The 'rona got me + looking ahead to spring gardens

After an evening out with a friend on Friday night, I woke early on Saturday and left for a solo 30-hour getaway in WV. Life has not been, shall we say, easy of late, and I was joyful about some quiet time with my animals and land. Halfway there, I started coughing. My chest burned as if its linings had been doused with the shittiest whisky. By 10:20a, I’d texted Tom to say that I felt truly awful and must have caught the cold that felled Jack on Wednesday. Why I didn’t think to test either him or myself is beyond me, but whatever.

The congestion revved up, my skin and teeth started to hurt, and I felt totally enervated.

Was it the two gimlets + wine? I’m no spring chicken anymore, so maybe.

I woke up Sunday not much improved and grudgingly headed home in the early afternoon. On the drive, something kicked in. I called T and he had a test waiting for me.

After all this damn time. Jack tested- positive too, though definitely a good four days ahead of me. He has felt really awful, so his double line was not a surprise result. Masks were donned, I took to the guest room, and here we are. Jack tested negative yesterday so is finally back at school with mask firmly in place. He feels better, but not good.

I still feel like roadkill, y’all. I have zero sense of smell or taste beyond what I can only describe as feeling that I burned my tongue and then licked pennies for several hours; the congestion was EPIC though that has subsided; the cough has been so severe that I have aching stomach muscles (core work! #silverlining) and have coughed up not an insignificant amount of unsightly phlegm curds; my throat is unbelievably sore such that it hurts to swallow; and I just feel tired and vague.

The acute feeling of “I am really effing sick” is gone, but yesterday I took 89 steps. Today, my step counter hasn’t even registered. All this after two initial vaccines and two subsequent boosters. I don’t even want to contemplate getting this in the absence of those mitigating factors.

I’ve done some reading (harder than you might imagine) and some student work and managed to make a large and thrilling-to-me gardening spreadsheet of all the seeds, bare root, and potted seedlings I’ve bought or are on order for spring arrival; full of all relevant info like preferred sun exposure and soil, height, animals repelled and attracted, intended planting location, and so forth, it also enables me to input and track when I started what seeds, when I upgraded their pot sizes, and when I ultimately get them into the ground or container.

So far, my wallflower seeds, both English and Fair Lady, are winning the sprouting race. Slow the train, little buddies. After just eight days I had to move their peat pots into a larger, non-covered pot because they were hitting the plastic cover of my Jiffy tray. The snapdragons and Billy buttons are up too, and I spy the rock cress and creeping thyme making their way. Part of my basement looks like a weed lab, what with pots and grow lights wired up everywhere, but it all brings me great joy, and my family kindly (and with some lovely eye rolls) alerts me when “another package from Eden Brothers arrived.” Listen, they have great seeds.

Anyway, I have showered today but that’s it. Ruthie came for a quick visit, but as per Ruthie, she’s gone again. I’m gonna finish my coffee, send vibes of love and strength to Tyre Nichols’ family while also fully understanding if they can feel nothing but grief and rage over the murder of their boy, send evil thoughts to College Board for bowing to performative GOP pressure and stripping their AP African American history course of, well, African American history, and feel thankful for science and medicine and little peat pots and the always earnest determination of nature and life.

From left: wallflowers at 4 days; snapdragons at 6.

Covid #InAmerica + goats + nature

We are so many months into this pandemic, and the relentless pressure and loss of it all weigh. On me, on many. On most? I suppose it depends on where you live, what you choose to believe, who you have lost, and what meaning you put into life, community, “freedom,” and duty.

I suspect you all know where I come down on this, but in the meantime, I spent a meaningful few hours on the Mall last Friday with my friend M in service of a local artist’s installation regarding Covid in America and the scale of what we’ve surrendered.

Some of you definitely saw this exhibit; others read about it. I couldn’t fathom its impact until I was there. I had volunteered to transcribe online submissions from people who wished to honor their loved ones. M and I sat at a Cosco table, armed with fresh Sharpies, white flags on metal stems, and printed cards to copy onto them. The volunteer to my left lost her brother to Covid last year; other volunteers didn’t share, at least to me, but some had helped for many days, and if I’ve learned anything at 45, it’s to never assume you know what someone is struggling with, processing, or feeling.

After more than an hour of transcription, M and I offered to tend plots of already-planted flags. Part of me hated to leave the writing tent: there was something so powerful and important about bearing witness to grieving people’s testimonies. By writing their final tribute, we, too, honored the dead they mourned.

But carefully, tenderly straightening flags felt almost like tidying a graveyard. Watch your step, provide honor where honor is due, memorialize.

While we were there, the artist, Suzanne Firstenberg, changed the number board to reflect the updated official death toll: 700,327. I mean, the sadness-rage cocktail became a frothy, shaken mess laced with ice chips. New Zealand’s count was like 14 (see tiny patch in above photo). This could have been different, the numbers could have been infinitely lower, perhaps we’d be done with this masking, distancing shit by now.

But no! ‘Murica. SMDH.

I am so glad M and I volunteered, but at the same time, it was a sad cap to a shitty week. A poo bonus, if you will.

Now, I am in WV. I drove out Monday morning after getting the boys off to school and finagling a childcare logistics schedule that any mother could do while sleeping but which would likely boggle the mind of most men. Because there are no longer llamas here, our pastures are overgrown and in need of serious mowing. I have spent many hours trimming, but this is beyond the scope of one woman and her motorized weed whacker. I priced brush-hogging it before asking about renting a herd of goats. Goats are half the cost.

And, goats are the answer. They are darling, friendly, make amusing sounds, require no gas, need to eat, love to eat, and poop liberally which amends our rocky “soil” in fabulously beneficial ways. Sixteen arrived Monday around noon, and I have loved every minute since. Well, I have loved everything except smelling the billy who is the sweetest animal but who smells so foul that it cannot be articulated. He is as if an ancient fraternity-house carpet, sodden with years of spilled beers, decided to start asking others to pee on it with abandon. And never washed. Holy shit.

Anyway, I love them, and it is so healing to be here by myself, including without Nutmeg and Ruthie, and to have no schedule and no one to feed or talk to other than the animals. To garden until I can hardly move another muscle. To order mulch and sifted soil. To eat a donut. To indulge the barn cats. To think and simply be. To acquire a Neighbor Account at Tractor Supply Co.

This is Romeo. He is my boyfriend.

Romeo from the back, omg. ;)

It's August 18

I flew to Portland, supported my favorite bookstore in serious fashion, had dinner with a dear friend, and went to bed by 9. Drove to Belgrade, caught the boat to Pine Island, didn’t even recognize my radiant oldest and so first waved at my radiant youngest and his BFF, Z. An hour of hugs, stories, thank yous, “do you have everything you need?,” goodbyes, tears, and back to the mainland. Drove to Augusta for lunch at Margarita’s, our post-camp tradition, and then to Norwalk for the night.

It’s since been a whirlwind, and I am now in WV with J, O, and two besties, Z and H. They are wonderful kids, and this adventure has been such a welcome reprieve from the horrors of Covid-deniers, the spread of Delta, scarce ICU beds, Afghanistan, Haiti, wild fires, drought, heat, floods, and so forth.

I am thankful for people like Gregg Popovich, basketball coach extraordinaire who is always on the right side of things; Laurie Bristow, UK Ambassador to Afghanistan who is showing remarkable integrity and courage; the women in Afghanistan showing remarkable courage in the face of Taliban rule; and all who are setting limits against those who refuse vaccinations and/or masking.

I am thankful for nature and its splendor and magic and the hope it insists upon and the reward it will provide for even the slightest of assistance or respect.

I’m thankful for the Irish lit thread I follow on Twitter; despite being on my own with four boys and five cats right now, I’ve finished Boys Don’t Cry by Fiona Scarlet and am on pace to finish tomorrow, My Name is Leon, by Kit De Waal. Both are marvelous, and in my queue are many other modern Irish writers’ books as recommended by the Irish Literary Times feed.

Also thankful for Ted Lasso and its harmonious cast, Jeremy Clarkson and his farm and its merry band of caretakers/characters, good cinnamon rolls, and my very good fortune in this trying thing called life.

Be safe, friends. Love to you all.