Brittle

I feel brittle these days, a discomfiting awareness of angles and haste and chill. Each time I sit down to write, I freeze, erase, and leave. This is never a good sign, this drying up. Some of it is busyness, surely. Between holidays, teacher days, and illness, neither J nor O has had much in the way of full weeks of school since September. I need space and can’t seem to get it.

Parenting is a motherfucking bear. It is hard and relentless and it’s really easy to fuck up, and sometimes I just want to wash my hands of the enterprise. Yes, yes, yes, it’s wonderful and all that jazz, but the daily slog of thanklessness and question marks and laundry and limits is and feels mammoth.

I daydream often and in a deeply soulful way, of land and horizons that are away and vast. To space and slowness and kindness and quiet. To muddy Wellies and reinforced overalls and great gusts of wind.

Daily, I feel half here, half elsewhere.

I want to get off this hamster wheel and away from arrogant billionaires and lying terrors who are never held accountable and too much least-common-denominator behavior. I saw a headline recently about how worrisome it is that people are spending so much time alone, and I get the concern, yet I want to yell, “are you fucking kidding? Have you looked around and/or been in public lately?” There is only so much ugliness people can witness and take, both personally and societally, and shit, I understand the desire to hermit.

I want to have the time to feel bored. To make things, to finish a book, a lengthy thought.

I have a deeply-rooted sneaking suspicion that the world is on some epic, crucial fulcrum. You can keep Jonesing, struggle, or opt out. I prefer C.

When I was little, I wore dresses that twirled and I did not like to be dirty. I also did not like to be wet unless I chose to be wet, via shower, pool, or opted-into slip-n-slide. I woke up early to shower and style my hair, you would not have found me gardening.

And then, as life goes, and then just like Nanny always said, “you can bury your troubles in the garden.” And I’m in the dirt as often as possible, working quietly and trying to make space to hear the quiet inside voice that gets ignored on the regular.

I don’t think that I expected, when I was young, to change so much during life. But I have changed, in many ways. Maybe that’s what middle age is about: coming to terms with and choosing how to honor who you were, are, and may still become.

Anyway, this blog doesn’t seem particularly “good,” but at least it’s something, I suppose. Buon weekend, all.

Little good to say, so back to Ireland

Jack still doesn’t have a physics teacher so we’ve hired one (if that is not antithetical to the mission of public education…), I just watched a professional dog walker let four pups pee and crap all over my front garden (non-yard green space is EVERYWHERE around), a guy laid on his horn this morning when I stopped for a school bus letting elementary schoolers board, and I was nearly hit by another driver who seemed to feel it her right to turn left because she wanted to. Italy has elected a hard-core right-winger who cozies up to people like Steve Bannon, Berlusconi, and the other right-wing Italian political parties, trump is still not in jail, and high schoolers in VA are walking out en masse today because Gov Youngkin is trying to enact anti-transgender legislation. You go, students! I am totally with you!

I am really pretty sick of all this crap, and I am also sick of mosquitoes and still heartbroken over Federer’s retirement.

So, back to Ireland. We paused as I was about to share Day 6 of my Ring of Kerry tour. We began by driving through Cahersiveen, home of Monsignor O’Flaherty, a significant member of the Catholic resistance to Nazism during WWII. He was responsible for saving ~6,500 Allied soldiers and Jews! Thank you, Sir!

Then to Killorglin where, every August, the Puck Fair is held. As I learned, most Irish towns have annual festivals of which they are enormously proud. Killorglin’s is one of Ireland’s oldest festivals and involves men heading into the local mountains to capture (kindly) a wild goat and bring it back to town. There, a chosen girl anoints the goat king (King Puck), it is tied in the center of the festivities, and everyone drinks and celebrates (and cares for the goat) for three days. The goat is then returned to the spot it was found and released.

Signs were everywhere, for the Fair was quickly approaching. I was quite sorry to miss it, frankly, but maybe another time. As you can see in this article and the following photo from said article, it was extremely hot at this year’s festival and King Puck received hourly vet visits and plenty of cold water and shade. Delightful!

I do regularly wonder if the chosen goat is enormously confused during its three days away from its flock, if it is then happy to return, and if the others know and/or miss it during its absence. Hmm.

Netherlands PS + camp

I truly loved hearing from so many of you after my Netherlands post, and I apologize for not having replied yet; we have, in the meantime, gone to Maine to pick the boys up and drive us all home. Since arriving back in MD last night, I have done 9 loads of laundry (no live ticks or empty milk jugs this year; but, more silverware and some rocks, and we’re down three more towels), purchased groceries that filled the cart beyond full (as the evidence below shows), and prepped for a new driver’s license (for Jack) appointment tomorrow.

I am both astonished and delighted by the entrenchment of dirt in what were, six weeks ago, new socks for both boys. A hat tip to you, kiddos, for living big in nature. Some of these are not salvageable, but I’m giving most of them my best effort because they carried my kids through happiness and dirt, tough times and wild life. And all of that is good info to remember and become wiser by.

As the tenth load spins in the room abutting my office, I am thinking about how long ago Europe feels but also how my time there remains sustentative. Earlier this year, my dear friend Amanda said something to the effect of “alone travel is something to always make time for. I do it once a year.” Like me, A has two children. Hers are younger, so I really admire her commitment. But she’s right. Going alone when you are rarely alone is a great sort of challenge. It doesn’t appeal to or benefit all, but for those who crave growth and adventure, such travel can provide the best of both.

In Amsterdam, I came across a pair of shoes I’d been eyeing stateside and really wanted. They’re a Converse-Comme des Garçons collaboration that I just hadn’t managed to find/deal with/purchase before I left. I mentioned them to Tom, and because he is a weirdly good researcher, he naturally found them at a store on one of our favorite streets in Amsterdam: Prinsengracht.

The precise pair I wanted wasn’t available in my size, but I quite liked the available option so brought it up to the register. The solo employee was a typically-tall (tall!) Dutch woman who appeared effortlessly chic though wearing an oversized tee, oversized jeans, and many barrettes in her hair (that seemed unnecessary). At the counter I said, “what do you think?” referring to hip shoes that seemed at least a decade younger than I am.

With total sincerity, she looked at me and said, “It doesn’t matter at all what I think. It only matters if you like them.” Perhaps seeing my American whatever she said, “I love them; they’re very hip.” And I do love that so much about the Netherlands. Practical and honest and largely unconcerned with others’ opinions. It’s all downright aspirational, and I have since loved wearing those high-tops and embracing that spirit. It’s taken me 4 decades to really fly my own flag, and doing so is so GD fun and liberating.