everyday life

Today. Tomorrow.

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Grace and Whit with me as I voted for Hillary Clinton for president, last Saturday, October 29th

I’ve resisted saying anything political here.  Ever.  I’m not strongly aligned with either political party, have voted for Democrats and Republicans (notably, always in Massachusetts), and deliberately retain my Independent status.

I do have some issues I feel strongly about, and often they tip me towards the Democrats: gun control, women’s rights, a woman’s right to choose, climate change.

This year, since the very beginning of this endless and bruising campaign, I’ve been a Hillary supporter.  All four of us are.

We are proudly with her.

All of us.  My husband, a long-time Republican who has only voted Democrat once before (for Obama in 2008), has been a vocal Hillary supporter for many months. When I walked to the polls with him and watched him vote for Hillary in the primary, I knew he was a good egg.  Well, I already knew that, but it was a good moment.

I’m afraid right now.  Scared about what’s going to happen tomorrow, yes, but maybe even more scared about the deep fault lines that this election has exposed in our country.  In particular I’m daunted by the latent sexism that these last, long months have revealed. I won’t get into all the reasons I think Trump is an unacceptable choice (it’s a long list), because for me his incredibly derogatory behavior towards and words about women are enough reason to say no way.

I’m also proud.  Proud that I got to stand next to my teenage daughter – who will vote in the next presidential election! – and my tween son and cast my vote for a female president.  I’m a feminist through and through, I’ve never wavered on that.  To me, being a feminist simply means that believing that men and women are equally valid and valuable.  Not exactly the same.  But possessing the same inherent worth. Given my definition of feminism, I’m shocked that not everyone agrees with me.  Call me naive, but when I’m confronted with evidence that people honestly don’t agree, I find myself bewildered and startled.

For many years, one of my all-time favorite children’s books has been Grace for President.  I’ve given it as a gift tens of times.  I wish the protagonist wasn’t called Grace, actually, because that coincidence has nothing to do with how much I adore the book.  Grace and Whit both know that I can’t get through a reading of the short picture book without actively crying.  So they still like to ask me to read it now and then, for entertainment purposes.  I cry every single time.  And here we are.  On the brink of that truth, of electing a woman because she is the best candidate, who said as she accepted the nomination, “standing here as my mother’s daughter and my daughter’s mother.” I loved the way she said that, the way she put her motherhood and daughterhood front and center.  I’m not voting for Hillary Clinton just because she’s a woman.  No way.  Do I think that her being a woman is pat of why she’s such an exceptional candidate?  Yes. For me it’s inextricable. But my vote is about more than electing a woman. It’s about electing the best candidate (by a wide country mile, in my view).  And she happens to be a woman.

I can hardly hold back my tears.  When tomorrow comes, I hope we will hear the people sing (yes I have Les Mis in my head), and there will be a roar of celebration.  I wish my grandmothers were alive right now.  I felt them with me in the voting booth as I cast my vote, with my daughter, whose veins run with their blood, standing beside me.  Nana and Gaga were both such important women in my life, intelligent, thoughtful, articulate women, feminists at their core, both Planned Parenthood leaders and supporters long before it was mainstream.  They would be in tears, too, I think.

 

That was then

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Halloween 2005.  Chicken and egg.  It feels like yesterday, truly.

This is now.  My new 14 year old and my almost-12 year old.

Oh, time.

What’s your patronus, lightning, and other morning thoughts

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The chapel at Middlesex School.  I was early to an xc race on Saturday and my habit when I’m early (which is basically always, whether to a sports event or a work thing) is to find the chapel.  I love the light streaming through those high windows.

I’ve been waking up at dawn.  I think of my grandmother, who – to my memory – was always up at the crack.  I feel like I’m both getting old and getting closer to her when I keep waking up at 5.  No matter the day, no matter what time I went to bed.  I’m also tired, for the record.  I’d like to sleep past 6.  But this seems to be my lot right now, and I’m aware that as misfortunes go this is a small one.

On Saturday morning this weekend I went running in the dark at 5:15.  It was wet and damp and warm, and it was my first run in a long time.  I observed in August that my runs lately had been short and difficult, and that trend has continued. As Grace blossoms into running (she is increasingly comfortable with the 5k distance, and happier racing), I seem to be falling into a ditch. Clearly her father already did (fall into a ditch).  Here we are. I thought about that as a ran.  My daughter, who would run her last race as a 13 year old later on Saturday.

I remembered a piece I’d written years ago about Grace and Whit called Lightning in a Jar. I’m not sure why that piece came back to me on Saturday morning, but one thing I’ve learned to heed in my middle age is the thoughts that rise up apparently randomly in my mind.  There’s a reason, I am sure of it; it is as undeniable as it is inchoate.

It’s all so astonishing, so baffling and overwhelming at the same time, and I feel awash, often, in the swarming wonder that is parenting.  My own children, growing tall and lanky in front of my eyes, their childhood passing in one swift swirl of color, the brilliance of their being here flashing intermittently like a firefly in the dark.

And now, Grace and Whit (over five years later!) have surely shattered the jars.  The lightning of their beings flashes around the house, jagged, hot, and dazzlingly beautiful.  I’m still battled and overwhelmed, still awash in the swarming wonder of parenting.

As I ran, bunnies kept dashing across my path.  I thought randomly of Harry Potter and his patronus, a stag.  I wondered what animal my patronus would be.  A memory reared up of climbing Kilimanjaro with Matt, in June 1998 (I wrote about that experience in more detail here). As we neared the summit, I had a very vivid sense of a reindeer running by me.  To this day, Matt and I laugh about it.  Reindeer at 18,000 feet in Africa?  Probably not. But I was so sure.  In that moment, Matt says he was not sure if his new girlfriend was struck suddenly with altitude sickness or joking.  I imagine it was the former, but luckily I got to the top and we made it down in one piece.  I’ve never forgotten that vision of a reindeer, though.

Is that my patronus?  Maybe. Who knows. I had not even discovered Harry Potter at that time. I read the first four books in the week leading up to our wedding and on our honeymoon, actually. Another possibility is a large cat.  I dislike house cats as much as I’m riveted by large ones.  I’m a Leo who was born in the year of the Tiger and when we were on safari it was the cats I was most drawn to.  Maybe my patronus is a lion or a tiger.  I don’t feel fierce, though.

Thinking of lightning, and Harry Potter, and a long-ago dark walk up Kilimanjaro where a reindeer flashed by me, I kept running.  The streets were dark and quiet, damp from last night’s downpour.  I let the thoughts run through my head, and I ran home.

What form would your patronus take? 

Around here lately

It’s been a while since I shared snapshots of what’s going on around here.  I realize I tend to do that more and more on Instagram these days.  It’s been a quiet fall, with a lot of time at home following a rough couple of weeks, and in a weird way as we come out of the fog back into real life I find myself strangely nostalgic. There was definitely a silver lining to those challenging days.
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This fall has been a lot, lot, lot about the kids’ sports.  Matt came to watch one of Grace’s home xc meets.  He was unable to sit down, so as you can see, he lay down on a bench to wait for the start of her race.  img_3641

At another meet, my parents came to watch with me.  I took this photograph of our shadows as I stood next to Mum.  Now and then the good fortune of my parents living so nearby that they are able to do stuff like that threatens to swamp me.  Of course, it’s deliberate, that we live here, and this is precisely why.  Still.  I am so, so lucky.  img_3649

Matt’s parents sent me flowers.  How lovely is that?  The happy energy of these sunflowers filled our kitchen for days.  Once again: I am so lucky. img_3666

Whit is playing football for school.  Which is to say he is practicing, and in the game for one or two plays per game.  Which is fine by me.  But I do love him in his little uniform (they had to order new pads, since they didn’t have any small enough for Whit or his friend).  img_3639

I take a lot of photos of Grace running, and this is my favorite so far this year.  Somehow the blur, the movement, the way she’s looking away … feels like right now.

Early October

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Photo on Sunday morning, doing errands with Grace and Whit in Boston.  We also stopped by one of my favorite buildings, the Boston Public Library. 

I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon.  Whit is doing homework in his room, down the short hall from my office.  Matt is reading on the first floor.  Grace is at a cross-country meet and I’m leaving soon to go watch her.  It’s rainy and gray outside, a gloomy day through and through.

I’m feeling gloomy too.  Maybe it’s the weather.  Maybe it’s the relentless needs that everybody seems to have of me right now (this fall is particularly busy with stuff going on and it’s all exacerbated by Matt’s injury; I feel like I’m walking through life with one hand tied behind my back).  Maybe it’s that I have been sleeping poorly and therefore I feel absolutely exhausted.

Maybe it’s all three.

I can hear Whit down the hall, and he just said under his breath, “oh my gosh, it’s October first!”  Which made me smile because that’s what I sat down to write about too.  It’s such a cliche but it’s just so true: time is whipping by faster and faster, and I can hear the months whistle as they sail by my ears.

Perhaps because of the particular family situation this fall, or perhaps because the children are getting older and their needs seem more complicated, this fall feels like even more of a blur than usual.  Time’s flying by, full of both bumps and beauty.  Each day feels full, from when I wake up in the pre-dawn darkness to when I collapse into bed as early as possible (but, these days, right after Grace goes to bed).  There are challenges and celebrations, races and games and tests and exams and school tours.  Each day feels small but significant, tinted with a sepia awareness of how short grow our days as a foursome at home.

Everything is poignant to the point of pain right now.  I’m tired and (even) more porous than usual and I know that’s contributing, but daily I find myself on the verge of tears. What I need to do, I know, is return to the gifts I talked about just two days ago.  They are still there.  There’s silver shimmering in the sand that fills my hands.  I just need to see it.