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How’s school going in Spain?

thesolomamaproject

OK, we’re 3 months in–this is the part of the experience I couldn’t imagine.

How would my kids be doing in the “sink or swim” environment of Spanish public school?

Would they be speaking Spanish yet? Would they be able to function and do the work? Would they have friends? Would they love it/hate it/be “meh”?

All versions of: are they going to sink or swim?

I knew they wouldn’t sink, but I also wanted it to be a positive growth experience and not a horrible traumatic experience, obviously. But it was all unknown, especially since I’d had virtually no communication with the school.

3 months in, both kids are swimming!

Evan, in 6th grade, has a crew of friends that includes one buddy who’s totally bilingual and can translate for him. He’s got them all playing basketball at every recess, something I sense was not happening before his arrival. They roam the city in a big gang after school, going out for fast food or hanging out in their favorite plaza, so we’re navigating this new dynamic with an allowance, a watch phone, and new rules (like: get mom’s permission before you go somewhere). He’s done class presentations in Spanish, works with a tutor on Spanish sometimes, and is also expected to learn French (I told him it’s OK with me if he doesn’t).

Chloe doesn’t have English-speaking friends to lean on, so her immersion was harder at the beginning and now is accelerating. She’s having a birthday party on Thursday with three little friends! And she’s had a couple of sleepovers and it’s thrilling to hear her communicating in Spanish. She’s also rocking her schoolwork, including in Lengua and Math (she aced a multiplication test, which of course is the same in any language). She’s befriended a 3-year-old on the playground (the school includes a preschool) and that’s been a safe place for her to get a little break.

Both kids have comedor after school (lunch, in multiple courses, but most kids hate the food–I heard that the government regulates how much salt and sugar they can add so it’s super bland, Chloe only eats salad and bread, Evan says it’s pretty good even though it looks bad), followed by actividades extrascolares: they have patinaje (roller blading), expresiones artísticas (crafts), and volleyball (which I pay like €60/month for each kid to stay after school 2-5pm, SO much cheaper than at home).

Communication from the school is very minimal–we get announcements when the menu changes (I think they think this is urgent because what if the family planned fish for dinner and then fish was served also at lunch?!?!). But I’m in decent touch with the teachers through an app. Chloe’s teacher speaks English about as well as I speak Spanish, so we do a mix. And Evan’s teacher speaks fluent French (she’s also the French teacher!) so I’m thrilled to be able to speak French with her (my French skills are way beyond Spanish).

I’m also in WhatsApp groups of parents for each grade, and I could do a whole additional post on these groups, which are VERY active, and I simply can’t keep up (I have a friend who clues me in when I need to do something).

In general, there’s a lot of homework, many presentations and exams, lots of field trips, and parents are always scrambling to help their kids stay on track, even though both teachers told me they really want the kids to run this. Practicing managing their time and homework is part of the deal. Still, parents are constantly sending photos of pages of school books that others forgot to bring home, and reminding each other of which questions are due. The 3rd grade parents are upset about the massive jump in “deberes” (homework) from 2nd grade, when the kids had almost none. (Chloe is doing fine with it and actually enjoys doing her deberes with her estuche full of pencils and erasers).

Evan’s class is raising money for their end-of-year trip, currently by singing Christmas carols on the street a couple of nights a week. They wear red hats, hold a sign, and sing “Feliz navidad” and “Agua fresca” and make a ton of money from the tourists! Because of this, the kids know they can kind of make money anytime they want, especially being in a touristy area–once they sang for ice cream money in the summer. The parent group chat exploded, and this was quickly forbidden–they’re now required to have supervision.

Overall, it’s a great school and we’re happy! I think the teachers are racing to get through material, much like in the US, but overall I’d say the academic level is higher, even if the emphasis is on rote memorization. (Also, Chloe placed into 3rd grade even though she would’ve been in 2nd in the States. Fortunately, she’s been able to keep up.)

And they LOVE their school supplies here, like I remember they did in France. It took me 4 trips to different papelerías plus one amazon order to get everything I needed for both kids.

Now we have a 3-day weekend because Monday is a holiday (I forget which one). We need a lot of rest and resetting between school weeks and our TV show of choice these days is Gilmore Girls, which is somehow perfect.

The LIGHTS went on last weekend and I can’t tell you how beautiful they are! And my photos don’t really convey the beauty! But they’ll give you a sense. They’re up on 300+ streets and plazas around the city, and it’s magical.

Happy holidays and omg how is it December?! xo

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Wildly overdue updates

thesolomamaproject

I had to remember how to log into this blog to write a post—and, when I did, I saw that I only ever did “one week in.” And we’ve now been here 2.5 months!

WTH. I’m a writer. I thought I’d be capturing hilarious moments, poignant insights, real-time windows into the day-to-day of how an American mom and two kids adjust to life in Spain.

And, while the transition has truly gone as well as we ever could have dreamed, I underestimated the mental load of carrying this for my kids—and ended up with zero bandwidth to even think about what to write here, much less getting outside of my own experience to imagine what you’d enjoy hearing about…

So I guess this is surprise #1 about this experience: over and above the million-and-one actual tasks of relocating a family to a foreign country, the energy it takes to re-figure out how to get your daily needs met in a brand-new location, country, language… the energy output is high.

But in a good way!

Anyway, let me catch you up.

For the first three weeks we were in this apartment, we shared one towel.

Evan had brought a Warriors towel for sentimental reasons and SURE, YES I could have run out and bought cheap towels at the chino or made another expensive trip to El Corte Inglés or even ordered some on amazon and then searched out the amazon locker where it would be delivered (if it even fit)…but everything I was doing was even more pressing, like: submitting paperwork for my visa application, setting up our utilities in my name, getting school supplies (which required 3-4 trips to different papelerias), setting up a kitchen from scratch (including one big trip to Costco and many walking trips to local markets), and feeding a family of three with three different approaches to food in a new country where we don’t know yet what we like.

Anyway, the day I took a bus to Ikea and filled a taxi with home products was a great day. A day in which we multiplied our towel inventory.

In other major headlines: the kids started school!

  • Chloe leveled up to 3rd grade, based on how they do the age cutoffs here (which is by calendar year, so anyone born in 2017 is in 3rd grade, so simple!). We wondered if this mattered, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t as long as she was with kids her age (I was right- she’s rocking it). Evan was put in 6th grade, as expected.
  • On the first day, they opened the big castle door of the school (in the middle of the most touristy area of Sevilla, right around the cathedral), and from the big crowds of families emerged kids parading into the school with live music playing. I will never forget this moment as my kids walked into a school where I’d met or talked to no one. My friend and colleague Elena had met with the school back in June. I did manage to follow my kids in (which is frowned upon) to at least connect with each of their teachers to say, “Hablan inglés! Están aprediendo español!” and they smiled, and then I was kicked out. Surreal. I can’t believe how brave my kids were to walk in there. I’ll be thinking about this forever.
  • I have a photo of the schoolyard with the kids lining up by class that I took right before leaving (see below). Chloe is looking a little lost, and Evan has been approached by girls trying to figure out who he was, where he was from, etc. The girls right away connected with a boy who was born n Minnesota and lived there until he was 6. He became Evan’s instant social connector, and all-day translator. His social transition was immediate and Evan (to this day) has all those kids playing basketball every recess (my impression is that they weren’t playing as much before he arrived).
  • Chloe doesn’t have any kids in her class who speak English (though everyone here speaks at least a little), but her teacher does. After the first few weeks, she asked me to ask the teacher to have the kids speak to her in Spanish, not English, which was such a great impulse. Now, she has friends and is rehearsing to do a K-Pop Demon Hunters dance number and they’re all patiently teaching her words using a lot of body language. We had a friend over and I overheard her speaking Spanish in complete sentences with verbs correctly conjugated (albeit all in the present tense, which is the right place to start).
  • The mom of the Minnesotan boy has been my gateway to the school parents and an incredibly helpful perspective on the massively overwhelming parent group chats (by classroom), which blow up my phone all day every day (yes, they’re muted now). Between the Spanish texting slang and me generally not knowing how things work here, I truly can’t keep up. My mom friend tells me when there’s something I need to do (we were co-judges for the costume contest at the Halloween party, for example—I bought medals). She also invites me along on impromptu post-dropoff coffees where I actually get to chat in Spanish with new friends–sometimes with success, sometimes really frustrated about all the nuance and specificity (and correctness) that’s lost. But I feel my brain stretching and I love learning languages, so I love being invited and going through the pain and joy of learning.

And this is the point in writing this post where I got pulled away for many hours.

A friend of a (US) friend dropped by with some Spanish textbooks for me, we had coffee, and as that was wrapping up I got a call from Chloe’s teacher saying “Evan se cayó. Puedes venir por el?” (Evan fell. Can you come get him?)

Instantly panicked, my communication skills went out the window and I thrust the phone at Luís, who calmly took it and said, “Díme,” and then explained to me that Evan had fallen and hurt his ankle though he was basically OK. I think he chuckled, which was reassuring.

Within a few minutes, he’d delivered me to the school on the back of his scooter–and I burst in to find Evan calmly sitting in the office with his foot up on a chair with an ice pack (he came down on it wrong while playing basketball).

I was surrounded by concerned adults, and there’s something about everyone trying to use their (limited) English with me that makes my Spanish become nonexistent. It’s like I can’t speak any language.

Then Evan’s teacher appeared, and she’s also the French teacher, so I speak French with her (much easier than Spanish for me), but every time I started in French, Spanish took over, down to the level of individual words, until I exclaimed in English, “Ohmigod, my brain cannot pick a language!!!” I let her finish telling me about a permission form in Chloe’s backpack (in Spanish LOL).

We got his ankle X-rayed and our first medical experience was a goddamn delight. No waiting. Everyone spoke English. Nicest people. No fracture, just a sprain.

Then Luis came back with two movers and a heavy dining room table for us to borrow for as long as we’re living here. So generous!

Anyway, mama’s tired. Tiredtiredtired. I try to catch up by sleeping and watching Gilmore Girls (which for some reason is the perfect way to decompress right now).

Shoot, I didn’t talk about Halloween. Or work. Or my first visitors! I’ll write more soon (at least sooner than 2.5 months).

Meanwhile, here’s a bunch of photos!

PS While I’m distracted and busy here, I haven’t stopped thinking and worrying about what’s going on in the US. I’m just as plugged into US news as I ever was, doomscrolling a ton. My old neighborhood outside Chicago is crawling with ICE agents, as people are getting plucked out of daycares, landscaping jobs, and school drop-offs. Friends are going out with whistles, protesting in Broadview, waiting at bus stops with helicopters and drones flying overhead. I’m so proud of how the city is fighting back to protect neighbors. May Tuesday’s results be a sign of what’s to come. xo

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One week in

thesolomamaproject

We’re in Spain! I’m finally getting around to writing about this!

On 8/25, we piled into my parents’ car with all our luggage and everything fit. I cried. It was such a massive finish line after working diligently all summer to prep for this move.

We parked by the entrance to Traverse City’s tiny airport and checked in no problem with all our bags, then said a tearful goodbye to my parents.

Then we waited for our short flight across Lake Michigan to Chicago.

Chicago, or more specifically Oak Park, was where we’d just lived for the past nine years, so it was surreal to pass through, as if we could just hop back into my 2006 Prius and drive home. Instead, we had the nicest lunch I could find.

Stepping onto our plane bound for Madrid was such a memorable moment, buzzing with excitement and hearing Spanish all around us. The background music was soothing Spanish guitar, which has since made it onto Evan’s playlist. The kids were delighted by every bit of food.

I’ve written my anecdote about not having the confidence to order “café” on my first flight to France during college. Well, on this flight, the flight attendant said “café o té?” and I said “agua caliente con limón?” and she repeated, “café o té?” so I said “Té” and didn’t drink it.

Lesson? Many things don’t go the way you expect in a new culture! We roll with it.

Landing in Madrid Barajas airport, we were all charmed immediately by the playgrounds, modern bathrooms, and trash receptacles with three compartments. I started ordering (nervously) in Spanish and was delighted to find that my credit card worked there.

After a short flight to Sevilla, all of our bags arrived on the carousel immediately!

We quickly found my friend, colleague, and host Elena and she drove us home. I couldn’t wait to see the city I’d studied so much online!

This is Elena’s street in Feria, with a 13th century church at the end:

We had a family meal with her (American) husband and (bilingual) son, after a quick run out to the vendors steps from her house to buy fruit and fish and it was all impossibly charming.

Those first few days are blurry, but we did lots of walking and cafés con leche and tapas and feeling quite assured that this city was a good choice.

On Day 2, less than 24 hours after our arrival, we went to see an apartment. It’s the one we ended up renting,and the only one we saw. Our dream place, exactly what I ordered, with an open kitchen for me, loft bed for Evan, and big-girl little room for Chloe, overlooking a park, a short walk from the city center and the kids’ school. This is from our front door:

We were so lucky this place was listed basically as we were flying over the Atlantic Ocean and we were able to scoop it up:

In the meantime, I also bought sheets at El Corte Inglés for 3 different size beds (complicated!!), got us set up with health insurance (which involved giving my kids’ height and weight in metric AND in Spanish, while guessing in the first place, over the phone), and, as of today, and got our place hooked up with wi-fi. Elena actually did by far most of the work on all of this (so grateful).

So how do we all feel?

I’ve been continually so busy managing details, I get my waves of emotions in moments, sipping a café con leche while my kids run off to play. I feel really lucky to be here, reconnecting with my world traveler persona in this phase of life.

It comes with some anxiety of course, and some awkward deer-in-headlights moments when people speak rapid-fire Spanish and I have no idea what to say. But I don’t really know how it could be going better.

I love watching my kids take it all in. They’re so primed for this.

In Michigan, Chloe drew a picture of her new friend in Spain she hasn’t met yet:

I love the hopeful mindset: there will be friends. We just don’t know who they are yet!

Evan asks me all the time why we didn’t come sooner. I know he’s nervous about school but also stoic. He keeps saying, “I need to learn Spanish!” Motivated.

School starts next week. I’ll try to write more. Love to everyone. xo

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The night before

thesolomamaproject

We’re leaving tomorrow morning!

Our stuff is either neatly tucked into storage in Forest Park, in the closet under the stairs in my parents’ cabin, or in one of four large and two small suitcases destined for Sevilla.

At certain moments, I’ve felt like I was doing every single task I’ve ever put off, but all of them in a row (buying bras! figuring out taxes! organizing accounts! resetting passwords! setting up FamilyLink on my kids’ tablets! and on and on).

It’s been an enormous job. I have no perspective on it other than it went super smoothly, took a lot out of me, and it’s done! (And I bet I’ll have reflections on this over time.)

Lots of friends have asked how I feel, and there’s been almost no time for feelings in the midst of how many details I had to tie in a bow. I assume they’ll catch up with me when I watch a heartwarming film on the plane and end up sobbing inappropriately.

We went to Cherry Republic for our last dinner before traveling and I got suddenly emotional thinking about how I was surrounded by people who speak the language and culture of Michigan, my home state. It’s easy to take for granted that sense of being home.

Annnnd I also love giving that up and experiencing something profoundly and wildly new.

It’s hard to picture life after tomorrow!

See you on the other side 🙂

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countdown to Spain

thesolomamaproject

Well HI! It’s been a while!

Now that we’re moving to Spain, it seemed like a good time to start up the blog again.

Right now, we’re in Michigan:

We rented a 5×10 storage space, filled a giant SUV, and got rid of everything else—and then we drove to northern Michigan to stay with my parents for a few weeks to decompress, finish preparations, and soak up the last weeks of summer and grandparent time.

Lots to say, later, soon, about all of the above. For now: it all got done. I can still hardly believe it.

On August 25, we head to Sevilla! Can hardly believe that either!

Happy to have you along for the ride. 🙂

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the daily thing

thesolomamaproject

I’m sweaty from running C to school in the stroller, breakfast dishes are still on the table, I’m hungry, and I need a shower before my 9am call.

But I told my friend Wig I would do a 21-day writing challenge. Because I can’t run away from needing a daily writing practice any longer. Every writing teacher will tell you that if you want to be a writer, you need a daily writing practice. Well, I’ve always bristled at the notion of a daily anything.

As soon as I think, “this [fill in the blank] is good for me, I should do it every day!” my internal debate cranks up: “…unless I really don’t feel like it, or if something urgent comes up, or if I need a break, I can give myself permission to skip.” And then I don’t really do it at all.

My first blog was called “I should be writing” and contained 2-3 posts. No, maybe 1 post!

Yes, life is BUSY. But I can do 20 minutes. I can.

Every day, I get up at 5:30am and feel overwhelmed by the options–meditate? exercise? pack lunches? read? meal plan? drink lemon water? sip coffee? work? write? It’s the only time of the day that’s just for me, and lately I’ve been absolutely squandering it looking at who knows what my phone. (When I give myself zero downtime, this is how I “act out.”)

I crave the satisfaction of knowing that I’m not running away from my thing.

I’m in the middle of several writing projects and ideas so half the battle is figuring out which to focus on. This blog is one of my writing projects! I’m amazed that it’s still rolling along after almost TEN YEARS! So grateful you’re still out there listening.

My sister started a daily podcast. She’s so awesome at it. I can see her momentum building and her ideas flowing and she hasn’t even officially launched it yet but it’s already taking her to exciting new places. And it’s DAILY!

That’s what I want.

Figuring out where this fits in my day is a true puzzle. But I have to start. I GET to start.

And now I’ve (re)started! xo

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idea list

thesolomamaproject

On Friday, my newly-minted second-grader came home with a homework assignment: come up with 10 story ideas from your personal experience.

In the instructions, the teacher made it clear that parent(s)/guardian(s) should help with the brainstorming, but the child should actually write out the list. As such, we decided to keep the story ideas short–but with enough information to trigger the actual story in E’s mind.

The teacher also asked her students to keep the ideas very specific: instead of writing about a whole vacation, write about the moment you found a jellyfish on the beach. Instead of the whole watermelon, write about a seed.

As we started to brainstorm, I had the passing thought that it might be hard to come up with 10 interesting stories, especially given the limitations of the past 1.5 years.

Nope. E’s list looked like this:

  1. sturgeon
  2. kindergarten table
  3. sting ray
  4. vulture
  5. spider door
  6. spider bed
  7. goal
  8. turtle
  9. aunt nose
  10. monarchs

This exercise taught me a lot. Here are 10 things I got from it:

  1. I consider myself an experienced writer–yet I can still learn a lot from a simple second-grade exercise.
  2. Animals factor into most of E’s story ideas–animal stories are the most fascinating and meaningful to him at this stage of life. I’m excited for him that he’s so excited about them.
  3. Even if you’ve only been alive for 7 years and have spent the past 1.5 years largely at home in a pandemic, you have interesting stories. Everyone has interesting stories!
  4. There was one story on the list that I had never heard before: “kindergarten table.” When E was in kindergarten working on a math problem (“a problem that would be so easy now”), he got really frustrated with it, banged the table with his hand, and broke the table! Wow! The janitor had to be called! This news took almost two years to reach me. Interesting stories are happening to our children all the time and we don’t even hear about some of them. He told me he must have gotten busy and forgotten to tell me about that one.
  5. It took us less than 10 minutes to come up with 10 story ideas. I was surprised by how effortlessly the ideas popped into both of our heads. And now, when E has to write a story at school, he doesn’t have to waste time on wondering what to write about. Deciding what to write ahead of time is an awesome idea. (I usually don’t do this.)
  6. E has memories back to age 2. The sting ray story took place in San Francisco and we moved to Chicago when he was 2.5. (Then again, the story is about how the sting ray “attacked” him, so…)
  7. Sometimes it’s all in the title. You would read a story called, “That Time I Accidentally Broke my Aunt’s Nose at the Playground,” wouldn’t you?
  8. This exercise inspired me to write this post after a months-long hiatus. I also recently stumbled across this amazingly inspiring quote of Martha Graham (speaking to Agnes de Mille): “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.” Stop doubting yourself and write, self (I need to hear this as much as anyone). Or paint or dance or sing or teach or organize or whatever it is you’re called to do. Even if you’re only 7!
  9. I’ll do this brainstorm with C too, since I now realize she’s going to have an amazing list.
  10. I love lists.

See you soon, lovebugs xo

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february notes

thesolomamaproject

I’m sitting at the dining room table in a silent house. Refrigerator humming. Cars splashing by occasionally out front. A foot of buttercream snow covers the houses and bushes and yards–we’re living in a snow globe.

The freshly-made coffee sitting beside my laptop has milk in it. After going nearly a week drinking black coffee (because we were out of milk, because for some reason milk from Fresh Thyme goes bad a week before its date), this feels like a great luxury. We really have to notice luxuries right now.

It’s February, a famously tough month for people in a normal year. It’s gray, the cold drags on, the holidays are over. This year, we’re 11 months into a pandemic. People keep on getting Covid. I had a work call yesterday with someone who lost her father and grandfather. Meanwhile, I’m starting to see Facebook acquaintances posting photos of large-group gatherings of people posing as if times were normal, aka no masks, no distance. A birthday, a memorial service, sitting around tables in a restaurant eating, big, unabashed smiles. I can’t fathom this. I’m starting to experiment with double-masking.

We have a new president (omg I couldn’t believe how much crying I did on inauguration day), now we’re flailing around trying to get relief to people so desperate for it and the Rs are exposing themselves as the truly hideous people they always were. It’s been a relief not to hear about that other horrible guy who moved to Florida but indeed he was simply the one who gave them permission so now we’ll see the fallout. Hopefully the relief will come, the vaccines will make their way to those who need it most.

We’re chugging along. My own weird physical symptom of longtime quarantine, winter, and stress is that I somehow displaced a rib without any obvious injury… I was sitting down to read to my kids at bedtime when I felt a pinch in the center of my back, which graduated along my side with muscle spasms and acute pain for 10 days before I got to a chiropractor. Three weeks and 3 chiro visits later, it’s…the same. Is this aging? Does it simply take forever to heal an intercostal muscle tear? Am I a medical mystery? I live on ibuprofen every six hours and I’m not exercising at all. The whole thing is very unsatisfying.

E’s school started in-person hybrid classes yesterday and I opted to keep him home. The school re-opening debate is so contentious in all respects (I can hardly stomach the threads in mom groups on this) but I’m glad that here in our village we were given options. We could opt to go or stay home. Yesterday morning, when I peered into his iPad to see how many kids were in the classroom, I saw only four–and I felt thrilled for his teacher!

At this point, it’s only in-person 8am-12pm then they come home to do 1-3, kids Zoom from their desks, and the teachers aren’t vaccinated yet. There may be a new plan starting March 1 so we’re hanging tight to see. If I can avoid kid pickups at noon AND 3pm, my work day will be better off. Also, E is doing fine at home. Yesterday he surprised me by adding 7 + 7 + 7 etc. all the way up to 84. He’s starting to get engrossed in reading about things like frogs and interrupts me during work calls to announce cool facts. He hit his goal of being a “Seesaw Rockstar” 5 days in a row so I ordered him a Robot Dog ($12 from Walmart)–he’s very motivated by a reward system like this. He’s angling for the next one. He sort of wants to go back to school but has expressed that he will really miss watching YouTube Kids during all the breaks. Yep.

C is suddenly a big girl. She sleeps like a real kid now (aka deeply and through the whole night until after 7). When she wakes up, she gets herself dressed and comes out looking like this, making my heart explode with pride:

The other night at dinner, she started telling us about a new boy in her class at preschool named “Mylove.” Now, it’s possible that that’s his name. But my guess is that that’s what the teacher calls him (“Put your boots on, my love”) and how cute is that?? She also said that he’s “thirty-eight years old” so who knows.

These are precarious times for so many people. We have to try to notice when our stress starts to send us messages through our bodies (chronic pain, sleep issues, mood swings) and take time for ourselves. I’m not doing a good job at this even though I know the power of breathing exercises, meditation, gratitude journaling, stretching…

At least try to drink enough water, friends. And know that you are loved.

xoxo

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life right now

thesolomamaproject

These are strange times. It’s the peak (here’s hoping) of the pandemic and we’re in the days between the (second) impeachment and the inauguration. (As someone on Twitter said, “I can’t believe it’s time for another impeachment already–I feel like I just took down my decorations from the last one.”)

I wanted to try to capture what life feels like right now, because I know I’m not the only one feeling this weird mix of emotions.

In the past two months, Biden won the presidency by a landslide. Dems flipped the Senate. We have an effective vaccine and I already know many people who’ve been vaccinated and/or have an appointment (including my parents!!).

There’s so much to celebrate and lots of reasons to be hopeful.

But but but. This is all happening against a backdrop of thousands of deaths per day, so many people (everyone?) stressed and/or sick, and then: a horrifying attack by white supremacists on the U.S. Capitol.

As 2021 approached, everyone was so excited to turn the page on 2020. But even on New Year’s Day, I knew the memes were coming… 2021 is the same. 2021 is worse.

Lots of hopes pinned on the Georgia election–and then the joy of that victory was obliterated by the dismay and horror of watching the Capitol under siege.

One week later, yes–of course glad to see the president impeached a second time but it felt…empty to me. Anti-climactic. Pelosi signed and walked out. It was the right thing to do but nothing to feel happy about. Millions of Americans have lost their minds.

In my daily life, I’m in a fog. That’s not exactly it… It’s more like I feel like I’m putting the usual amount of effort into my work and my daily goals (which is, you know, a lot) but not much is coming of it. I can’t seem to make sense of my inbox. Yesterday I really tried to get through all of the messages and only got through the letter “K.” And it’s not like I’m just sitting there watching the news either… I’m just not productive. I’m unfocused. I’m all over the place.

I can’t remember how to do basic processes, can’t remember the history or who’s the contact person or what’s the due date. I’m always on the wrong line of a spreadsheet. I’m reaching for easy and obvious words and not thinking of them.

This morning I put the oatmeal away in the refrigerator.

After spending a lot of winter break organizing, purging, and ordering stuff we needed, we somehow couldn’t find the basic hats, mittens, snowpants, etc. etc. to get out the door for a playground meetup on Sunday. (yes, I lost my temper)

I feel antsy and itchy.

And, starting today, my new workday soundtrack is the ukelele that I ordered for E for Christmas that took over a month to arrive via the U.S. Postal Service and got here yesterday. I told him he can play it while at school, to help him sit still. Play only while on mute. Keep the ukelele out of the picture.

The constant strumming is not helping my brain function!

If you’re feeling any of this too, let me give you the advice I need to hear today:

Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Go easy. Make it “good enough.” Watch a mindless show and take a bath. This will all keep changing and evolving. Soon we’ll feel the warmth of the first rays of sunlight of a new era.

In the midst of all of it, the kids are doing well. C turned 3 (amazing Daniel Tiger cake baked by her cousin) and E lost one of his front teeth. (OF COURSE the tooth fairy forgot to come but $5 showed up under the pillow later that morning)

Hang in there, grown-ups.

xoxo

Uncategorized

2021: and we’re back

thesolomamaproject

This morning, I emerged from the fog of 2020 into the promise of 2021 and found myself here, back on my blog. After quite a long hiatus (let’s say… 7 months?).

I just said “Happy New Year” to E and he said, “Yay!” then “Well, not exactly yay.” And I know what he means, even though he was distracted and couldn’t elaborate on what he meant by that. Kids are good at boiling things down and not even knowing why.

While I do not mean for this to be a retrospective (because who wants to relive 2020), it was pretty uniquely terrible. Living through a time of so much suffering, so much loss, so much dangerous and distressing political drama… A time of little to no child care while work doesn’t stop. A time of fear and guilt and blame over whom we see and don’t see. And all of this while we are relatively fine, in our safe bubble of privilege, ability to work and do school from home, good health care, etc.

The “not exactly yay” part comes from the fact that we’re still in the middle of it.

And here’s a big giant however: HOWEVER, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it makes a huge mf-ing difference.

My kids recently went back to listening to Circle Round, a charming WBEZ storytelling podcast. They listened to it constantly last March/April/May, which, for me, was the worst part of 2020. There was so much we didn’t know and it felt like it could be YEARS of lockdown. Plus work got really busy, my kids had almost nothing to do, and every day was a marathon of competing needs.

Now, when the sweet theme song of Circle Round comes on, I have mild to moderate PTSD.

Back then, we didn’t know much about the disease, we didn’t know if Trump would be re-elected (and/or stage a coup or some other alarming nonsense), we didn’t know how long the vaccine would take.

Now a new presidential administration is coming in (not a minute too soon), people are already getting vaccinated, and masks work. We have every right to be hopeful about the coming year! (and yes I intentionally wrote this before getting hit with a ‘2021 already sucks’ post somewhere online this morning)

We have so much grieving to do. 300k+ people didn’t survive, more are still sick or long-haulers. The pandemic has more fully exposed so many weaknesses in our society, primarily the racism embedded in our systems of education, healthcare, criminal “justice,” extreme poverty… there’s so much work to be done.

But, if you’re reading this, you did survive, and we can look ahead. And get to work on healing.

We learned a lot in survival mode. I know that the minute I have full-time child care again and/or both kids out of the house for any length of time, I can move mountains. I can accomplish great things. I can be incredibly focused and productive and still have time leftover for dishes and meditation and a run. And we’re getting closer to that moment, but we’re not there yet.

As the clock struck midnight, I’d been asleep for two hours already. But I did some chicken scratches earlier in the day about my intentions for the coming year. And I have too many. I’m craving newness like never before. It’s a lot of typical stuff about exercise and drinking water and reading audiobooks.

But the main one that is relevant here is that I wrote down something like “free my voice.” During this time of not seeing people, and not finding much time to talk on the phone, my main social outlet has been social media. And I have kind of a constrained voice on social media. I appreciate it very much as a passive consumer as I keep updated on other people’s news. But my shares are limited and don’t contain much content. In short, for the first time in my adult life, I haven’t been writing.

I’m also an extrovert. Fortunately, I have two little humans who give me lots of interpersonal connection and bodily contact. I also am on the phone all day with talented and smart co-workers. And we Facetime a lot with family. But I MISS MY FRIENDS. I miss making new friends. I miss developing friendships. All my friend timelines of who called last and how long ago are broken. I’m out of touch with everyone–and I’m never out of touch with everyone.

Which is why I’m back here, freeing my voice again, which is a much friendlier way of saying, “I should really be writing” (which was the title of the first blog I ever started and then never did anything with). Writing is my path. And it’s a way I connect with people. I put it out there, and sometimes things come back. Both the act of putting it out there and the connections that bounce back are nourishing. I don’t know where it will take me, but at least I’m on the path. (Oh, and I recommend watching the new Pixar movie, “Soul,”–the meaning of life IS the path, living life on the path–never the destination.)

I’m also starting a journal again. Man, I have boxes and shelves of filled-up journals but haven’t journaled since the babies came along (and E is now 6.5). In the end, it helps me know what I think and get out of the whirlwind of thoughts.

“Freeing my voice” also pairs nicely with a past New Year’s blog topic I wrote about, maybe just a year ago?, titled “New Year, More Me,” because you never have to make yourself new. You don’t need to be like someone else. You just do you, and that’s it. You’re the one who will be the best at this. Unharness the you-ness.

To make time for this, I’m going to stop putting away toys. (Just kidding, I’m literally going to publish this post and then try to unscramble a few puzzles that are intermixed across the living room floor).

I wish you and your families a hopeful 2021 and send you lots of love! xo