Things I have learned in the last two weeks in no particular order:
- The house is exponentially quieter with one child vs. two.
- The house is still just as messy.
- Once there is quiet, you realize there are so many layers to peel back, wade through, or hide beneath.
- After several years of being on edge, the brain doesn’t know what to do with itself.
- The body retaliates after several years of being on edge.
- Sleep is a fickle creature that evades at night and then attacks during the day.
- Music is solace. The more I listen, the more I hunger for a thrumming beat, rhythm that pushes my body into movement, for sounds that vibrate through my entirety.
- Perhaps I am starved for the feeling of wholeness and am attempting to fill it with sound.
- Or maybe the sound reminds me that I am alive.
- My lynx point Siamese rescue kitten will eat half a loaf of challah if we leave it on the counter.
- My orange cat curls around my head each night and purrs like he is gifting me a lullaby.
- My tuxedo cat has started sleeping in my oldest child’s vacant room.
- I am tired of using oldest and youngest to name my children, so I’ve created pseudonyms: oldest = Sid, youngest = Emmet
- I talked to Sid on Zoom today – it was the first time in fourteen days that I could see his face – and the distance felt so stark, immovable, and overwhelming.
- Ravens are living in the trees near my house.
- Their screams are fabulous.
- Mid-summer magic hour, when the lightning bugs begin to rise, will always be magical.
- One day, millisecond by second by minute by hour, I will stop feeling like I have just stepped off a Gravitron.
- One day the pieces will fall back into place. Likely not the same place, but adjacent, with edges that line up just enough but not quite, which is good enough for me.
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