Adieu 2024

Two posts this calendar year. What a shame. As the author, I can, of course, only blame myself. But it is, indeed, a shame to have so little to show here for this year.

It was a hard one—one of the hardest of my life. I imagine that stress has inspired my literary muteness, that and the fact of the kids getting older. Old enough that our lives are still intertwined but the ages that theirs are not my stories to tell nor even (most often) my side of them. This blog has accompanied me through so much of parenthood so far. I believe I first wrote, on Tumblr if anyone even remembers that platform, when Oliver was 18 months old. He will turn 16 in March which is hard to imagine in some respects and not remotely difficult to understand in others. He just got his learner’s permit, and we have begun to loosely discuss college visits and what he might want in that experience. Awareness of the great joy he brings Tom and me on a daily basis and how significantly we will miss him when he leaves the nest brings me to tears sometimes.

During this arduous year, I have tried to keep centered by broadening my creative endeavors, both in the garden and on fabric, by spending time with my fur babies, and enjoying time and travel with Tom and friends.

In February, to belatedly celebrate Tom’s birthday, he and I flew to London and drove to Wrexham, in northern Wales, to see Wrexham AFC play Notts County.

Have you heard of or watched Welcome to Wrexham? It’s a sports docuseries produced by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and about the historic-yet-floundering football (soccer) club they bought during the pandemic. We started watching during season 1 when the team was dithering in the national league which is the very bottom of the English Football League. I especially fell in love: the team and story are sort of like a real life Ted Lasso tale meets old mining town that needs an infusion of hope and resources. Wrexham AFC is the third-oldest professional football club in the world and their stadium, the Cae Ras or Race Course, is said to be the oldest still in use.

the English football league pyramid

The team was promoted to League 2 for the 2023-24 season, and we left on Valentine’s Day which is well into things. It was such a delightful adventure. We had beers at The Turf, a great pub that directly abuts the Cae Ras, saw so many stars of the show (athletes and town citizens) that we felt we’d come to know, I sheepishly but enthusiastically asked for selfies with many of the players, and we both got plenty of kit to wear. Notts County is a long-time Wrexham rival so I’d really hoped that game was the one we could attend. We’d had to get up in the middle of the night in January to try and beat all the other international fans in the online ticket grab but came away with two tickets and thrilled.

And, we won!! One of our favorite players, Steven Fletcher, a Scottish Viking god man, scored during the first half, and the win pushed Wrexham into the automatic promotion zone. Thrillingly, the lads are now playing in League 1 and are in 2nd/3rd place at the time of this writing (and playing Barnsley tomorrow to start the New Year.)

PHOTOS BELOW:
top row: Em at The Turf, owned by the wonderful Wayne Jones; Em with Steven Fletcher!
second row: Em & Tom in the Race Course on game day; Em outside of the Cae Ras in her crazy kit
third row: Wrexham mural, not far from the stadium; statue honoring Wrexham miners and steelworkers
fourth row: Em with James McLean (Derry man!) who is one of her faves; Arthur Okonkwo, goalie extraordinaire

The players are all SO nice and so thankful for the community’s support and love. They are always happy to sign autographs and take selfies and have a chat. Honestly, I just loved every bit of the vibe in Wrexham. In the Marks & Spencer in town, we spied some of the players—Steven Fletcher, George Evans, and, I believe, Will Boyle—but didn’t bother them as I’m sure they get it all the time.

We stayed at a darling Airbnb, and our hosts Jenny and Darren could not have been lovelier. They have a yard of chickens that I got to play with, and Jenny, not really a Wrexham fan but a watcher of the documentary, actually spotted Tom and me in an WtW episode months after the game and kindly let me know. Eagle eyes, I tell you!

Welcome to wrexham: notts again

Sometimes, when life feels the hardest and worst, it’s best to just fly to coop for a bit if you can. There is great privilege in being able to turn away from absolutely crap, and with gratitude for our ability to bolt, I’m so glad we did.

In July, as a belated 20th anniversary celebration, we again raced across the Pond, this time to Amsterdam and then London, for the Eras tour and then Wimbledon. But more on that adventure later.

For now, I send a hearty middle finger to large swaths of ‘24, and I wish all of you, all of us (but not Cheeto or his people), the very best for 2025.

Thanks for sticking with me, everyone! Buon Capodanno!

Don't tell me not to despair

K and I were walking our usual route on Monday, and at the entrance to one of the main cherry blossom neighborhoods in the DC area, a tiny copse of the trees were in bloom. Sprays of blossoms in variegated pinks, like so many tiny ballet slippers in flower form. Cherry blossom season is in March. When Oliver was born, on St. Patrick’s Day in 2009, my mom came to meet him, and my mother-in-law took her downtown to the Tidal Basin to see the cherries in all their ephemeral resplendence. It was chilly that day. Mom wore a scarf.

It is November right now. It is not chilly. The cherries have no business being in bloom, not least for a second time this year. We have not had rain in 35 days. In West Virginia recently, our well ran dry. Everything is brittle. I am brittle.

Don’t tell me not to despair.

On Halloween, a warm night on which we got many fewer than usual trick-or-treaters, a little cat + vampire rang our bell. She had long golden hair and shyly asked if I am Ukrainian (our flag flies next to our front door). I said no and asked if she is. “Yes,” she said. “My mom and sister and I moved here a year ago.” Gently, I asked if she still had family in Ukraine. “Yes, my daddy. We had to leave him.” Slava Ukraini, I said. Please tell him thank you and that we are with him.

Don’t tell me not to despair.

On Monday night, I went to set up my local precinct where I and the other election judges would work on Tuesday. Each precinct has two chief judges; they must be of separate political party affiliation. I made snap judgments about who was which, and I was wrong. It was a good reminder of a worthy lesson. I was enormously fond of both judges and of my fellow election workers. We were not supposed to talk politics, but people feel each other out. They need to, really, in terms of understanding and feeling safe. I cheated, late in the 15-hour day on Tuesday, and looked at the judge sign in sheet which, oddly, lists political affiliation. Out of all of us, roughly 14, one was a Republican, two were unaffiliated, and the rest were Democrats. Was I looking for comfort? Camaraderie as the anxiety of election day ending grew? I don’t know. Probably. I wonder how many of them feel like I do today. Despondent, disgusted, not surprised but very sad.

Don’t tell me not to feel any and all of that.

On Twitter yesterday—I was there because I am leaving it but first wanted to migrate all possible contacts to Bluesky—I saw Nick Fuentes, an odious far-right college drop out asshole, post this:

22,000 people “liked” that.

I despair. Don’t tell me not to.

Don't even know where to start

I am in West Virginia by myself right now. While I wait anxiously for the thunderstorm that all weather programs swear is coming, I am cognizant that I am also waiting anxiously for so much else. Rain, as it often is, is a metaphor: for life-giving water; for baptismal cleansing; for clarity and a fresh start. Without rain, things desiccate, become crisp and brittle, turn inwards, die. The West Virginia panhandle is desperately parched; our pastures are becoming barren; all that I’ve planted is gone or barely hanging on; our well is dangerously low. If we lived here full time, we’d be in serious trouble. I’ve already had to buy water and have it delivered to our pool. It’s an expense, though less of one than is repairing a damaged pool liner. And so as do all who rely on water, you do what you can: let some things go to save others.

Last week, someone on this area’s Nextdoor site shared a photo of an emaciated deer dying in her front yard. It was utterly wrenching and despite my best efforts, I’ve not been able to stop thinking of that innocent doe, hungry and thirsty because her habitat is but kindling. The woman called the humane rescue to find it has shuttered because of funding; the next person she called said there was nothing that could be done but to put the doe down. Despite deer overpopulation and the destruction they wreak and the ticks they chauffeur, this doe was not of a nameless, faceless many but a lone creature at the end of her young life. My heart still aches, and I hope she passed peacefully.

I think about all we can and cannot control in life and how meaningful that makes it but also how tragic. So often, too often perhaps, controlling something exacts a toll, a cost, even when your intentions are beneficent. You choose to value one thing more than another. That calculus can be simple, or it can feel impossible. I would save my goats rather than the wild deer that bed down in my gardens at night; I might donate to a homeless shelter but neglect to distribute bottles of water on another day of record-setting heat; I will stay up with my sick child rather than sleep; I have gone to WV by myself even though we move our oldest to college next month.

Sometimes, choice is a joyous freedom but also an illusory one. Sometimes, the risk of inaction outweighs any cost.

While writing, the rain came. For mere minutes. And now it is gone again. How does this change my calculus regarding showering versus laundry tomorrow? Because we are dependent on our well, no more rain will mean one versus both. I’m ok with that, really. Humanity asks and takes and greedily uses too much. All of us could stand to behave more ascetically. Oliver is at camp right now, and there, joyful asceticism could be a motto. No electricity, lake bathing, composting toilets. It costs a small fortune to attend, but it’s worth every penny for the off-the-grid, total-connection-to-each-other-and-nature it provides. An easy calculus.

I seem to have last hit “publish” here in early December of last year. You can’t know the degree to which I’ve missed writing nor the extent to which I have felt muted. Not an easy calculus.

Tom and I were away recently, on a much-deserved 20th anniversary trip, and I swear I drafted a post along the way. However, a search of drafts, recently deleteds, and other such gray spaces showed nothing more than a “new post” from July 3. That post was rather like the “thunderstorm” we just experienced. A fleeting suggestion. Do the clouds feel nervous about bursting? Are they unsure about how and when to open up again? If so, I understand.

If you ask my mom, she will tell you that I always wanted to be a mother. One of my best friends from college, with whom I had dinner just a few nights ago, would say the same. I did. And yet, I admit that 18 years in, I feel very WTF about parts of motherhood. Like, gobsmacked. Astonished. Speechless. Not on my Bingo Card of Life stunned. Listing into the tragic versus meaningful. Done.

After 18 years of giving more than 100% every day from the me receptacle to other receptacles, well, let’s say this isn’t how I thought any involved receptacles would look. One is crispy and stressed; one is supple but lost. Where is the rain? What happened in the passage between vessels? For almost all of those years, I never saw, noticed, found, heard, was made aware of a leak. Where is the goddamn water?

It’s funny. There is no rain, but I can hear it falling softly. It strikes me that this may be what phantom limb syndrome feels like: a clear perception of loss and discomfort in something that is no longer there to feel or perceive anything. Is such a reaction a human attempt to understand the lack of what should be? At the root of my distress is most definitely a failure to, an inability to understand; a lack of understanding. Do I hear the rain because I so desperately want it to be raining? Do I miss a long-held connection because it is suddenly gone?

Yes.

It should rain. We should be connected. The loss of each is awful. I’d choose drought, if that were the calculus. Easily.