Category — Uncategorized

The twins and I still volunteer at an animal sanctuary. When we showed up for our shift, we were the only ones there and no one had left us a note with specific instructions. We figured we’d start mucking in the first enclosure and work our way across.

The twins were walking in front of me, and something started bleating at us the moment we walked into the main yard. I couldn’t see what they were looking at—only the general directions they were looking—so I called out, “Are those the porcupines? I’ve never heard them make a noise like that.”

And they turned around with their mouths open and said, “There are five goats here.” We were not expecting goats. We were not expecting completely adorable and tiny fainting goats. We reached through the fencing and rubbed their noses and let them lick our hands.

Later, after all of our mucking was done, the person in charge arrived, and she told us we could go into the enclosure. Do you know the pure love of being mobbed by five happy fainting goats? I picked one up like a dog and cuddled her in a chair. She just rested in my lap, looking up into my eyes. My heart exploded.

The lesson learned: Life is amazing, and you can never predict the twists and turns. You may think nothing can possibly exciting can happen today. And then you meet a goat.

During young adulthood—college and beyond—we would trek down to the Capitol and stake out seats on the Capitol steps to watch the fireworks. Deeper in adulthood, newly married, we took over space on the Mall, wanting a little room to lie down and spread out.

Early in parenthood, we sat on a field and watched the fireworks over the trees with the other local families. We unfolded beach chairs and talked while the kids ran around or played on the nearby playground.

And then last year, everything was canceled and we stayed home.

And this year, everything was canceled again and we’re staying home.

Our celebration has gotten smaller and smaller over time until it is barely existent at all. Maybe we’ll watch a replay of fireworks on television.

What are your Fourth of July plans if you’re in (or from) the US?

Carolyn Hax had thought-provoking pregnancy loss advice this week. A woman wrote her after a miscarriage, stating that she is now in limbo. She didn’t tell people she was pregnant, and now she doesn’t want to start the conversation by talking about the loss. But she wants support.

Carolyn tells her:

Please think of your most supportive person or people beyond your partner, and tell — even if that person isn’t necessarily your closest person. You want someone who has crisis chops and knows how to be supportive, which may be a different skill set from the one your mom or best friend has. Invite people emotionally to help you through this, at a pace you feel you can manage.

So the thought-provoking part begins with your best comfort may not be the person you would identify as your best comforter before a crisis. People have different skills sets, and someone who is not particularly close to you may turn out to be the best support in the moment.

Carolyn also sends the woman to the online community. Sometimes strangers who have gone through something similar can be better listeners and question-askers than someone who knows you (but not the situation) well.

I was thinking about that idea of different comforting skill sets and how we automatically have a hole in helping people through pregnancy loss in many cultures because we keep it on the fringes of society vs. building ritual or conversation around it.

It goes back to what we were talking about a few weeks ago. If we taught pregnancy loss as part of sex ed, it would be commonplace knowledge. But it isn’t commonplace knowledge, and when we’re shamed by society NOT to tell people about a pregnancy until 12 weeks (because doing so may mean that you have to talk about pregnancy loss), we remove all possibility of people building the skill set. Unless they’ve been through it themselves or have high empathy.

Food for thought.

The twins went to the mall for the first time in over a year and a half. Probably two years. They needed clothes before the pandemic hit, but we didn’t run those errands because we thought we’d be home for two weeks and then go back to normal life. 16 months of pyjamas and camp t-shirts later, and it felt time to enter a store and purchase hard pants.

It was overwhelming to be around so many people. But 80% of people wore a mask. (Our area is high vaccine/high mask wearing.) The kids got some new clothes and feel ready to return to life in the outside world.

We had a repair person come into our house for the first time since March 2020. It was to fix the broken television signal. We’ve been fixing things ourselves using YouTube as our teacher, but this went beyond our skill set. It was weird to have someone in our house. I cleaned after he left, but then it broke again. I guess I’m going to be cleaning a second time. Or maybe not. It will be a game time decision, like so many things these days.

And we went inside my parents’ house. We saw them outside through the pandemic, but we moved inside this week. It took us a few minutes to remove our masks, but then we all hung out in the living room as if we were living in 2019. We sat around the dining room table, having a normal dinner. I felt like I was moving gingerly, like walking again on a healed foot. I needed to move carefully, almost like I was trying not to wake something. But there is nothing to wake up.

In many ways, it was less stressful to give things up in 2020 than it has been to add them back in 2021.

The cicadas made me look at my life in 17-year jumps. I will be 63 (turning 64) the next time they come. After that, I will be 80 (turning 81). After that, I presume that I will be dead. I only have two more cicada visits in me.

We discovered this year that there are no Brood X cicadas on the eastern shore. I made Josh promise that 17 years from now, we’ll rent a place on the eastern shore for six weeks and miss them. I don’t need to see them again, though I would like to still exist the next time they come so I can snub them with a no-show.

It is weird to think of myself as 63, having everyone greet my birthday with the famous Beatles song. I will be wrinkled. My body will ache. The twins could be married. I will need to explain to new family members my dislike of cicadas and why they need to visit me by the ocean.

I read an article on a city that has a Department of Future Aging that thinks about how to make spaces more user-friendly to the elderly. It makes sense. It’s the one thing we all will (hopefully) do—age.

I love this:

The information set into motion a mindset shift that fundamentally altered Arnsberg’s future. Until that point, the city’s approach to aging had been classically “deficit-oriented” — focused on what seniors could no longer do and primarily putting resources into nursing homes, rather than creating programs that capitalized on what they could still offer.

It is a place that takes care of one another, giving worth to the elderly and worth to the young at the same time. I wish every place was as forward-thinking.