever else peaks there interest.

Until then, I intend to offer myself infinite kindness, forgiveness, and grace. Because, my God, it's been a year.

Baby-Face Version 1.5

Today you sent what must have been a class picture of me in the tenth grade. I am young and frizzy and just a little bit ridiculous. But I am also smiling and I look comfortable, peaceful, and present. I look at that person and I know it is me and yet she feels so much like a stranger. So much has changed since I was fifteen. I am a different version of that human. Version 3.6?  (SOOO funny!)!

I had a moment today where I dreamed of calling and asking if I could hop on a plane and stay for a little bit. I'd like to come and sit on an enormous, sink-y arm chair and drink good coffee. I'd like to cook together. And at night, I'd like to wrap myself up in the familiarity of your voice and persona and the comfort of your words. I want to know everything you know, understand everything you've gone through, and soak up your wisdom. I am thirsty to relish every story you can tell me about your past (my past). What a marvel it is that you are mine and I am yours and we have come to know one another in this life. What a wonder to have even one human on the planet cheer and celebrate and guide me in the way you do. You are my soft place to land; just knowing you exist gives me courage and strength and fortitude to do the right thing (even when it feels insurmountably hard).

It is a wonder, isn't it, to have other people who feel like home? To have a half dozen homes all over the country with a half dozen beautiful people who can make this madly spinning planet still, even for just the duration of a cup of coffee?

Tonight is missing you. And awaiting an enormous storm that has our entire region abuzz with anticipation. And sitting, just a little, in this nostalgia and melancholy. Both for the young girl in that image and for the geographic distance between myself and so many people who hold just enough of my heart that there is a tiny bit of missing in each exhale.

Puddle Dancing

I wish I could more easily harken back to the person I was before life started feeling heavier. I don't think there's anything wrong with me or the person I've become, but I do sometimes feel nostalgic for the version of myself who believed a bit more limitlessly in people and possibility. I think it is a rule that time here can make the world feel more tedious and I do think adulthood is full of obligation and routine that can feel joyless. I remember the human I was before kids and career and mortgage with a sense of levity; the entire world is available and the only obligation is to choose which of multiple paths that lie ahead would be your preference in any given moment.

That moment directly after college where you choose your next step; you could literally choose anything. Any path you wanted that didn't lead directly to starving or being unable to pay your student debt. Or the moment in college when you're newly moved out of your parents' house and the only big decision is what subject you want to study relentlessly for the next four years. I wish I had embraced that freedom a bit more; yet, I have always been a 94-year-old in a younger person's body.

It is that same old-lady persona that makes adulthood feel just a bit heavier. I approach nearly every life decision and event as though it has the gravity of the moon-landing (oh man...puns for days and days and days).

The actual truth, if I take a moment to reflect, is that almost none of our decisions matter in the slightest. The thing you thought you were going to be doing is rarely the thing you end up doing and the things in your life that bring you the most joy are nearly never the things you thought would. The person you end up spending your life with is often nothing like your type at twenty two and the geographical location you ultimately call home probably isn't the one you would have chosen at eighteen. We make these predictions and we fret over our trajectory and our problems when in actuality we have so little control over any of it.

And even if we did, do we really trust ourselves to know which of our longings would end in happiness? I think I'd probably get a terribly enormous amount wrong. The things that make me happiest now are not things I could have mapped out in a ten-year plan.

I cherish the way the leaves bud in the spring and the feeling in the morning air when fall is just around the corner. I love checking on my kids before I go to bed and looking closely for the semblance of a change in their faces, gazing closely to cling to the fleeting last moments of babyhood in their rested countenance. I love the way my fingers feel on the keys of the piano (like home) and the way words sometimes stream easily from my brain into writing as though they have been placidly yearning for escape. I like the feel of my sheets in the morning and the elation after a long run. I like the way connecting with my oldest friends feels and the joy I experience watching my brothers work ceaselessly to improve their respective corners of the world.

None of these simple, uneventful discoveries of joy is in any way related to anything I worried about at twenty. It is all just one marvelous unfolding after another, with undeniable pain and tragedy, but also heaps of joy and exuberance. But none of it was sought after or yearned for or urgently desired. And it seems to me that this is the way of life; we think of a thing and are handed another and it is in the embrace of that other life--the one of which we could not have conceived--that our minutes are spent. These precious and fleeting moments find themselves passing, passing, passing and the opportunity for joy is nearly always something of a surprise, a silver lining and a grace placed quietly beside us without fanfare.

Today, my children danced in a puddle for twenty minutes, emerging thoroughly mud-drenched and giggling. The first hint of tulips are breaking through the soil in defiance of several feet of snow that sit in heavy clouds over the mountains. I am listening to a song that connects me deeply to my humanity and asks me to feel more deeply than I have been able for most of the day. And most importantly, I find myself here tonight (quietly), with you.

The Iron Giant

This world we woke up in almost exactly a year ago has hints of normal in it now. Yesterday, we rented a movie theater with neighbor friends we have interacted with on a consistent basis since the pandemic began. It was fifty dollars a family and we sat in the dark of the mostly-empty theater, snacked on popcorn, and watched "The Iron Giant" from 1999 like it was the best film we had ever seen. And it may very well have been the best film I have ever seen given that it was the first theater experience I've had in over a year. The darkness, the dimming of the lights right at show time, the too-salty popcorn, and then only the thrum of my heart against my chest as my life and the outside world were forced into submission by the narrative and the music and the imagination of the filmmakers made it feel entirely novel and fresh and new. I think, as we redefine normal, there will be a lot of things that feel like new-first-times (good news: we can ALLLLL be virgins of all sorts again!).

And there was, of course, the outcries from the children. At one point, the little boy of our friends stood up in his seat and said, "I LOVE this movie!"

It is a nod to our lives as they were before this happened. We have said goodbye to a thousand simple sweetnesses, a thousand of the graces we once considered common, haven't we? The liberty of sitting in a darkened theater, surrounded by strangers, and vowing to go on a narrative journey together is one of the things I have most missed.

The grace and beauty of the artists amongst us is that they allow us time to pause and reflect and escape. Their role is to hold up a mirror so that we can see the best and worst of ourselves. And they allow us an escape from the monotony of our world. The best art allows us to live a thousand times, to journey entirely into someone else's life and return to ourselves in the end, slightly altered (usually in ways so subtle that they are unnoticeable, but the seeds of doubt or hope or a new perspective or curiosity have been planted and the roots start to creep, creep, creep toward the heart where they leave an indelible imprint).

I think novels provide a similar escape and I have continued to devour books in the pandemic. But what is a bit more difficult with reading is that it is a solitary pursuit and not communal escapism. The movies, when done masterfully, allow an entire group of humans to gasp and sigh and cry in unison, to fall in love, to battle, to be captured, and to be enchanted as though they are all a part of some uniform organism. And in the end, the stranger in the seat beside you is just a little less separate and the journey has been undertaken as a community of individuals who were all drawn to the same tale.

After the last year, I think most of us could use a lot less solitary and a lot more communal. And so yesterday felt like a breath of normalcy and a small step toward a world where art can be devoured together, where we can all reckon in a visceral way with our humanity, with its beauty and complexity and imperfection. I have missed weeping openly, leaping out of my seat at an intentional startle, and sighing with relief at the end of a climax with a human being who begins the night a stranger but who ends it as someone with whom I have undertaken a journey. 

I have missed the humanity of the other. But more than that I have missed the institutions and the art-forms that reminds us that, in fact, there is no other. There is only you and me and the distance between the two of us turns out to be of no great significance whatsoever.

Mutiny on the High Seas (Hyperbole)

My new job is hard for lots of reasons. First, because I'm not good at it yet and am making all kinds of foibles. But secondly, because it places me in a position where nearly everything I do is contentious. I'm responsible for re-vamping and re-evaluating the way that we conduct our ultrasound exams; the goal would be, of course, to align everything we do to literature-supported best practices. The bigger goal would be not just to align with best practices but to model them and be known as the best in the state.

When I signed up for the gig, it seemed like a pretty phenomenal fit. I love nerdy things like scientific articles and think of teaching very much as a passion (I have been doing it on and off since I started teaching swimming as a teenager). The piece I hadn't quite thought through, though, was the part where I would be leading an entire group of humans through some changes they likely wouldn't enjoy. And, in the absence of anyone in my position for a prolonged period, a lot of people had come to do things their own way.

This week I held a meeting where the staff organized quietly and without open dialogue with me or our physicians to undermine a new departmental change. I have been in this role for a year now and I didn't expect something small like that to knock the wind out of me. But the level of organization and the complicity of individuals I've worked really, really hard to have trusting relationships with felt like a blow. Put bluntly, I had my feelings hurt. The meeting went well and the support of a doctor-friend who collaborated on the change was absolutely instrumental. We had some essential and honest conversation and I feel like many of the fears and questions were addressed. Most importantly, the meeting relayed the essential information and allowed our team to come to somewhat of an understanding (I think).

I've been processing the whole thing throughout the week and thinking about my own personal reaction. The first day, I was simply hurt that a year of dedicated effort to this group of humans didn't seem to amount to a lot of trust; I took the entire thing personally. But as the week has progressed, that has changed into a recognition that leadership is not a popularity contest; leadership often means doing a hard, unpopular thing and despite public dissent, doing it anyway because it is the right thing.

And I think this is, generally, a good rule about being a human being on this planet. Perhaps we should worry considerably less about the thoughts and opinions of those around us and substantially more about the integrity of our hearts and minds. If we pursue a thing with the intention of improving a system or the lives of other people, then it is okay to do so, even if the process of implementation is isolated (and, in the case of this week, personally painful) and unpopular.

There are so many more things for me to learn as I figure out what, exactly, the highest priorities are for me in this gig. It is my greatest hope, however, that when I decide it is no longer the right thing for me, I have protected and nurtured my humanity while also pursuing the goals that feel most important. If along the way I look in the mirror and I can no longer feel proud of who I am or the decisions I have made, then I need to find something else to do with my time.

I hope that I will always do the right thing, even if it is not the easy thing. I hope I will not shy away from tasks which feel arduous. And, after this week, I hope I do not allow the dissent of the majority to impact a course which has been pursued with honesty and integrity and thoughtfulness. If I can accomplish those things and still recognize the humanity of the patients, staff, other leaders, and--perhaps most importantly--myself, then I think this job shall not destroy me. And, in fact, I may find my perspective and my experience quite a bit richer for having endured, learned, and grown from the humans I encounter along the way.

Be strong. Be brave. It'll be okay (even when some weeks feel like an enormous shit sandwich).

Will You Go Out With Me? Circle One: Yes or No

You were my very first best friend. The friendship I look back on that really shaped my adolescence. I remember vividly the day that you told me you were leaving, moving with your mom out-of-state. When you told me, it was in a state of excitement about a new adventure and a fresh start. I was devastated.

A few days before you left, we buried some of our favorite treasures in a box and buried it in a plastic bag at the foot of the baseball diamond at our elementary school. It was stuffed animals and plastic trinkets and probably some letters that slowly melted away as water and time returned our precious things to primordial sludge.

You left and we stayed in the kind of contact that kids do. We wrote a few letters and spoke on the phone sporadically and I saw you when you came back to visit with your dad. We were both changing, growing up, and the distance that worked its way into our friendship felt as natural as the closeness we once shared. But we never lost contact fully, never all the way.

As we entered adulthood, I find the proximity of our views on humanity and our closely held beliefs astonishing. You devastated me a second time when you agreed to come to my wedding and then invited me to yours. When I had my second baby, you sent him a blanket and a bib and you've kept up on my life and my kids and offered words so frequently that have reminded me of my humanity, of my worth, of my intrinsic beauty. 

You knew me, the innermost parts of me, prior to most of the humans I still have contact with. And it is such a blessing to have you here with me, to remind me of the jackal-laughed human I once was. We obsessed over training-bras and periods and awful board games like Date Line. I think of late-night sleepovers and two am milkshakes and MASH and some kid with glasses named Brandon (I think) who I used to sit beside and get all the intel on someone named Jeff who, for the life of me, I cannot remember a single thing about.

He is nothing but a glint of a memory, but you and your friendship and the naïveté and innocence of our friendship which has now transitioned into a shared perspective on life, friendship, kindness, and community obligation is a grace for which I am infinitely thankful and more than a bit awestruck.

Spoiler alert: I did NOT end up with Jeff (but wasn't he HOT, though?!?).

Shine On, Dear Friends

Which selves have you buried and forgotten? Which aspects of yourself do you no longer show the world? Which of the lights coded deeply in your DNA has experience asked you to dim, to place in darkness, to forget and cast aside? Shame is not, I think, something we are born knowing. But over time, we begin to feel shame of pieces and parts of who we intrinsically are. And over time, we don't exhibit those gifts and we don't shine that light and life loses a certain richness, doesn't it?

I have buried the enormity of the way that music can make me feel; of the sense that when I close my eyes and listen intensely, the actual core of my existence vibrates with an intensity of emotion that is wholly overwhelming and centering and elicits feelings which nearly always threaten drowning. I don't tell people that music is one of the reasons being alive is meaningful to me. I do, however, frequently repeat Kurt Vonnegut's quote in A Man Without a Country, "The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music."

I have buried the intensity of my love for the natural world and the depth of feeling I have for the animals who share this planet with us. We are killing the planet slowly and it is not enough to destroy ourselves; we are also going to take down the elephants and the lions and some of my favorite types of trees and the obscenely lush and diverse planet we have inherited. This is a thing I don't speak openly about, not with most people; the expression of this kind of personal devastation is a bit off-putting to most and a little scary. And in this world where we can agree on nothing, despair at a deeply distressed planet is somehow a divisive viewpoint.

I frequently diminish my reader, writer, and pursuer of ideas. I don't discuss Foucault or Virginia Woolf or my deep love for Beethoven and Arvo Part in passing conversation. I don't speak about Lloyd Alexander and The Book of Three and the emotional way it ties me to my oldest brother or the way that stringing these sentences together calms and eases an acquired existential pain and makes the world seem somehow tolerable and beautiful again. I don't speak about the way I deeply yearn for a place to share art again, to watch the creations of others and share my own. I don't delve too deeply into the mourning I have for listening to the live expression of singers and pianists and violinists and poets and writers in my adult life. I don't even particularly care to see the greats perform; I just want to watch my friends bare just the smallest slice of their souls to the world (what joy there is in that vulnerability, in the raw and earnest expression of an art!).

I bury the child who still wants to be parented, the piece of myself who just wants someone else to take care of things for a bit. I bury a fascination with the stars and an obsession with the idea that there may be life out there in the depth of that darkness. I don't speak of the way Catholicism broke me; I don't talk about my distaste for religion and I don't talk about my deep yearning for  spirituality and a connectedness to the general spiritual consciousness of humanity because either topic is just as likely to result in alienation.

I don't speak about the way others have harmed me, I bury the burden of that pain in half-smiles and humor. I think of the best friends of my childhood who I now know nothing about, my first lover who all but broke me, and the multitude of wrongs I feel I have committed against others. I have buried, deeply, the hundreds of doors once opened to me that closed with each subsequent life choice and the infinite paths that lay ahead of me in any given moment (and the way the overwhelming possibility of choosing wrong in any given moment completely overwhelms me). I don't delve too deeply into Milan Kundera and The Unbearable Lightness of Being because the idea of not having a dress rehearsal for this life still haunts and cripples me.

We are all asked to dim so much of who we are. We are asked not to shine too brightly. It would be a shame, wouldn't it, if our light offended someone else? If the intensity of our passion or our feelings or our commitment to living meaningfully made someone else uncomfortable. 

I am tired of putting myself, the things which are most inextricably linked to the deepest humming of my soul, on dim.

What would happen if we all showed up, every day, precisely as we are? There is no truth or beauty in shadow. What if we allowed the light which has guided us from the moment we first became conscious of it to guide every decision? And what if, instead of shining just a little less brightly in order to avoid offending those around us, we illuminated every dark corner and every hidden nook with the intensity of our existence? What if we laid bare our souls with a vulnerability and a commitment in every choice and conversation with no fear, shame, or guilt?

Shine on, my beautiful friends. Fill the darkness with your humanity, with the rawness of your very existence. Leave no passion unexplored and no fellow searcher unloved. Lay the darkness bare and rejoice in the truth and pain of this mortal life with vulnerability and honesty. Shine on, my beautiful friends, as brightly and with as much magnitude and intensity as you can muster. Sing loudly into the night, write the stories of your soul, and confront the pain collected over a life lived courageously.

Shine on, my beautiful friends. This time is too short and you are too vibrant and the world so desperately needs your light. I so desperately need it.