Life lately and scrambled thoughts.

Birthdays have come and gone and graduations have been cancelled (Lindsey is a senior. What a year to be a senior.). Exercise classes gone virtual alongside kid’s schooling (though, they’ll be outdoors starting next week, and I’m so looking forward to that). We’ve done some car dates, eating take out on our laps. I’ve found the nighttime cuddles to sleep even more sacred than I used to. I get in between them and I enthusiastically declare, “This is one of my favorite parts of the whole day!” These precious, vulnerable little hearts that grew inside me, now smooshed up next to me (that they were once inside me never ceases to feel miraculous), moving slowly from day to night, giving in to sleep.  I feel the rise and fall of their little chests, and look out the window to the tree that’s now an explosion of green and wonder, in this strange mix of guilt and gratefulness, why am I this lucky? It feels as though we’re drowning in the brokenness of the world around us: from the global pandemic with all of it consequences (seen and unseen), to a story of a desperately sick young child, to the heart-wrenching (and way too frequent) stories of police brutality against people of color. That these things impact me in a similar way observing a terrible car accident does–driving past, feeling awful, but still being okay in my own car–is this really strange and terrible thing to sit with. I feel this incredible survivor’s guilt and sadness and what can I do beyond let my own heart break. I’m not saying any of the right things–I truly don’t know what to say–but I am saying what’s on my heart and, no doubt, it’s coming from the privileged place where I sit at present. Why do I sit here? Because I just happen to be born into the family and into the place and into the time in which I was born? I mean, at the heart of it, that’s really it, right? Doesn’t seem fair.Here we are, it’s almost June. It’s 85 degrees here today and I’m hoping to go to a beach with a container of chicken salad we can dig out of, sand-free. We’ll call it dinner. Anders’ questions keep me constantly in awe of kids’ wonder. Yesterday–how do they say buffalo in London? Today, while Parker reads the Pinkish Purplish Bluish Egg to him (a Bill Peet)–is Bill Peet still alive? I respond, “no, he’s in heaven now but he was older.” He says, “that’s sad.” I say, “Yes, I know, but maybe he’ll do story hour in heaven and we can be there one day?” He liked that idea. He also liked the idea of the tallest man alive (Steve googled him recently) helping him climb up a dinosaur and get a ride in heaven. Sometimes it’s comforting. To imagine the peace that I hope awaits us all there, especially those who didn’t find it here on earth.