together, apart:
this is how they live with me
sharing, not sharing
Coronatine, Day Sixty-three (Teen Social Distancing)
childhood
Coronatine, Day Fifty-seven
if i could be a cat
curled into this ball on a bed
unaware of what noise could keep me awake
unaware of human suffering,
of parenting four teens too afraid to talk to each other,
too afraid to talk to me,
too afraid to build relationships
(so much like their mother, their father, this fear)
(but he isn’t even ours, how is he so much like us?)
unaware of the world outside of this fluff,
this sumptuous, protective ball of fluff,
maybe i’d be a cat.
but i’m only human
and have brought these girls into the world
and this boy into our home
and the world came corona-crashing soon after
and we only have each other
in this lonely, empty house
in this loud-mouthed, angsty house
in this loving, hating house
we don’t have this bed, this softness, this protection.
we can only find these feelings in words.
small gestures.
trying to speak new languages.
trying to see who or what we don’t notice.
trying to find this level of peace,
this cat-comfort peace,
with each other.
Coronatine, Day Fifty-three
we flew this beach kite
on this day seven years back
(a dream in life, Spain)
my daughter, then ten
still finding joy in small things
(as i still try to)
aspen trees at dawn
a pup always by my side
cats learning to love
the kite is gone now.
(i have ransacked every room)
locked down, we let go.
Coronatine, Day Forty-five
we’re climbing walls here
as boredom reaches new heights
on day forty-five
Coronatine, Day Forty-four
bike rides and cuddles
(made it through another day)
pets will save us all
Coronatine, Day Forty-two
we got a new cat
because sweetness breeds sweetness
and i’m just crazy
Coronatine, Day Forty
this is just to say
I have lost the art contest
to everyone in my dining room
they were so strong
and so detailed
so much depends upon
a teenage smile
giving a snarky peace sign
with an artist’s pencil
beside her sassy sisters
Coronatine, Day Thirty-eight
these organized shelves
ready to be fully stocked
with his last paychecks:
they represent us,
our Coronatine journal,
worry turned to work
work we’re still doing
with tiny pics on small screens
working for our kids
our creative kids
with a cat-house-building night
paw prints, love, and all
“new normal” softens
as we make the best of fate
on day thirty-eight
Coronatine, Day Thirty-five (10×9)
This will make 90 things I’ve managed to muster for gratitude during the quarantine. Today is not hard. I am going to try to make this easier day by day, but today is unique.
- What a sunrise. There are benefits to never being able to sleep in.
- Mythili let me cut her hair. Sure, I’m not a hairstylist, but why not? Thank the lord my girls didn’t get my curls, otherwise I surely would have screwed this up.
- Izzy let me braid her hair, and I think, after fifteen years of this, I have improved!
- Riona made this lemon pound cake for Izzy. For all of us. For tonight.
- Fabian helped me move all the furniture in the basement. Or, as he pointed out, he moved all the furniture while I was a spectator. He also blew up all the balloons, nailed these sheets to the wall, and made our basement Virtual Prom ready.
- We managed to surprise Izzy!
- This man. Walking home with champagne to put into the orange juice I spent an hour hand-squeezing and a bouquet of flowers for his daughter’s Virtual Prom 2020.
- This family ready to eat risotto, filet mignon, and cashew salad (thank you Costco). Everyone wearing their best.
- My middle Mythili making this professional-grade prom poster with some of the tagboard I snatched in my five-minutes-allowed trip to my classroom, tagboard that’s the wrong color for our theme, but who the fuck cares?
- My girls being girls and kicking me out of the basement for taking pics or videos. Being teenagers. So happy, so full of sass, so themselves.
Be grateful. Be yourselves. Make the best of this shit. That’s all for today.
Coronatine, Day Thirty-two (10×6)
More than a month. We’re more than a month into this. Here goes day six of ten things I’m thankful for during this daily hell.
- Despite my husband being an essential worker, it seems that all of us are still healthy. Of course, it’s possible that we have it and are asymptomatic, but hopefully, that’s not the case.
- My mom made us these great masks. I’m grateful to have my parents still here, still healthy, still ready to help when needed. Even though we can’t hug, we can still see each other, and I can’t wait for the day when we can all get together and have a family dinner. Grandparents are so essential to childhood, and my mother has spent endless hours teaching my girls to sew, draw, and paint. I can’t wait for her to have that time with them again.
- Speaking of masks, my first friend in Denver has been making hundreds to give away. She is a massage therapist, so her business has shut down. Now she’s using her healing hands to help the world. I first met her when I was eleven years old, where I moved to a very diverse and crowded Merrill Middle School after a very sheltered upbringing in an upstate New York town of 300 people. She was sitting behind me in math class, and when we compared our schedules, we realized we had every class together, including G/T, and became immediate friends. Just like that. I knew she was a golden soul, and she’s still shining her light in the world.
- Light (again). We had two FREEZING, snowy days, but of course, the Denver sun has returned, and isn’t it perfect?
- It is refreshing to see how many corporations are now working for the greater good. Distilleries making hand sanitizer. Sports equipment companies making PPE. We live in a capitalistic world, but at least it can help when we need help.
- Speaking of corporations and bringing a little more hope, NPR reports today that two of the biggest pharmaceutical competitors are working together to develop a vaccine. I feel that this is just another sign that the world will change after this is over. Companies, led by HUMANS, will realize that the common good is more important than the common dollar.
- And… maybe this quarantine is working? Though there were more deaths today, the hospital bed use is flattening. So people CAN collectively come together for the greater good. Hopefully they’ll remember in November!
- And now for a personal news report: Izzy asked me for advice about two essays she was writing today. My fiercely-independent 17-year-old hasn’t asked about homework since middle school, so this was a Coronatine-homeschooling-groundbreaking moment.
- With “homeschooling” comes so much extra time for art. For listening to music. For crying over our favorite songs and books and movies. And for my middle Mythili to create for me, with Avett Brothers lyrics, this beautiful picture on Procreate (through the iPad) that I cannot WAIT to one day print. I gave her the lines from the song and she created an image that is so me in every way with that beautiful full moon over us all.
- I almost even feel like a good mother! And according to one of my students who graduated almost four years ago, I am! Out of the blue, he wrote me a beautiful, detailed letter of gratitude. This is a student who’d seen two wars in his life, in Iraq and Syria, and worked tirelessly to finish high school in fewer than four years, finishing just as he was turning twenty-one. This is the student who sat in my room every morning, every lunch period, but would never eat; he would only study. (I hated how he wouldn’t eat, and often said so, and he mentioned this in the letter: “The things I faced before when I came to America are very hard and almost no one can survive if they live it. The transition to life in America developed gradually, once we accustomed to the norms and culture everything started becoming easy.”) He writes to me now about how much I influenced his life, about what a great mother and teacher I am, about how much I encouraged him. And of course, being the selfless human that he is, he wants to help translate for my Newcomers, has already spent time translating for the Red Cross.
How lucky am I, thirty-two days into this hell? How lucky are we?
This actually wasn’t that hard to write after all. Be grateful.
