"food for thought"

 

The wonderful ladies of "Food for Thought Book Club" down by the Red Cedar River in LB's backyard...

Vaccinated, unmasked, outdoors. 

I handled it.

I *enjoyed* it.

I'd forgotten how lovely communal joy can feel...

sorry...

I have to go. Someone loves me very, very, very much, and I need to go pay them attention.

(Oh. Also: In a post-pandemic first, Big A and I rode our goofy tandem bike downtown and got a pitcher of margaritas at a new--to us, anyway--restaurant.)

interlude

I found this fellow at the waterlily pond in the horticultural gardens today. The colors here remind me of the first edition cover of Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things--which At is reading (for the first time) currently. I hope he likes it...

Decades ago, I used to find it impossible to love anyone who didn't like Roy's novel. 

I'm so much mellower now. 

minding the gap

I think about this a lot; and I feel a lot of guilt and sadness. The panic some of my school friends in India are feeling about their kids being ineligible for vaccinations (because too young and thus unprioritized in the face of vaccine shortages) hurts even though I can access vaccines for my own kids.

I'm also dismayed--“In an interconnected world, none of us is safe until all of us are safe.”

my *every*thing people

 The fam does their thing. 

🏡🏕

Also: we watched Tim Robinson's I Think You Should Leave over a year ago at least, and we're still using so much of its dialogue as a shorthand for family jokes.

reentry

This green in the woods felt unreal as we stepped in... so bright and lovely, it almost felt... fake? 

My post-pandemic--or at least post-vaccination--reentry experience has felt similar. Each decision and action--though intentional and deliberated--feels fraught and uncanny. My calendar is slowly filling up with long-awaited events, but I consider and reconsider and second-guess everything for ages.  

But that's probably for the best. Today I (zoom) attended the feminist book club after a hiatus. I remembered that the last time I was here, I bolted because I had a mystery panic attack. 

As EM said earlier today, it's "weird to be around other people." Even for me--living with a lovely houseful and having taught in person all year long--agoraphobia seems to manifest every time I consider an event/interaction/outing. Yesterday I hiked with Big A and didn't wear a mask. I had been persuaded by pronouncements that outdoor transmission is highly unlikely (+ did not want to stand out like a freak). But it took some stern talking to myself. And even admitting I enjoyed being maskless outdoors feels odd somehow. But I did, so there. 

At's graduation redux!

At is in graduation robes again, the sibs are wearing ties, we got grandparents and family on FaceTime/WhatsApp...

It was a bit chaotic and didn't go completely as planned, but this international photoshoot is the closest we're getting to a graduation party this year.