The Art of Becoming

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 ...