Oh, hello there. It's been a minute a few years. Let's catch up.
We recently bought a house after an agonizing process involving many decisions and factors. Those decisions and factors are irrelevant now, and if you think buying a house in a pandemic is difficult, just know that buying appliances in a pandemic is even harder.
Anyway, here we are now. We've moved a bunch since my last post, have seen a lot of changes (including another child! Have I posted about Troy on here?), and as much as I wanted to write, it just never clicked. I honestly don't know how the "mommy blogger" thing ever took flight. Who are these mommy people that have not only the time but the brain clarity to write? I write, kind of, but not how I used to. Something pops up, and I want to write about it, but I usually don't; when I do, it's a stuttering attempt that doesn't reach completion. Here's something I wrote one night at the beginning of COVID-19:
*
The governor of Utah declared a state of emergency on March 6. Close the schools. Work from home. Maintain a six foot distance from one another. Each evening, my daughter and I walk around the lake, silently watching the sky and the placid water turn from blue to peach as the sun vanishes behind the towering mountains. As people pass by, they scoot off the path, eyeballing six feet.
"Is it because of the sickness?" my daughter asks.
She knows about it, of course. It's taken her classmates and her dance recital from her. It's why the last soccer game of the season was forfeited, why we can't go to the library when her brother naps. To explain why handwashing is important, I let her dump pepper into a melamine Disney princess bowl full of water.
"Dip your finger in," I commanded. She and her brother gleefully obeyed and laughed at how the pepper covered their fingertips. I squired soap on their fingers, and their laughter ballooned as it slimed and dripped on the floor. "Now dip those in," I said. They did, and their laughter ceased into shocked silence as the pepper flung to the sides of the bowl, away from their soapy fingers.
"Yes, it's because of the sickness," I now reply with a small smile. She nods, satisfied, and keeps walking, squeezing my hand every few paces, and I'm relieved that's the only question she has.
A couple nights later, my son wakes up crying. Too tired to console him back to sleep, we move him into our bed. He contentedly curls up into my side, sleepily asks for a snack, eventually gives up the negotiation and floats back to sleep. After a bit, he keeps kicking me, so I move into his bed next to his sister.
I'm dreaming of my best friend's wedding. We're dancing at the reception when suddenly everyone starts vibrating. The music stops, the conversation hushes, and the vibrating grows more intense. One guest turns to me and says, "Earthquake."
"Earthquake," I whisper, my eyes flinging open. The room is sloshing side to side; I can feel our townhouse bend and sway. Next to me, my daughter sits up and whimpers, and just as she opens her mouth to shout, I grab her and say urgently, "It's okay. It's okay. This is an earthquake. It's okay." Just then, the shaking swells, and I consider gathering her up and running into the doorway hall, but then the room hiccups and settles, hiccups and settles.
Stillness.
"Is it because of The Sickness?" she asks in a whisper, and it's the first time it's gone from "the sickness" to sounding like "The Sickness."
*
That's it. That's how it ends. I know, right? I didn't publish this right away because I haven't been able to edit it (or finish it, obviously). As I glance through it now, I can see how it isn't quite how I'd want it to be, and yet I've lost the steam to fix it up. For the record, I was never (never) into editing my stuff before kids. It was more of a "slap down, vomit up, and click publish" process. Becoming a mother has brought out the perfectionist in me (another topic I've wanted to write about).
But the writing, among other things in my life, is slowly returning to me. Thanks to those who occasionally checked up or said they missed the blog. I had kind of forgotten about it, and of course it was flattering to hear that someone liked it enough to still think about it after all these years of abandonment.
