Ol and I said sad, envious goodbyes to Jack yesterday when a very dear friend (who happens to be the mom of one of Oliver’s best friend) met me in Brunswick, ME, to pick J up and bring him and her son to camp. Afterwards, Ol (who had just tested positive for the 10th day) and I headed out for lobster (because, for fucks sake, we’d just heard the news from SCOTUS) and then further up Maine’s coast to spend a lovely afternoon in Damariscotta.

This morning, he tested positive again. Day 11.

We headed to Boothbay Harbor for coffee and to maybe get off the waitlist for a puffin- and whale-watching cruise. I was just about to call and reschedule rental car and plane tickets when camp called and said that per CDC guidelines, he could go. So, off we went.

After moving him in, I drove the mile-long driveway back into cell reception and felt my shoulders finally release. But the release was one that I in many ways begrudged because without my boys, it’s impossible to ignore the reality of America today.

I now have fewer inalienable rights than a firearm. Girls who are just this side of children now, in many states, have to carry and birth products of incest and rape. Women everywhere can be charged with murder should they choose to honor their desires, abilities, and point of life rather than a clump of non-sentient, non-viable cells.

Everyone can now have a gun! Miranda is gutted! Clarence Thomas said:

and I am still in shock that

None of this is just or democratic.

My shoulders fell into the space of being able/having to think about the various horrors and injustices being heaped upon the large majority that disagrees with and actively does not support these hideous strictures against personhood that isn’t self-defined as white, heteronormative, super-Christian nationalism, or Clarence Thomas.

I am aghast, repulsed, incandescent with rage, heartbroken, and scared. And that’s an understatement.

Do not even consider responding to this with any advice to relax, calm down, breathe, or fight. Take that invalidating shit elsewhere. I have been fighting and breathing and voting and calling and canvassing and fundraising and donating and texting and postcarding and yoga’ing and marching and protesting and housing and supporting. So many of us have. And look where we are.