The Art of Becoming

For three plus years in my early 20s, my dear friend and roommate had a cat named Chloe. I never had did any cat-related-work, and yet, Chloe flustered me. She would systematically nudge drinking glasses filled with water off tables and mantels just to watch the glass break. She delightedly sat twitching her tail while one of us cleaned it up. Chloe couldn't decide if she wanted to sit next to me while watching TV or if she just wanted to stick her claws in me. My roommate assured me this was a sign of affection, but the sight of a cats claws' tacitly terrified me. Chloe would sometimes pee on a random blanket or piece of clothing or bag. I was a dog-person. Dogs were trained to pee and poop outside. Why were cats so different?  Then one Christmas my roommate drove home to Louisiana from Chicago, and Chloe slipped out of the car at a roadside stop in Mississippi or Tennessee, never to be found again. My roommate was devastated. I felt horrible for my roommate when she called to

When the pandemic began and we stayed home every single day, I delighted in the ability to choose comfortable clothing to lounge around. Despite gyms being closed, I knew that it would be easier to fit in a workout at any point in the day, because we had nothing else to do! But as hours ticked by, and days became weeks, and the pandemic had no federal or state leadership by which to curb it, my anxiety rose. I voraciously read the news, and I didn't have a physical fitness routine. My dear friend was encouraging me to set an achievable goal: just get 15 minutes of exercise a day. It seemed simple enough. How many chunks of 15 minutes happen each day? Surely I can allocate one or two of them to getting exercise. In April: I found a Youtube channel that had quick high-intensity workouts. I jumped around in our TV room, finding all of the creaky floorboards, bumping into the couch and coffee table, becoming increasingly aware that I am not as young as I used to be. Certainly not as yo

My dad and I took a walk yesterday, or the day before. Who knows what day it is anymore? After we fumed over the uncertainty of the election and the string of lies spewing out of the President's mouth, I decided to change the subject. I wanted to talk about anything except the ache in my throat and chest. me: What's your favorite fall leaf color? Dad: Red. My 11-year old son, Sean, agreed.  me: I really love the yellow ones.  Which is true, just after the rain, the yellow leaves against the dark trunk of the tree are so beautiful.  Dad: There are some leaves that start to turn, until the edges are ringed with a red-orange color, and the leaf itself is yellow. Some of them are so beautiful it almost makes me want to cry. As much as I wanted to bypass the ache, I couldn't. The fall beauty makes me want to cry, too: trees turning radiant colors and then letting go and shedding the leaves that once adorned their branches. The falling leaves and the crunch of the already fallen

I have never lived alone. I grew up in a family with four children. My sister and I shared a bed until I was 12. It was easier to fall asleep knowing my sister was next to me, knowing my brothers were sleeping in the next room. When it was hot, and we didn't have central air conditioning, my parents made us a palate on the floor of the living room next to the window unit. The constant blowing cold air and white noise eased us into sleep, puppy-piled in a nylon green double sleeping bag with a green plaid interior. Even after I got my own room at 12 years old, I still battled insomnia some nights, so my Dad would pull a chair into the hallway outside my room and read the newspaper while I fell asleep. It's always been a comfort to know that someone is close by, that I'm not ever truly left alone. I had one, two, three, and four roommates throughout college living situations. Then after college I always lived with multiple other people. I believed that my extremely extroverte

This morning the boys couldn't leave to go on their run because I'd hidden Sean's shoes. You read that correctly. In a move formerly known as juvenile and petty, I hid his tennis shoes yesterday. I asked him multiple times yesterday to pick his shoes up off the floor: first at the base of the stairs on the way up to his bedroom. Then after I asked that of him repeatedly, he threw them at the top of the stairwell that goes down to our front door. Neither place was actually getting the shoes out of the way. I fumed. And then picked up multiple items I'd been asking him to clean up, and hid them in the closet in my "office."  This child only has one pair of tennis shoes. Foolishly I thought it would be days before it would even occur to him to look for them, because most days of the week, how often do we even leave the house much less need a specific pair of shoes? In the wee hours of the morning around our house, the only sound to be heard is our dog whimpering,

At the start of the pandemic, Corona-shaming was a thing. From the UK to the US . As most of us felt helpless in the face of massive shutdowns, economic struggle, job losses, and health concerns, many people were looking for something to do, something to help the situation. The Corona-shaming, or the finger-pointing and public humiliation of people "doing it wrong" is not something new. We have been pointing fingers at one group or another for as long as humans have lived. What's different now is the presence of camera capabilities in everyone's pocket. What's different now is the proliferation of so many images and videos all the time, that our brains swim in array of choices: do I agree with that image? Is that image funny? Is it true? Does it strike the right chord inside of me? Does it make me angry?  Social media encourages people to finger point. But does Corona-shaming help the virus decrease? Does it really help save lives?  "The answer is “probably

Captain's Log: day 70. Socialization deprivation continues. Yesterday at 5:15pm, the children requested granola bars as a "snack." The cheapest box of granola bars that can be found at Aldi has chocolate chips, puffed oats and fructose corn syrup in it; perfect empty fuel for their limping, lethargic bodies on a family hike. Not perfect for filling up their mouths to ease the taste of boredom right before dinner. They were denied the granola bars. Anger ensued; terse words were spoken. Life is unfair. Instead they were forced to eat round, sweet objects with fibrous skins and nutrient-packed juices flowing inside. After they chewed through the minerals their bodies really need, they stomped off, smoke leaving their ears, while they silently cursed their captors. Once a week, they must stay in their quarters long enough to pick up dirty clothes, throw away trash, and hide things sufficiently so that they can walk across their room. This arduous task - referred to by t

Mother's Day was lovely. Tom made a big breakfast, he had fresh flowers and new book for me, and the kids gave me homemade cards. Audrey found an old laminated picture of herself from 3 years ago, and inscribed it with her name. She said it was a signed autograph for Mother's Day. Her audacious likeness to me is both stupefying and endearing. But as the day went on, the quarantine malaise set in: our children vacillate between boredom, overwhelmed, underwhelmed, and engaged in something meaningful. Distance learning school work took some of the sting out of this emotional pendulum, but now school is finished. We stare down the calendar days of May knowing that summer hasn't yet begun. The unusually cool spring we're experiencing feels more like fall, and the DIY pool in our backyard (read: horse's trough or stock tank from Tractor Supply Store) is a better place to ice your injured foot than it is to swim. So Mother's Day and quarantine malaise eventually le

Sometimes the babies know. We've instituted a check in during dinner time, a way to see who everyone handled the day. Sometimes I have my own opinions about how one child or the other moved through their day, but often their assessment of their day lines up with my lived experience of being with them. Most often this check-in happens at the dinner table. me: So how is everyone feeling about their day today? Sean: I don't know... maybe a 50 or 60%? Audrey: 60 or 70% - this has been a pretty good day. Frankie: 100%!  me: oh really? Frankie: Yeah. But I did feel tired, so tired is a 1%. It's more of an art than a science. Two days ago there was an emotional blow up because because I asked Sean to empty the dishwasher. Last night there was a blow up because I asked Audrey to remove herself from the bathroom where she and Frankie were goofing off with their toothbrushes instead of brushing their teeth. I don't mind when the emotional blow u

Last week I took the compost out to the compost bin. I hate this job: the sight of decomposing food is not pleasant. However, I love putting food scraps in the compost bin instead of the trash, so I suffer through the unpleasant visuals. One this particular morning, I wanted to take my chore one step further: turning the compost over so that it could more evenly decompose. I locked the door and prepared to spin. I wouldn't say I'm extremely fit and strong, so it took a couple big pushes to get the bin rolling, just as I was really putting my back into it, really getting excited that I was going to roll this sucker one complete rotation, the faulty lock swung open and the compost dumped at my feet. Weeks of decomposing food piled before me, steam rising from its core, I cursed myself. The only way to get through this was to imagine myself a farmer. I went in search of a shovel. As I shoveled slop back into the bin, I thought about farmers who work all day on the land. Is the

I balk at screen time for my children. This is my membership card to parenthood: television disdain. Don't get me wrong, I personally love the tv, love binge watching shows, and we have a standing tradition of Friday as Family Movie Night. But the kids can get so locked in to only wanting the tv, that we had to draw a line. Prior to quarantine we had a rule in our house: no screen time on school days. Get your homework done, practice your instrument, play outside with friends. Now in the time of Coronavirus where screens provide the distance learning? There's no attendance at a school building on screen days. Things have really gone south. One day during quarantine, the kids wanted to watch tv. This day was feeling exactly the same as the last 27 days - a blur of days running together. But since it was Earth Day, I was feeling generous and earthy, so I told them they could watch the Jane Goodall documentary mid-afternoon. The mere mention of possible screen time was enough t

We have no shortage of lessons to be learned while stuck at home together. Long ago, back when people went to the store with children and we had no fear of disease transmission, I took my three children to Target. This is not advisable: don't take three children to Target. After 6.5 years of having three children, I still haven't learned this truism. *sigh* I let them play in the toy section. Again, do as I say, not as I do. Don't let children play in the toy section at Target. Only bad things can happen. If I remember correctly, I was looking for a desk lamp and light bulb for Sean's room. I was trying to entice him to keep his bedroom desk clean so that he could do homework there. (How silly I was! Why would he ever need a desk at home to do his work?) I was also looking for a birthday present for Audrey's friend's birthday coming up. This was back in the day when children celebrated birthdays with their friends. In person. I remember coming circling t

It's hard enough for me to understand the contours of this global pandemic. I think it's even harder for the kids. I've heard them putting it into games of tag: kids: If you get tagged, then you have the Coronavirus and you die. Sheesh. Or they've tried making it personal: Audrey: If the Coronavirus was a person, I would be really angry at them. me: Why's that? Audrey: Because why did it have to happen now? Over my birthday and Sean's birthday, and Easter, and our trip to Disney World? Tears come in the most unexpected places. One night when I thought they were all asleep, I went to the top of the stairs to turn off the hallway light. The moment I did it, I heard both girls asking me to turn it back on. They had been laying there for over an hour, not sleeping, and when I spoke to them, they each teared up. Audrey: I'm just really sad that we're not going back to school. Frankie: I just can't go to sleep. I keep trying, and I'

I have heard people in an older generation from mine discuss the benefits of simpler times. "Back when we were kids..." and extol the virtues of playing outside, running free, unscheduled hours of time where they came up with their own games. Some of those same people have now said that this will be the same for my children. They are now getting the unstructured freedom that quarantine has to offer. I don't fully disagree. With my children currently on a break from the schooling-at-home (or Crisis Schooling, as one friend is calling it) they are achieving new levels of unscheduled freedom, or as they like to call it: boredom. For example: Ping pong paddles for Easter have proven to be a big hit. Do we have a ping pong table? No, we do not! Have people been playing ping pong? Eh - maybe once or twice. But what's really taken their attention has been bouncing the ping pong ball on the paddle repeatedly to see who can get the most hits without dropping the ball. Yester

My dad had open heart surgery on March 12. Since then it's been a waiting game to see how his body will heal. The first couple days were torture for him: every breath in or out held pain, it was difficult to walk, and worst of all, it was excruciating for him to laugh. He is a man that was born to laugh. I remember being a little girl and waiting for the moment that my dad would walk through the front door at the end of his work day. We never knew what kind of day he'd had at his law office until we all sat down for dinner and we'd hear him tell my mom stories about the cases he worked on. But for the first 20-30 minutes of being home, he was pure joy. He would walk through the front door, briefcase in hand, black suit coat hung over his arm, and he would sing loudly: I'm home! I'm home! We're going to have some fun. We're going to have a good time. Fun! Fun! Fun! Every time, same words, same tune. This was the cue for my siblings and me to run

Where are we now? By my count, this is day 18 of quarantine. 18 days of the world turned on its head: kids not in school, no soccer practice or games, no dance class, no gymnastics. 18 days of the new normal we've been asked to adjust to. In that time I have felt a mounting panic; my dad had open heart surgery 18 days ago, and he was hospitalized while his body recovered. The hospital is a place crawling with germs. He needed to be there, so he could begin to breathe on his own again, and begin to walk the halls slowly of his own accord. He needed the life saving measures that the doctors and nurses provided. It also put him inside a germ hotel. Now as he recovers at home, he seemingly has pneumonia, diagnosed from televideo doctor appointment, and my mom, The Nurse, listening to his heart from home. He has a cough, a wheeze, and the doctor prescribed antibiotics and an inhaler he can use three times a day. He says he's getting better, but the cough and wheeze hangs on. Of