I think I've taken on too much this year. At the end of this first week back, I'm deeply depleted and exhausted.
Pic: Late evening walk with Big A. The river was peaceful and lovely, but when one walks with Big A and his Apple watch, there's no tarrying.
First day of classes today... I panicked hard yesterday, despite having taught in person all of last year. But the usual combination of over prepping and the endorphin-adrenalin rush of being in front of a class kicked in and all was well. Finished up work with a small reception at the president's house for being on a search committee that met all summer long.
When I got home, Big A was napping ahead of a work-night, At was off canvassing, Nu was in the basement knuckle-deep in a paint project for a class. So I grabbed my Culver's dinner from L's fundraiser for Peacequest, queued up some Felicity on ye olde laptop, and ate with Scout and Huck for company.
A bit of an anticlimactic end to the day, TBH.
I video chatted dad for his birthday last night (by myself, it was already morning in Bangalore) and this morning (with the rest of the fam). Video calls are better than audio-only calls, because it's easier for dad to understand what we're saying when there's visual context. I wish I could have been there. I miss my parents.
<<<Amma sent me this picture of a long ago beach day--I guess the beach has always been a happy place for me. When I showed this picture to At and Nu, they chortled at tiny me. One of them claimed: "It's like you took your face and put it on a child's body." I mean, I was a child once.
It's EM's birthday too (just goes to show how astrology doesn't work as she's nothing like my dad!) and BS's first day as a prof. so I took them cake to sweeten their special days.
The rest of the day has been little fires and email fire-fighting and finishing up final edits and diagnostics... classes start tomorrow! I'm my usual mixture of yikes+yippee.
I am in major shock from hearing that they succumbed to Covid yesterday. State lines seemed distance enough... not sure how to handle this eternal distance.
RIP, amazing one.
At took his puppy sibs for shots and a groom, gave them their meds, cleaned Huckie's ears, picked up his human sibling from school, and as it turns out--was the one who reheated the pasta (I'd made at midnight) for our dinner today.
We joke about his post-college life at home being his adulthood "residency," but I can't imagine how we'd have pulled today off without him.
Nu had a busy day and spent much of the evening finishing up school tasks and rewriting their notes--I love how hard they are trying to start off right this year.
My day was packed, but I had a whole hour for lunch despite every morning meeting running overtime. I debated taking a power nap, or a walk, or doing some yoga on my Mirror app, or seeing if friends on campus wanted to meet... but I ended up doing email and doomscrolling. I'll do better tomorrow.
We're not even to classes yet (next week!) and already things seem really intense. Meetings all day, student emergencies, a million emails, seeing lots of people I like a lot... I packed a lot into today.
Also Nu's first day of high school. We did a terrific job of getting there nice and early, but I forgot to take a pic. Tomorrow's the first *full* day of school, so we've decided that we can fix our mistake then.
Everything should come with a safety/retake feature.
Pic from last week: Fam ascending into the Carnegie Art Museum in Pitt.
As a bonus, we're also celebrating Scout and Huck's Boss Day today (theirs is on the 18th but the rest of us were traveling this month).
But wait there's more! It's also back to school celebration time for At and Nu (actually just Nu, but it felt weird not to celebrate At too).
I guess I like celebrating this little family of mine.
<< I made Nu and At little gift bags with some school essentials, fun reading, and a fresh plant to care for.
Canceled my planned walk with BS (it was too, too hot and I was way too tired after catching up on housekeeping and new student schedule changes). I was going to cancel my walk with EM too, but she canceled first. Ha. I didn't even have to plead for the pandemic pass as we'd established.
Still thinking of At's impromptu detour yesterday to the Battle of Homestead site. Still thinking and still processing... and so moved by the small donor-funded memorials (physical and virtual) and their commitment to solidarity and workers' rights.
A quick trip to Pittsburgh...
my anxious face is hilarious.
Here's a better one of the kids at the lookout after we rode the Monongahela Incline.
#LaterPost
I enjoyed this reminder about rest today.
Then I got a slew of reports, reimbursement forms, RSVPs, surveys, student advising and scheduling, etc. turned in, so I can take some guilt-free time off this weekend.
That's the plan, anyway.
Fall Term (and a mini-vacation) approach.
I got a good picture of S and J with all the grandkids for the family holiday card. I wish I had gotten the childhood portrait of Big A just behind At's shoulder... but Scout's butt wouldn't fit.
*
Obviously, I titled this post as a riff on Wood's American Gothic, but my capability for normalcy and jokes about American-ness is dimmed by the horrific news from Afghanistan and diminished in the emotionally exhausting aftermath of having just finished Ayad Akhtar's Homeland Elegies.
Antioch School nursery mates just nine years ago... on the cusp of various high schools now. Nu and the other kids loved their ambles across Art on the Lawn and Glen Helen. Us mamas sprawled out on the lawn with cold drinks sharing how we had felt "lifted up" by each other for years. And... RK remembers me every time she cuts watermelon into wedges 🤗.
*
< Started Ayad Akhtar's Homeland Elegies. FML, I didn't expect so much of that first chapter to be about Trumpfzzzz. It has been such a relief not to have to deal with that din on the daily.
Nu is figuring out being 13, their gender, and responsibilities and anxieties around high school...
At is experiencing post-graduation life and making meaning of his impromptu gap year...
Big A is dealing with a change of employer and the potential loss/depletion of research funds...
I appear to be panicking at will and slipping into periods of sadness routinely... None of it is inexplicable--if I think about it I can pull up tons of reasons why I should be sad. But it's not particularly discerning or meaningful.
Anyway, something that brought me a momentary chuckle today: I'd switched Siri to "Indian voice" recently. And good thing I did too. When I turned the phone's flashlight on by accident today, I was both faraway and flustered and slipped into Indian/British mode, asking Siri to turn off "the torch." And... it was done even before I stammered out "I mean flashlight." Nice discernment, Indian voice Siri.
Pic: Waterlilies at MSU Horticultural Gardens.
(I noticed the return of masks--mandatory at the museum, prominent at the restaurant, and intermittent on the riverwalk.)
I didn't find time to dedicate to exercise, but if the goal is to sweat everyday, I certainly achieved that on our 90-degree day.
The human kids frequently "take turns" walking with me. Not in an eager way--but more like one is busy today so could the other step in, etc.
For some reason, it sort of makes me happy because it makes me imagine that when I'm elderly and need their care they'll negotiate a mutually compassionate and equitable way to make that work too.
The puppy kids are, naturally, happy to walk any time.
Work, work, work, and then I headed home with JG on the phone to keep me company on the commute home.
Low: Heart heavy with the looming eviction of millions of families in the middle of a pandemic.
High: Hearing The Foo Fighters' cover of The Beegees' "You Should be Dancing" live from Lollapalooza on the radio. Apparently it's something they've been doing for a while? Anyway, it was the bit of disco silliness that helped me get through the day.
Pic: An early bird posing for me with their accessory worm (yesterday at the Horticultural Gardens).
L snapped a picture of me down by the Red Cedar on the first of my three hikes (sequentially with L, BS, and EM) today.
I'm scheduled for a work seminar Mon and Tues and a professional webinar Weds and Thurs, so it seemed like a good idea to get all the hiking I wanted in today.
Also a good idea... scheduling a massage for Friday.
In other not news, August starts tomorrow, and a look at my summer list tells me that we're doing alright. I even got to do one of my big maybes--sit by the ocean. But things I threw in there thinking we'd definitely get to them (hammock camping, firepit nights) haven't happened because it has been such a wet summer.
Still a few precious weeks left...
An early morning walk with L after SO MANY days. Between her travels and mine, it's been way too long. The Radiology Gardens (where I snapped this pic) had a fundraiser, and we bought a giant planter of coleus each and lugged it around with us.
At took me to the car dealership earlier in the morning to drop Bluey off for a two-year service. When the check-in person asked if I needed a loaner or a ride back home, I felt so proud telling them that I "brought my son." The son in question was amused that when he stopped to get gas, I hopped out to help him, but was so lost around all the slots and buttons after two years of plugging in Bluey.
A boozy cousin B called as we were getting dinner on the table. A bunch of cousins are getting together at his new beachhouse in Pondicherry and he MISSED me. I've been seeing pics on cousin chat since, and everyone is talking about a big reunion in December. Today I'm pretending (even to myself) that this might actually happen.
And today is officially the day Nu picked their new name. We had tried a name that started with "N' for a while. But then one day as I was getting dressed, I saw Big A's money clip with his initials, and the thought that At would be able to use it one day slipped into my mind... I wanted that for Nu too. Nu's new name begins with "A" too, so they'll still be the "Baby A" who debuted here in 2007. And even better, it kind of starts the same way as their old name, so I can course correct before I reach the end and avoid slip-ups.
Ten days ago, photographer Danish Siddiqui was killed by the Taliban. I know people who don't know his name, but would recognize his images right away. What images! Siddiqui's image of the Rohingya woman keeps showing up in my dreams a lot lately (I've been rereading Sea of Poppies and I think my brain's conflating things).
SV, who's quoted in this New Yorker article, calls his work "memory-keeping, at a time when we have lost our capacity to think or remember." Here are some other galleries of his work in remembrance.
Today I'm really feeling Liza Featherstone's essay in The New Republic: "How to Live in a Burning World Without Losing Your Mind."
"I’m in no condition to receive this news. I can’t tolerate more worry, death, sickness, sadness, or pain—more mothers and grandmothers dying, and maybe even less bearably, children.
I’m not alone.
We are in the middle of another wave of horrific climate news, but many of us are too traumatized to pay attention. The more loss and horror we’re facing in the rest of our lives—whether from the coronavirus and opioid pandemics, economic upheaval, or the ordinary awfulness of cancer and death—the less equipped we are to take it in."
Went to check on the Arboretum's yearly peacock display with L before the rest of the family woke up. I love the purple spikes they've added to the begonias this year.
And yes, it's syllabus building time again.
Scout, Huck, and I hosted bookclub while Big A, At, and Nu did their own thing. I'd planned to have a garden party, but rain was in the forecast and mosquitoes were out in force, so I moved it indoors. And just like that we had our first indoors party since the pandemic started.
Here, Huck, Scout, and I (L to R) are spooning in blissed-out collapse after dinner.
[Pic by Nu, reflected in the glass door.]
from the scummy
Nu skimming off pond scum
At making a strawberry, arugula, feta salad
I got to play copilot too.
Play copilot--I didn't actually touch any of the controls...
I guess that had a lot to do with how I made it to Seattle, then to Detroit, and finally home today.
