The Opposite of Loneliness

While tying my shoelaces up for a run, a thought popped into my head, I am not lonely.  I came to a shocking realization: I don’t experience loneliness anymore.  My family is around me 24/7, I don’t have time to feel lonely, even if I was.  It’s not that I’m particularly lonesome in my regular everyday life; my days are full and I keep good company, it was just an interesting observation that at a time when socializing is at a minimum, while there are those I miss, I am not forlorn.  My crew is solid.

To follow up on last week’s post, sorry to disappoint those readers who were actively looking for me to fall in poop (you know who you are and you know what karma is), I thought I would fall up (follow-up) with how the poop joke has played out this week.  Keep things light-hearted.

Elyse was on a virtual chat with her speech-pathologist reading sentences posted on the screen for both parties to see, when I arrived home.  While I was out running an errand, Dan reported Elyse was participating well in her session.  The minute I popped my head into the kitchen to check on things the read-aloud sentence that should have been, “Elyse went for a walk,” became, “Elyse fell in poop.”  The speech pathologist pressed their lips together and I did the same, but then as I’m much less professional, I burst out laughing.  Elyse smiled her cunning, knowing little smile and laughed at her clever joke.  She knows how to work a room, my girl.

That evening we were outside in the backyard playing as a family when Elyse tired of the game and went inside.  The first time she locked the rest of us out, I coaxed her to unlock the sliding door with a promise of fruit snacks.  Don’t judge me, it worked!  The second time, I was smart enough to grab my house keys for the front door.  After a stern talking to, I headed back outside.  We were quickly locked out again, and as we have rigged a makeshift shield to block the bottom of our fencing to protect our pup, the backyard gate can’t open so I had to hop our fence to make it to the front door.  I ended up hopping our fence three times.  Once Elyse helped herself to leftover Easter chocolate.  She held up the bag for me to see behind the locked door.  Another time, Penelope got trapped inside with Elyse.  Neither of them can open the sliding glass door, but Elyse can unlock it.  But that doesn’t help when she locks the screen door as well, because then I can’t access the glass sliding door even after she unlocks it. Oh lalalalala! (this is an expression Elyse’s EA uses in response to her comedics).  The third time Ariel had to use the bathroom, and so I made one last scramble over the fence and gave Elyse an even sterner talking to.

“This is not okay, Elyse.  Locking us out is dangerous.  You need to say sorry!  What do you say to mom?”

Looking somber and down at her toes, properly ashamed, finally having learned her lesson she said,

“Sorry, poopy.”

And I couldn’t not laugh.

And we laughed and we laughed and we hugged and I dragged her outside barefoot into the backyard and made her repeat to her dad what she had just said to me, because it was so well timed and unplanned, and it was just so damn smart.  Elyse has a wicked sense of humour and through her antics and one-liners her intelligence shines through.

Then she pulled another one over on us.  She tried the poop joke again, while chatting on the phone with her Educational Assistant, but nobody was biting.  (Oh lalalalala!)  Apres lunch, she shifted tactics.  We took an hour-long family forest walk, and upon returning Elyse took herself upstairs to her bedroom, tucked herself in, and promptly fell fast asleep.  She slept for three hours.  Being a seven-year old jokester is exhausting work.

I haven’t slid and fell in poop – yet – we’ve established.  In the past, I’ve certainly stepped in doggie doodoo, been rained on by a bird, and experienced the projectile range of a baby’s excretions while diaper changing, but I have yet to fall in poop.  Sorry to disappoint.  I did once, however, offer to close the open shed in our backyard on our way out the door to a family dinner.  The conversation from the front of our van went like this:

Me: “Shed’s open.”

Dan: “Oh.  I’m not closing it, called it.”

Me: “I got it!”  Flying out the car door.

In a mock sprint along the side of our house, I flew from the front driveway, onto the grass toward our back shed.  I was just picking up speed when I hit the grass.  One step, two steps…on the third step, my right foot gave way to the soft mud, which I slid through with all the grace of a baseball player sliding into Homeplate.  How had I not seen this coming?  The mud rode all the way up my leg, imprinted on my backside and onto my back.  I managed to avoid my hair.  Dan half hid his laughter while asking if I was okay.  I couldn’t breathe, I. Could. Not. Breathe.  Oh, lalalalala.  Laughter is the best medicine.

While I generally abstain from watching tv, in favour of reading books in the evening, lately I’ve made an exception to carve out some adult time.  And what have us adults been watching?  Comedians.  All I want to do right now is laugh.

I want to laugh and I want to be inspired.  Not in the cheesy, “you can do this!” kind of way, but in the life offering lessons and grace that awaken my writer senses.  On today’s forest walk, it was Penelope, my youngest, making me think.  She pointed to a puddle, “Are those piddows from the rain?”  But ‘piddows’ sounded more like ‘pillows’ than ‘puddles’ and so I thought about rain pillows, originally rain piddows – whatever you prefer – a wet and restful place to lay one’s head tucked into the earth.

The mispronunciation and misunderstanding of language provided by children is a source of never-ending entertainment.  My niece, around age six, once congratulated me on getting something right. She told me I “mailed it”.  My nephew, at two, called quesadillas “tasty ideas”.  These utterances came out over ten years ago, but we’re still talking about them, asking for ‘tasty ideas’ when what we really want is ‘quesadillas’ and congratulating each other with ‘mailed it’ instead of ‘nailed it’ and there has got to be a reason for that.  These memories make us smile and a smile’s just a guffaw away from something more…something uproarious and not at all unpleasant.  Something essential.

Elyse understands the value of comedy; she knows what is essential.  And she’s not afraid to let a punch line drop.  She says the thing you’re not supposed to say, but that everyone is thinking.  Her EA told me there was a student wearing overalls and some other fancy get up to school one day.  Though she’s supposed to be speaking in French at school, Elyse cut to the chase in her native tongue,

“Why are you dressed like a farmer?”

Everyone had been thinking it, her EA told me.  I think a farmer’s dress is practical and pretty snazzy, myself.

Elyse will be the one to stick her tongue out at strangers (much to our dismay), especially if it gets a laugh from the crew.  This morning it was replacing the lyrics to “move it, move it”, with “poopy, poopy” as she booty shakes her behind.  Ariel often raises her eyebrows and looks to Dan and I in response to Elyse’s pranks.  But it’s hard to make out our expressions – the harsh, chastising features that should be there, doling out parenting advice – with our faces turned away from view, shoulders hunched and bobbing, eyes squinting with tears, mouths stifling until we burst.  Let it all out.

This is the opposite of loneliness.

How the Light Gets In

There’s a shapelessness to these days that’s fatiguing.  In my dreams, the ones that I remember, I’m always elsewhere, never at home.  I’m out at a bar with my friends from high school, but something isn’t quite right, we aren’t supposed to be there.  I’m visiting a cottage with my husband, children and extended family, but an angry bear interrupts the proceedings.  Ariel races up the steps, away from the bear, I grab Elyse, as Dan goes for Penelope, and as I turn my back to flee there’s the unmistakable scream of my youngest child, but I can’t bear to look.  There’s a recurrent theme of menace and imminent danger ever-present.  Even my dreams are like nightmares.

And so we go through our days.  I texted a friend to say that I have moments of positivity and bursts of productivity and the rest of the time is like trudging through mud.  I feel bogged down, slow-moving.  I’m not alone.  Friends’ Facebook pages are filled with feelings of hopelessness and despair; it’s there, right below the surface of their posts.  The sense of idleness is maddening, and this comes, in part, because every day feels the same.  “Groundhog Day” my husband calls it.

Still, every day’s a new promise.  I retain hope and gain strength with the rise of the sun.  I try to focus on the idea, and write it down, that how I act and react during these uncertain times serves as a model for my children.  I am mindful of the idea, but I am not so virtuous as to keep the premise in the forefront of my mind and act accordingly.  My behaviour is less than ideal.  Sometimes I’m just getting by.  And getting by may mean I succeeded in planning dinner by asking my husband to order food by text while I ignore our children inside the house and go outside to play with our puppy by myself.  The kids can come outside if they want, but they don’t always want to and I’m not inclined to force them.  I’m not inclined to force anything, at the moment.  At times work feels impossible – at others – life sustaining.  There are ups and there are downs.

I am no longer competing in an ironman race this July.  I trained hard for 115 days, and I wanted to look forward to the experience at the end of the tunnel.  I deserved that; I earned it.  But even if the race goes ahead as planned, and I fear it will not, I just don’t think the vibe is going to be the same.  This is not what I wanted for my first Ironman experience, and so I’ve decided to push it to next year.  I keep training…day 116, day 117, we’ll see what happens.  I’m tired of the number of factors out of my control.  When and whether I race or choose not to race was within my control and so I took action before someone else took that decision away from me.  The training camp I signed up for is cancelled.  Our cottage stay refunded.  A summer of sameness lies out flat in front of me in the months ahead.  Unless…

Unless.  Are you familiar with that famous line from Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax?  The Onceler tells readers that, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It’s not.”  Drudgery, misery, hopelessness, stagnancy…this is the easy route that takes us to no-man’s land where nothing ever happens.  Nothing good, anyway.  Those who are happy get pegged with making it look easy, but it isn’t.  Happiness takes work.  I’m not saying that everyone gets to choose; depression and mental health issues are real, but a person like me, an average person like me in good health gets to choose.  I can choose happiness, which in difficult times takes work, or I can choose the easy route.  I can choose despair.  A pandemic and the loss of normalcy seems like the perfect excuse for despair.  To do nothing.  To be nothing.  I dip down into despair from time to time.  But I don’t want to stay there.  My happiness is too important; it’s life itself.  Everyone thinks that being miserable is hard, and yes, if you’re depressed or have experienced a significant loss be it physical or financial or emotional, then yes, it is hard, life will be hard for a while, but for the rest of us misery isn’t hard, it’s easy.  You just let it happen.  Happiness is hard.  Happiness in the time of a pandemic does not arrive without grace and effort.  You have to seek out happiness, you need to find it and hold onto it tight.  You have to make it, break it, and create it all over again.  There’s also a bit of luck involved and stumbling blindly in the dark.

I find happiness waiting for me down on the floor.  I stretch out onto my back and a fifteen-pound pup comes bounding onto my chest and licks my face.  Joy bubbles forth.  I find it tucked into the pages of my course book, The Business of Becoming a Writer by Jane Friedman, or in my course work when I use my mind because I’m learning and I’m growing and I’m doing the things I love.  I find happiness in a warm embrace with my husband.  As I curl into his chest, and my fingers graze the skin of his lower back beneath his t-shirt and I feel his warmth.  Our connectedness makes me feel happy and alive.  I scribe conversations between my children, much to my own delight, like this one:

Ariel, the big sister, speaking to Penelope, the little sister who is highly attuned to any form of praise from her big sister: “You’re a genius!” This, in response to Penelope’s chosen painting methods. (Subtext, Penelope has long been referred to as our ‘genius baby’ – hard to explain the whole family backstory inside joke.  You had to be there, I guess.)

So Ariel calls Penelope a genius.

Penelope’s response is genuine: “Am I?  Because I would like to be a genius.”

Ariel: “You aren’t.”

Penelope: “I’m not?”

Ariel: “No, you’re not.”

Penelope: “Well, not anymore.”

I feel like Penelope got the last word on that one.

Then there’s the words, on repeat, that Ariel coached Elyse to say over and over.

“Mommy.  Fell.  In.  Poop.”

Never have four words in the English language elicited more laughter.

I could succumb to sadness and pity and misery.  So far during this pandemic, personally, I’ve had residencies and retreats relinquished.  Speaker engagements eradicated.  Time to write, erased.  My family has had to change our vacation plans, cut trips short after driving across an entire country, and had future travel plans cancelled.  We have dealt with lice and worms.  My children had lice and it took multiple cleanings of our house, trips to the drugstore for lice shampoo, shampooing my own hair with the foul oily mess just to be double sure I didn’t have it, and weeks of effort to rid ourselves of the tiny beasts.  Our puppy had worms.  Ringworms.  The kind that children can get that can lead to permanent damage, ravaging their little bodies.  I saw the worms with my own eyes, wiggling in the mucousy feces freshly excreted from my beloved pet.  What the hell!  I want to rage and succumb to misery.  Instead, I give my dog the dewormer pill we have on hand.  I make a few trips to Shopper’s.  I wash everyone’s hair and brush it with a fine-tooth comb that removes the eggs.  I keep an eye out for bugs from the corner of my eye.  I pick up poop the second after poop arrives so my children will not contract ringworms.  I do NOT fall in it.  I’m a mother-fucking warrior in my own home.  Fighting back not only against bugs and worms, but the dark cloud that hangs over the living room.  I do my best to push back the clouds and let in the light, like dusting away cobwebs from a forgotten corner.  I think this is what every parent is doing right now or trying their best to do.  And some days it just rains and rains.  Other days we practically have to wear shades.  I harness every bit of sunlight I can get, when I can get it.  We are healthy and we are grateful.  We are also a tiny bit lost.

I find happiness in the forest and in celebrating Earth day by reading about it with my kids and talking about conservation and making recycled crafts.  I find it in the painted rocks left along the trail by strangers.  I find happiness in making plans for the future, even as the future remains murky and unknown.  There are certain factors within our control.  While my family has picked up lice and worms, we’ve also gained a new member, our sweet puppy Louie, and who knows what else may come our way?  Haven’t we all gained a new perspective on life?

I find happiness wedged into the deep crevice of possibility; with some exertion, hard work and struggle, I break it free, hold it up against the light, and take a closer look at my prized jewel.  I see myself in the reflection; my well-being and that of my family.  My greatest treasure.  I do not have to look far to find what matters most.

I see myself reflected and I find hope and strength in the lyrics of a Leonard Cohen song:

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

The Last Sweet Bite

Working, parenting, and teaching are three different jobs that cannot be done at the same time, says Dr. Emily W. King, a family psychologist.  When I saw these words, I thought about how perfectly they summed up my life at the moment and the lives of so many parents.  Caregivers are being asked to perform the impossible.  Or – if not impossible, then – the highly undesirable.

We all have our particular brand of misery to dwell on – if we must.  Friends of ours were in the middle of an around-the-world trip when Coronavirus swept in and terminated their plans.  They planned to travel for an entire year, while he took a sabbatical and she worked from the road.  Their trip was five years in the making, and in the end it was cut abruptly short by several months because of Covid.  Is this the end of the world?  No, but it really sucks.  If their trip was a fine meal, then they missed out on those last few savory bites.  There are many aspects of life that really suck right now (i.e. as alluded to above, trying to perform three jobs at once), but we also know there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  We must strive for that light.

Our travel friends, the Irwins, a Canadian family of four comprised of mom, dad and two awesome daughters, adopted a family motto during their travels for when times got tough.  And times inevitably did get tough:  from questionable food, to disappointing – even dangerous – highly-anticipated experiences, to a police raid of their accommodation (I need to ask you guys more about that one…)  The family kept it together by repeating these simple words: we can do hard things.  That’s it.  I believe I know where these words come from.  When we caught up with the Irwins in Thailand this past November, I asked Amy, the mom, if she was a reader (as I’m wont to do) and if so, was there a memoir she recommended?  She suggested I read Glennon Doyle’s highly acclaimed debut memoir Love Warrior.  Glennon Doyle embodies and speaks to the words, we can do hard things, in Love Warrior, as well as in her most recent book Untamed.  We can do hard things.  I love this simple statement so much, which for me encompasses hope, confidence and resolve, that I want to write it on my wall; on the blank white space I stare into when I’m running on the treadmill.  There are things happening beyond our control and life is hard right now.  Really hard.  But we can do hard things.  Thanks to the Irwins for reminding me of that.

I’m reading another memoir right now as part of my Masters work called Highway of Tears by Jessica McDiarmid, a true story of racism, indifference and the pursuit of justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.  The book reads like an investigative report, and I’m enjoying it so far.  While books serve an instructional purpose for me, I also mine them for material, reading along waiting to spot diamonds in the rough with their sparkling light.  I call these gems inspiration.  Well, I was inspired, fully inspired, by a run of the mill description of a town and a place with one significant detail: totem poles.  Erected in 1850, these totem poles were the oldest remaining in the world.  Found in the town of Gitanyou (previously called Kitwankool) in British Columbia, said totem poles were made famous when painted by Emily Carr in her painting Kitseukla.  One of the totem poles depicted is known as ‘Hole-in-the-Ice’ and it was this piece of history, mentioned in the book, that intrigued me the most.  The Totem pole literally has a giant hole in it.  Why the hole?  I felt I was that totem pole, my exterior carved by my life story with a hole in the middle.  There is so much passing through me right now, and I have no way to take it all in, to digest.  We are all walking totem poles, losing those we know and love through holes in the ice.  There is no salvaging the damage done by the frigid icy waters below, we just know that it needs to get a bit colder before the hole will close and the ice will heal.  We must brave the cold and we must survive it.

I have been unable to determine why there is a hole carved in the ‘hole-in-the-ice’ totem pole. What I do know, is that totem poles are monuments created to represent and commemorate ancestry, histories, people, or events.  According to a site devoted to Indigenous art in UBC’s Natives Studies program, “Most totem poles display beings, or crest animals, marking a family’s lineage and validating the powerful rights and privileges that the family held.  Totem poles would not necessarily tell a story so much as it would serve to document stories and histories familiar to community members or particular family or clan members.”  Perhaps someone knows the secret to why there is a hole in the ice, but the information is not readily available.  The question of ‘why’ remains one of the great mysteries of life.

We can do hard things.

I just finished listening to Charlie Engle’s Running Man.  I love listening to books written by triathletes with inspiring tales while I’m working out, and Charlie’s story did not disappoint.  A former drug addict, he found his way into running as a means and lifeblood to his recovery.  His life was going relatively well – at least from an outsider’s perspective – when he was pegged for a crime he was innocent of committing (he took the fall for a ‘liar loan’ on a house he owned).  Not long after having completed the longest run across a dessert, and adventure racing through the Amazon, he found himself behind bars.  To no avail, even when uncovering new evidence to suggest he was unjustly treated and tried, Charlie was forced to serve his full sentence of twenty-one months in prison.  Upon his release, he relished being a free man, and began inspiring others with his story.  In a talk he delivered to college students the epiphany came to him that, “Adaptation is the key to happiness.  Anything can be overcome with the right attitude.”  Right now all of us are being forced to adapt, and if we can, if we will try to, then I agree with Charlie Engle, we have a chance at being happy.  This hole we are feeling right now will not do us in.  As far as adopting the right attitude, we can do hard things seems just about right.

I want to end this post with a gift to you, a poem that fits the spirit of this post.  This poem is from a delicious little cookbook, Eat This Poem, by Nicole Gulotta, whose recipes are inspired by its poems.  I hope you will savour every last sweet bite.

Perhaps the World Ends Here, by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table.  No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table.  So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it.  Babies teethe at the corners.  They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human.  We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children.  They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table.  It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror.  A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow.  We pray for suffering and remorse.  We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Blog Post: I Surrender

I surrender.  I surrender to circumstances currently beyond my control.  I surrender to the fluidity of time, to daybreak and nightfall.  I surrender my resistance to embrace technology.  I will meet my child’s teacher on Google classroom.  We will have a face-to-face meeting this way; she will reassure my child.  There is currently no other way, no other options, and so I surrender to that which is beyond my control.

I surrender to my fingers, typing these words, and my thoughts free-flowing and to the idea that – ‘idle’ and ‘dangerous’ were the next words that came to mind to continue on with that phrase.  Letting the mind go idle is dangerous.

I surrender to puppy nips, licks and kisses.  To training him every moment of every day he’s awake, and training hard, because my god, this puppy is worth it.  I choose life, hope, renewal, positivity, forward movement every time.  I surrender to the puppy whose responsibility will weigh me down because to do so is to move forward; because puppies inspire hope and bring me joy that bolster the spirit.

I surrender to being needed, and yet there is so much need around me I cannot, will not, fulfill.  I surrender to being incomplete.  I surrender to the idea, for the time being, there are those who have in this pandemic and those who have not.  Those who’ve lost their jobs or their business, or their livelihood or their faith.  And those who have gained time with their family, to slow down, to breathe.  To take stock.  Those who are doing just fine, better than fine.  There are those who live in fear and those who seek growth.  I surrender to them all.  I surrender to being human.

I surrender to the notion the kids will not be going back to school.  There is no way, and no easy way to say it or accept it.  Elyse’s grade two year is complete; grade three testing will not happen for Ariel and Penelope’s final preschool year has come to a close.  Penelope looks bigger these days; I hope she’s getting enough exercise.  I forget she’ll soon be four and needs to grow.  I surrender to remembering.  Her preschool director dropped by yesterday from a distance; she visited every single student from the school to let them know they are loved and missed.  I wanted to reach out, to cry, to hug her, but I kept my distance; I also wanted to tell her she is released, I’ve got her.

What seems like a few months ago, but was likely longer, was a meeting with Elyse’s teachers.  I announced my plans for Elyse to learn to read on her own this year.  That was our goal.  This was supposed to be a joint venture between school and parent.  Her teacher reassures me she plans to send Elyse a weekly short book to read online; still, I have ordered Elyse her own set of books from Scholastic, a particular set of books she is familiar with because the school was sending them home before.  Before.  The realization dawned on me.  We will have to teach her to read now; it’s on us.  Maybe it always was.  I ordered those books, because while online reading and learning is okay, there’s something about having a book in your hand.  Elyse would be missing out without that book in her hand.  We can’t sell our kids short on their education and yet parents are struggling, selling themselves short.  I surrender to the responsibility of educating my children, but that’s been a bargain deal established long ago.  Since before birth; since the time of the womb.  It’s just that now I surrender to doing it full time, for a short while.  I hope it’s just a short while.  We are all struggling in our own ways.

Maybe I’m not alone.

I surrender to kindness.  To video chats with educational assistants, and a package of learning materials arriving sanitized on our doorstep.  To watching my daughter’s face light up at the gift.  To a human being thinking of the needs of another human being.  And I’m smiling through happy tears.

I surrender to the idea there are people dying.  Not to sound crass, but there are always people dying.  It’s when death feels so present, so at the surface that we flinch.  When death arrives at our neighbour’s doorstep for no apparent reason other than a shift in the wind, then we find just cause to rally and rise up against death.  To give ourselves the false reassurance that when there comes a knock at our door we’ll be able to turn death away.  I surrender to death, but I will not, I will NOT surrender to fear.  Death is ever-present, whether we choose to see that or not.

I surrender to loss.  What appears palpable and tangible and a sure thing may not be so, and so I surrender to that loss also, the loss of surety, of having groceries that I need and want when I want them.  Of sipping lattes at my favourite café.  Of time to myself.  Of lines in stores where we don’t have to stand six feet apart.  Of a world where a deadly virus does not exist.

But most of all I surrender to love; I yield to its awesome power.  To the sound of the happy birthday song leaving my children’s lips, that sweet sound, as the keys to the piano dip and sway.  I surrender to a puppy whose trust I must earn with each move I make.  To a husband whose hair has grown floppy as a mop; I will cut it for him.  I can do that.  I want to.  There are things within our control that we still can do.

I surrender to many things, but I will not relinquish happiness and joy.  Those I will – we must – find ways to uphold.  I call my way Louie.  He’s currently curled up napping on my lap; the world’s problems be damned.

Blog Post: The Girl Who Climbs Trees

I’m free – I’m FREE!  Fourteen days of quarantine complete!  Then it hit me.  It hit me hard.  I’m not free.  None of us are.

All of my favourite restaurants and cafes are closed.  The library and other favourite public places I frequented before, like our local recreation centre obviously have their doors shuttered.  Conservation areas are long gone.  I won’t be going on an all-day hike.  This isn’t news.  Even the basketball courts behind our house and the park – literally, the green blades of grass – are off limits. You can be fined $750 for not taking heed.

So I’m free to go…nowhere.

I found this slightly depressing the other day.  That, and that all is not well in paradise.  The children are fine, but they need caring for – constantly!  Can you imagine?  Excuse me while I exhale loudly, but it’s tough when you’ve built a life around working to suddenly have to halt that existence and become a teacher and full-time parent.  I left classroom teaching because I wanted to write.  Dan never became a teacher or professor, unlike his wife, mother, father and two sisters, because that wasn’t his jam.  I’m sure he misses life on the road (though he tells me otherwise), but what he surely does miss is a full workday without interruption.  The time and space to work.  He was awake in a panic the other night, stewing.  He couldn’t get back to sleep for a while.  Those who know my husband, and know him well, know that he can sleep ANYWHERE.  While sitting up facing you mid-conversation.  During an intake meeting with his child’s therapist.  While working, during a colleague’s presentation or mid-conference speaker.  Dan is the king of cat naps.  Him staying awake in the middle of the night was like a wakeup call for me as to the seriousness, and potentially long time, we are all going to be snuggled in bed tight, lying awake together.  Dan enjoys spending time with his kids, like I enjoy it, but there’s the stress and nagging feeling that he’s supposed to be working.

I get it, because I feel it, too.

If you think I should be the one to teacher our kids all day so Dan can work unencumbered as usual, and poo poo to building my career as a writer, then you’re not only sexist, but I don’t like you very much (and there aren’t many people I don’t like).  I’m sick of being told what I should or shouldn’t do by not only men, but other women too.  The sad truth is, for many women during this pandemic, this is their reality.  Like so many issues coming to light in society right now, the inequalities between men and women are certainly one of them.  Who do you think is more expected to be taking care of the children now that we are all home?  Many women are not only expected to work full time from home, but to also simultaneously take care of their families and be their child’s teacher.  I’m having a hard-enough time trying to cook and organize lunches and dinners every day, and mostly Dan is making the dinners, let alone trying to do it while teaching my kids and holding on to a semblance of my past life.  One thing at a time.  I’ve done this circus shit before, and I thought I was done with it on the 24/7 schedule.  Juggling balls all day long is exhausting.  We’re all new mothers again with newborns that need constant care.  And my kids aren’t even being that demanding, they’re just – there.

I have two solutions to all of this.  This is what works for me – this is how I’m dealing with things.  To each their own.  The first is to climb trees. WHAT? am I talking about?  I saw a perfect tree the other day and it called out to me, try and climb me.  The tree beckoned.  I looked around – no one – and decided to give it a whirl.  But here’s the thing about right now: I feel drained of strength.  Every task, big or small, requires momentous effort.  The slow leak of stress is muscle-deflating.  Nevertheless, I did a half jump, and pushing off the trunk with one hand I was able to grab a branch with the other – but that was it.  I couldn’t make it any further.  My legs remained weighted to the ground.  Huh, tree climbing was harder than I remembered.  I think I was hoping to get my feet up off the ground – is it just me or does it seem like there are germs everywhere that could hurt us?  I wanted to get my feet up off the ground and sit perched up there in that tree where I could look out, scan the horizon, get the lay of the land.  We are so clustered in our homes at the moment, and I get the whole staying safe at home – I advocate for it – versus stuck at home.  But there’s no way around sometimes feeling stuck at home.  I wanted to climb way up high, up and away from this mess toward the bright blue sky above me.  But I didn’t make it.  I’m still stuck feet on the ground.

The second solution I have is to give in, to succumb.  And to do so, for me, involves getting a puppy.  A PUPPY?  WHAT??!! How is that less responsibility, you ask?  Why is that the right answer?  Well, here are my reasons.  Our kids have been bugging us for a pet.  I miss my dog.  I have wanted a puppy since Oreo died and we are now all home.  It seems like a perfect time to puppy train.  We won’t be flying anywhere for a while!  Taking a dog out on walks gets us out.  Eventually, god knows when, everyone will go back to school and I’ll be left to my own devices and then I’ll be terribly, terribly lonely.  I like the idea of a pet we can all bond with as a family.  Of bringing more love into our family and our lives.

With more love, of course, comes more responsibility. And who wants more responsibility during a pandemic?  Not my husband.  Me, I’m just looking for an escape.  Take me to the land of puppies, please!  Yes, that is where I’d like to go.

Getting a puppy will be a beautiful distraction.  A messy, big-responsibility, huge and beautiful distraction.  I’m worse than the pigeon who wants a puppy (book by children’s author Mo Willems – look it up if you haven’t read), WAY worse.  I’d gladly accept a walrus at this point.

Anything to shake me out of the reverie of this nightmare.

To you and your family, be well.

Puppy pictures to follow, fingers crossed (my husband is shaking his head).

Update: We got our boy!  Meet Louie, an 8.5 week old vizsla puppy.  I have three happy girls, and Dan is thrilled.