24 May 2020: Daily

If you are remotely prone to worry, catastrophic thinking, or are one millimeter beyond rather than shy of complete terror over the state of America now and as relates to this fall’s election, I cannot in good faith advise you to watch The Plot Against America, the six-part series based on Philip Roth’s eponymous novel. The book was published in 2004. It could almost literally be about our current march to the November 2020 election. Gripping, tense, terrifying, and everything is on the line.

I’m sure you saw the swarms at the Lake of the Ozarks water park from this weekend in Missouri. Perhaps you’ve also read about the surge in cases of Covid-19 since Texas reopened. Or seen the news that more than 40% of Republicans think Bill Gates will use a Covid-19 vaccine to implant a location-tracker in recipients. THAT is all the real plot against America. Grotesque ignorance perpetrated by a horribly anti-Democratic, venal, corrupt “government.”

Do these same people care about the front page of today’s NYTimes? U.S. Deaths Near 100,000, An Incalculable Loss.

Do those Republicans, those crowing “pro-lifers” care at all?

Hillary was right. About pretty much everything.

And Trump golfs. At your expense. At our expense.

I feel like I have failed in some fashion as I’ve let all activism go since starting to shelter in place on March 13. Suddenly, my world feels so small, so constricted. It seems all I can do to feed and parent and tend my three boys each day, every day, much less myself, and my closest friends and family. But please know that if we don’t protect our right to vote, freely and securely, we will lose this country in November. I will do everything I can. I hope you will too.

In the meantime, Tom and I celebrated our 16th anniversary on Friday, today we re-roofed our shed, the one we’ve been refurbishing, and the boys and I helped a neighbor set up her new raised bed (they dumped 30 bags of soil and compost in the frame!). Then we did expressive art with old fence posts: how do each of us feel during this pandemic?

Jack’s “Czech hedgehog” which was incredibly well conceived and explained.

Mine

And some pretties, for some zen: fresh collards from my garden; an Eden rose; a coming Calla lily.

21 May 2020: Daily

Camp has been canceled, and we are all heartbroken. I know this was the likely outcome, but it is crushing nonetheless. This summer more than ever, the kids needed six weeks away from everything. Away from electricity and news, pandemics and masks, computers and our house. They needed waves lapping at the shores of a tiny, idyllic island, loons calling across the starry skies. They needed a cohort of boys and men in which they could be and further grow into those roles. They needed boats and tools and mountains to climb and homesickness to combat. They needed to work for and earn their own fun in a way that home never provides.

My heart hurts for them, and the camp, and for Tom and me, and for the extended camp family who has never missed a season since its inception in 1902.

FUCK coronavirus. Fuck the hundreds of thousands of deaths from it, fuck the ruin it has wrought—economically, mentally, emotionally, socially, academically. Fuck the broken plans and lost dreams and Zoom graduations and hookups that can’t happen. Fuck the silver linings and positivity that is crucial but sometimes tiresome.

The loss is immense. It is felt in ways big and small. It is enormously stressful, for everyone, in different and variously horrible ways. It is death and isolation and withered relationships and people dealing differently with stress and worry and no one having enough alone time but also too much alone time and privilege and rage and impotence.

It is seeing your kids trying to grow up and away while in the same room as you; you are thankful they share the jokes tinged with sexual awakening and you are sad they have to share them with you.

It is hearing your parents’ voices across a phone line or a screen, missing them terribly and wondering when you will see them next and how, safely. It is wanting to hug and help and not being able to do either. It is watching companies go out of business and proud people ask for help despite body-cringing discomfort. It is realizing that you have NO ONE in the executive branch wanting to or capable of supporting their citizens.

I stay busy when I can’t figure out what to do. I build, saw, sand, paint, plant, pet, tend, water, weed, feed. But I am so tired tonight. And I am down. I miss my friends, my husband, my independence, my life. My LIFE! I am tired of screens and Zooms (even though, I give you an A+ Zoom, because you are the bomb! You are enabling everything right now). I am tired of insomnia and Ambien and cooking 4-6 meals daily. I am tired of building, sawing, sanding, painting, petting, tending, watering, weeding, and feeding. I am overwhelmed by the thought of months of this ahead.

None of this is good for anyone. It’s good for the planet and for nature, and I am so thankful for the break Earth and its creatures are getting, but damn.

This dear one landed on my thigh yesterday while I was working on the fence. It seemed to just want a rest, so I just stayed still for a while. Then, I gently nudged it onto whatever I was holding and deposited it into a blackberry blossom. Look at those pollen-filled legs. What a gentle giant. My pollinator garden does seem to be attracting such marvelous friends.

17 May 2020: Daily Tale + Humor

Funny!

Has there ever been a time in our country where THIS felt more plausible?

LMAO.

Yesterday, a lovely neighbor mentioned that he’d overestimated the amount of lumber he needed for his new fence and would we like the excess plus the extra nails for his nail gun?

Can I hear a HELL YES?!

Initially, Tom intended to replace egregiously ugly old slats and then decided to build a new fence door because ours was both egregiously ugly and broken. Then, it occurred to me that A) the boys and I wanted to learn how to use both a nail gun and the circular saw, B) much of our fence was egregiously ugly, C) it was a gorgeous day, and D) what a great family project building a new fence could be. And so, while Tom worked on the new door, the kids and I got to work tearing down the old slats and cutting/sizing/nailing up new ones. We decided to go with a more modern look, and I plan to stain this once it ages sufficiently.

As we built, Oliver repeatedly sang, “I’m so happy! It’s a perfect day! Perfect temperature! I woke up in a box fort! Now I’m building!” We had so much fun, and honestly, doesn’t this look terrific? Plus, life skills, people!

We did it all without hurting the lilies!