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.

Shane and a farm

Some of y’all surely know of my obsession with Ireland. If you don’t, now you do: I am mad for Ireland. Its history, literature, music, dance, beauty, humor, accents, its President, Michael D. Higgins—aka Miggledy—and even that it’s an island because it makes for dramatic scenery. In Dublin in 2022, I happened to attend the opening night of The Steward of Christendom at the Gate Theatre, and who walked in but Miggledy himself!! It was a great evening. I continue to read a LOT of Irish authors: if you’re in the market for a great book, try Trespasses by Louise Kennedy or As You Were by Elaine Feeney. Both are beautiful tearjerkers and they stick with you.

Anyway, do you know the Pogues? They’re a Celtic punk/rock band from the 80s and since, really, minus some lost years to alcoholism and other demons. Their founder and lead singer, Shane MacGowan, died on November 30, and today was his funeral. All of Ireland mourned, and the tributes have been utterly moving. He had such a unique, moving voice: it just gets inside you. Fairytale of New York (not a Christmas song but a Christmas-adjacent song in case you’re in the mood! I never tire of it.) and A Rainy Night in Soho were both performed. I sent my family a video of guests dancing in the church aisles to songs sung during the service with the instruction that were any/all of them in charge of my funeral, it better match the level of love and joy of Shane’s send-off. His mother is dead, but his father and wife were there today, and I hope the celebration of Shane’s life gave them a bit of comfort.

I thought of his life, a life well-lived, fully nine lives of nine lived when his body just couldn’t go anymore. He was a raging alcoholic who loved heroin for a while, lost most of his teeth, replaced them (including one gold incisor), grew up with a hearthfire for cooking, and wasn’t great at school. But he had many gifts and shared them generously. Rest well, Shane.

After getting the boys off and running errands and kissing goodbye, I drove to West Virginia this morning. I have been angsty this week and tired from a really rough case of sinusitis which onset during the flight home from Scotland. At one point, my right tear duct was squirting tears at a rapid pace and I swore I was having an aneurysm. The pain behind my right eye was literally excruciating. I’m super tired of being sick (pneumonia and a virus in the month before this sinus disaster) and am thankful for this quiet weekend. The break between my last visit and this one is, I think, my longest ever, and I delighted in getting reacquainted with all my barn friends.

I spent a good few hours building random shelters for any wild creature that might be in need. No idea if this is something an animal would trust or use, but it was an oddly therapeutic and fun activity, and I look forward to more work tomorrow.

example shelter

Did I tell you about ordering winter coats for the goats? This was and remains a good idea that is, nonetheless, so much harder to execute in real life than in theory that it should be in some sort of training manual for determination, creative problem solving, and resilience. Measuring the drama queens with a CLOTH measuring tape took three people, and our “measurements” were aspirational and in some cases, completely fabricated.

Undeterred, I ordered seven bespoke insulated goat coats because if y’all had seen the boos shivering last winter, you’d have ordered them too. Each goat got a different color. Generally, TomOlJack were supportive, but for Beverly, our blond goat, I chose a turquoise hue and have since been accused of making our girl look like a Floridian grandmother. Whatever. She is now easy to find. And, incidentally, she was the only goat still wearing a coat when I got here today.

Oliver and Tom came when Jack and I were away and managed to get four on. That was down to three by the next day, two the following week, and, as I mentioned, one today. Getting to four rendered Tom dragged over a boulder and superficially impaled by a horn in the hand; Oliver gave up. I managed to get Rambo’s on today. He promptly reached down with his mouth and unVelcroed the strap around his neck, but I was waiting for such chicanery, acted as alpha, and the next thing I knew, he was this:

he’s fine

I will return to battle tomorrow.