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!

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.

Again it's been a long time

Once again, I am both shocked by and all too aware of how long it’s been since I last wrote here. Nearly three months. Then, it was summer, a bit slower. The kids were away, music was everywhere.

Now, Oliver is a high school freshman running cross country, thinking about Homecoming, and immersed in the maker space he’s built in our basement and in the acting conservatory to which he was accepted. Jack is a high school senior applying to college, struggling with AP BC Calculus, invested in robotics and squash, and just over a two-week bout with pneumonia. I do NOT recommend pneumonia for any high school senior in the midst of first semester and the college application process. It wasn’t helpful or fun and he’s still “paying” for it.

Just yesterday, I was prescribed antibiotics for what is either shitty bronchitis or pneumonia, and I feel truly terrible. Last month I was in an awful wreck (am fine) so we’re now also car shopping amidst all the mayhem of life. Obviously a car is just a thing, but the event itself was enormously upsetting and could have been deathly, and this not having a car for the last five weeks is just a regular reminder of all that.

I admit to feeling great despair right now, about the world and our collective future. There are so many bad actors on the global stage and here at home, so much hatred and bloodshed and what too often feels like gleeful destruction. In times like these I realize anew just how naive I am in some ways. I truly do not understand such maniacal desires for power and wealth. I don’t understand Putin and Xi, Orban and people like Mike Pence and Kevin McCarthy. Trump is clearly trying to stay out of jail; his lunacy and desperation are, in that sense, “understandable.” But my god, just shut up, go away, and take some responsibility, man. Your behavior is so widely damaging. What kind of a person really cares not about burning an entire country to the ground for their own personal gain? I know, naive. But I don’t understand.

And don’t get me started on all who enable such malicious behavior. As if the strongmen ever actually take care of the people they use in their ascendancies. LMAO when not crying.

In WV, I see place after place in utter decrepitude. The poverty breaks my heart. But the trump flags flying in front of so many of those homes vex me. trump wouldn’t deign to shake hands with these folks much less do anything to actually help them. Almost no one in the GOP would. Our collective civic education is in such tatters. Truly, I am just speechless about so much of the lies that circulate as gospel. Recently, on NextDoor in our WV area, a poster was freaking out about “the protests in MAJOR [his caps] cities near Martinsburg and how he was ready to defend his family if it comes to it.” Four different people responded with “what are you talking about?” notes, and ultimately he deleted the post. But there are millions of people with guns out there ready to “defend” their families (read: kill scary “others”) based on falsehoods and hate that is rooted in those lies. It’s terrifying, to be honest. And deeply upsetting.

Last night, I took a large amount of Advil, donned a N95, and met Mom and Dad at an event with Heather Cox Richardson and Jane Mayer. If y’all aren’t familiar with them, Heather is an American History professor at Boston College and a prolific writer who, maybe 4 years ago, started writing Letter from an American, a newsletter-cum-record of the US and our democracy during the trump era. Jane is a New Yorker investigative journalist, one of the very best, who is not only the chief Washington correspondent but also an expert on dark money in American politics.

One of the most interesting parts of their discussion focused on trump followers and the behavior of those who follow and love strongmen. In short, once people descend down the rabbit hole of rabid followership, the worse the authoritarian behaves, the stronger their fealty to him. We see this, of course, daily with cheeto and his minions which makes the fact of his likely GOP presidential nomination all the more worrisome. He must not win. If he does, he will never leave, and his cult followers will feel both validated and empowered, even more than they already do.

Meanwhile, Israel. As I’m sure you are, I am horrified to near speechlessness about the brutality of Hamas’s invasion. Again with my despair about humanity and its future. This thread is one of the best and most educational I’ve read, and I encourage you to all spend time with it. I would also suggest reading the response by Tal Morgenstern who argues thoughtfully with some of Saul’s writing and then Saul’s response to Morgenstern.

Regarding all of the above, what the world too often lacks, in addition to civic education, are critical thinking as well as patience and respect for complexity and nuance. So little is black or white, and no one benefits from snap judgments that are rooted in soundbites rather than understanding of what are often decades- and centures-old conflicts. It is really fucking hard to get good information these days. It takes way more effort than most people have time or the inclination for.

If you can, please support excellent journalism and the dissemination of it. Good journalism costs a LOT! Personally, I find The Atlantic, The New Yorker, C-SPAN, ProPublica, Reuters, and Associated Press to be excellent. I’ve also read Haaretz a lot since the weekend and find it very thoughtful. Generally, I also very much appreciate NPR and BBC.