A Snapshot of Surreal Land Life

I am barreling eastward down Highway 20 toward Skagit County’s free Covid testing site, because runny noses and coughs are no longer a symptom that can be casually shrugged off as the bimonthly occurrence they once were. The kids sit in the back seat with their headphones, both engaged in their small-group school Zoom meetings for remote school. “Zz… aa… pp. Zap. Bb…. uu… gg… Bug,” I hear Andy drone in the background. He’d read me a chapter book about dragons if I asked him to. But I don’t. And feel all the more guilty for it. “We’re going to get tested!” Dylan says in his loud Zoom voice, aka his everyday voice. “Yeah, just in case,” he confirms to his classmates. I look in the rear view mirror, and there they are: panda headphones on Dylan, who is scribbling away doing his second grade math, writing numbers of his own volition that I could never get him to write when I was trying to teach him. Black headphones with a mouthpiece on new-kindergartener Andy, who, when he is not practicing his short vowel sounds, is drawing his own comics and monster books complete with measurements and multi-layered, nuanced colors. And I don’t know what to do with him.

And me, well, I’m mentally preparing the agenda for a meeting I’m facilitating next week, making a vain and completely fruitless attempt to get at least a little work done while driving down the highway. I have my computer with me, thinking there will be an hour wait in line at the testing site, but we begin to move forward after only a five minutes and twenty words into an email I’m writing. I realize far too late that I would have been mentally better off just leaving it at home.

My eyes are still puffy from the torrents of tears that erupted while watching the Art of Racing in the Rain last night. Cucumber slices didn’t help. I have recently finished a session with my therapist in which I bemoaned my complete inability to focus. Thousands of miles away, our Capitol is being stormed by white rioters who care nothing about truth and the democratic process and the wars we fought to ensure that authoritarianism could not take hold here. Tom is in Arizona working. I get an email letting me know there might be a bobcat prowling our temporary neighborhood. I turn off the radio. And I surrender to the day.

I feed the kids fish sticks, packaged carrots, packaged apples, and packed yoghurt for dinner while the TV blasts in the background. They confiscate the boxes from the new couch that has just arrived and turn the living room into a massive fort. All the while munching on more packaged food. Packaged yoghurt covered pretzels. Packaged bars. Packaged gummies. What floor is left is littered with plastic packages. I’m horrified, but I look away because I have already intentionally surrendered the day to the forces of sanity and self-preservation. I curl up on my lovely new green couch and stare at the pattern on my old Turkish kilim.

It has been one day of many in these last four months since we arrived back from our sailing trip. The kids started school remotely. Then there was in-person classes for half days for a month. Then back to remote learning. And they will start back again in-person on Monday, pending negative Covid tests, of course. We lived gratefully in Tom’s parents’ basement apartment for three months while we got our feet underneath us, then moved into a short term rental. In five months, we’ll be able to move back into our own house. Korvessa sits on stilts in boat yard weathering the winter wind storms, and the kids are beginning to talk about missing the boat. They have been remarkably resilient during this all, and, except for a downturn in Dylan’s behavior in the last couple post-holiday days, they have actually managed the transition better than Tom or me.

Tom continues to return to Arizona for work. And while it helps us get our accounts back in order, we look forward to a time when he won’t be gone quite so much. On the plus side, he was able to get his first dose of the Covid vaccine and is eagerly awaiting the second. He said he could practically feel the science entering his veins.

I am over the moon to be back at Community Action of Skagit County as the Data and Assessment Manager and working every day to support people experiencing poverty in Skagit County. And I love working again. I only bemoan that damned inability to focus, though I know I’m not alone. How does one balance full time work from home with kids who are being juggled between home, four grandparents, and learning pods? Oh yeah, and I’m trying to write a book.

Some days it seems impossible. Some days it all goes smoothly. Some days I write 2,000 words. Some days I write 50. Some days I read the kids bedtime books for an hour. Other days they get five minutes before I drag myself to bed and put on an audio book so someone can read me to sleep. But work is getting done. School is getting sort of done. The book is getting written (170 pages so far, in fact), not least due to the support and encouragement of a great writing coach and group of fellow writers I’m working with. Some days are really good. Some days are really bad. And some days surprise you. Tonight, as I tucked the kids into bed in their massive fort in the middle of the living room, Andy said, “Mommy, I’m kind of sad this day is ending. It was a really great day. We got to do all sorts of fun stuff like build this huge fort!” I took a picture of them curled up in their self-made cubbies. And that is the snapshot I want to remember.