Thy Daughters Ever Sing

Dear Wells,

You’ve been dead for a long time, haven’t you? Yet, here they are, Killing You all over again..

I had trouble, at first, mourning you, because so much of what you were to me ended so long ago. And so much anger still remains.

A week ago, I was stunned by the news that you are now officially closing.

But I have felt a numbness, an ambivalence that started twenty years ago.  I have a whole history of mixed feelings. Of mixed emotions. 

Your People, over all, have been with me, since day one: the friends I made, the Sisters (non-gendered). 

But there’s a reason my first group of friends at Wells go by the name we do.  We were the “Main Transfers from the Future” from the moment we stepped up to the Welcome Desk at Orientation only to be told 

“O, you’re not supposed to be here!”

Welcome to Wells! 

We arrived on the date given to us in our welcome letter.

The date for incoming new students.

The date for Freshwomen apparently.

But of course, they had given us, the Transfers, the wrong information and failed or neglected to correct it for us.

So, we connected with each other.  The students inhabiting the Main Building dorms.  The students that weren’t supposed to be there yet. We started building our own traditions. Part of and Partly away from Wells.

We settled in.  We did.  And soon we connected with other new students and freshwomen and eventually the returning students who arrived back at Wells on the date we didn’t know about.

Ghost Stories were told, in Faculty Parlors. In the dark.  

Classes started.

Then….a couple weeks into Fall Semester, 9/11 happened.

It set our world askew.  Hearing the literal screams of our classmates, distraught as they learned the fates of their loved ones.

Somehow those of us only indirectly affected by the tragedy became so much closer.  On the day, I sat with friends I’d never met before, clasping hands, watching the towers fall on the tv in the Sommer Center. We were all deeply affected.

Being transfers meant that a lot of things just weren’t built for us.

I didn’t get to dance around the May Pole, and therefore never had a chance to become Queen of the May.

But, I Never had to wear a freshman Sign or get hazed by upper class women because of it.

There were traditions that were for Every One and that I could and did take part in.

Namely, Tea at 3.  

It usually consisted of lemonade (non-carb) and those no bake cookies I can’t stand (thinking back I wonder if that’s why I no longer care for them, because I’m sure I ate some of them at tea), it was an enjoyable break in the middle of afternoon seminars.  And it was especially nice the term I had seminar in the dance studio and Jeanne made sure our snack was healthy and delicious, with fresh produce and real tea.

My group of friends created our own traditions, too, of which we still talk and joke.  They involve Pie, and Strongbad, and the Star Wars Gangsta Rap, and Radiskull, and late night pints of Ben & Jerry’s, and grilled cheese with tomato, Dinner Parties, and Pints of Spackle.

I spent most of my life at Wells basically living in and for the theatre and dance studio.  If I was in my dorm room I was most likely sitting on the floor surrounded by books and papers, fanned out around me, half watching the extended dvds of LotR on my tiny television while writing papers or rereading Hrry Pottr in my pointe shoes.

If I was asleep, I dreamt in choreography.

Occasionally I could be found in the study area at the top of the library, listening to songs downloaded from Limewire or sent by internet-friends from our online RPG (#11ama), perhaps working on a final exam under the promise of the honor code (schmonner code).

I took other classes, but I lived and breathed the Performing Arts.  

Susan Forbes, Jeanne Goddard, Siouxsie Easter, Joe Deforest, Libby Wilmot Bishop, Victor Penniman, Robert, and Judy . . . 

Professors and guest artists who helped us build ourselves.

We made costumes, sets, props, stages, . . . . Memories.

We performed Guerrilla Theatre in the dining hall and on the dock.

We ate waffles on the weekends and lived for grilled cheese night and suffered great anguish if it didn’t coincide with tomato soup night. 

We made trips to Auburn & Ithaca, bumming rides from vehicled friends or signing up for the Wells vans. It was in fact several years of living in SC after graduation that I stopped thinking every red van I saw was one of “Ours”.

We went to dance festivals and created our own works of choreography and performance art and danced and performed in each other’s pieces and dedicated our bodies to the modern dance styles of Goddard, Finch, and Cunningham, and Vaganova, Italian, and French Ballet. 

We cheered each other on.  We comforted each other.  We fought over stupid stuff. And we reconned the dean’s office for our stolen water cooler. Together.

There were so many good and bad memories.

I have so many stories of my time at Wells.  I hope your memories of me are better than my own.

There’s so much more I could say. And nothing I can do to change your fate.

Even if it’s just this one last time,

I’ll meet you under the Sycamore.

Kjrstn, ‘04

FebruMay

I slept with the window open last night.  After having it open most of the day.

I spent ysterday morning sitting on my front steps in the sunshine listening to music and the call of crows and song birds. I started planning my home garden.

I repotted seedlings and planted more seeds.  After buying more soil and seeds and a small succulent plant to add to my collection.

The front window is now open and I can hear the small wind chimes singing in the breeze.  We have a high wind watch for today.

I want to get more, and larger, wind chimes for the front porch and garden.

My cat, a beautiful calico (this seems redundant), loves to sit in the open window.  We don’t let her venture outside anymore after two of her brothers died under mysterious circumstances.

She also loves to rub her face on my pen and lick my hand while I’m writing which makes for marginal legibility.

The sun has come out for something crazy like three days in a row now.  And it might get up to 60ºF today.  Though there is a chance of rain this afternoon.

Seasonal Affective Disorder can get f***ed.

Did I mention that it is still FEBRUARY?

#climatechange

[to do: look up the definition of Ascerbic]

We (my grrl gang, The Wyrd Sisters, WNY) have a crafts fair this weekend so the gals and I will be finishing up as many projectors as we can and price tagging everything over the next couple days. I’ve spent the past two with a tube of arnica gel in my handbag for frequent hand and wrist application due to all the amigurumi I’m trying to complete in time.

I finally fixed my keyboard this morning. Because I found the instruction manual. And pressed the right buttons in the right order.

I am going to plant so much lavender and rosemary this year. Besides Dahlias, I think that might be all I want to plant in my home garden and the big one at my in-laws’. O, and Honeysuckle. If I can find seeds or whatever they grow from.  (I’m still learning all this plant stuff!)

And in conclusion, I am going to take a shower and go make stuff!

Thanks for reading!

Stuff To Do (Just Today)

Drink this 1/2 caff hazelnut coffee from Panera.

Avoid gorging on bagels I bought there.

Yoga. Check. Memorized 10 minute workout was only 7 minutes.

Bake Brownies or some other treat for my second grader’s classmates for tomorrow.

Take a shower.

Wrap my husband’s birthday present for tomorrow.

Find my son an outfit to wear for his concert tonight. Do/Let my husband do a load of laundry containing the right color shirt for said son’s said concert.

Help kids finish their valentines cards for school tomorrow. They started them on their own this morning!

Read the book I borrowed from the library yesterday. Hope it’s interesting enough for me to want to keep reading it.

Turn off lights we’re not currently using (namely the ones on the kids’ desks).

Check plants for watering needs.

Take care of those plants that need it.

Open curtains so upstairs plants won’t die a dismal death, dark and alone.

Finish listening to The Empty Grave. Again.

Tidy up from everybody’s breakfast.

Flash my working-from-home-due-to-car-trouble husband. Preferably while he’s on a conference call.

Is Joke.

Or is??

Fill out application for an exciting new to us crafts and artisan festival for our sisterhood of local crafters, bakers, and writers, The Wyrd Sisters.

Put pen down and use the freaking bathroom before my bladder bursts!

Figure out why my keyboard isn’t working despite new batteries.

Try once again to make the hat my husband asked for. I’ve restarted it four or five time. So far. I just can’t get it right. Also, I misread the directions the first four times. Fifth still hasn’t come out right.

Eat. Lunch this time. Leftover pulled chicken and pasta salad.

Do not overeat. Save room for mini snickers bars I’ve been binging the past two weeks. Or the leftover brownie batter from off the spoon.

Listen to Parov Stelar which is very invigorating.

Borrow husband’s laptop that has a working keyboard (even though it’s not an awesome old fashioned typewriter style one like my new currently not working one).

Think of all the things I was convinced I’d be able to do in a day once both my children were finally both in school. Lament. Or accept.

Spend too much time on facebook between searching for the things I opened it for in the first place.

End up ordering hella Girl Scout Cookies from friends’ kids (also my kids’ friends) because of their post on facebook.

I dunno….pretend I have time and rewatch Heartstopper (both seasons) while doing some crafting.

Assuming my crystal order arrives “Before 9:00pm tonight.”

DANCE BREAK

Email the nurse from last week with the other recipe I promised her.

Look for that Recipe.

Remember to look for the recipe I need for my kid’s class treats.

Fruitlessly search recipe binders for both.

Search huge pile of printouts that either never got put in the binder or were used recently and not put back properly (this covers pretty must all of my recipes with the exception of a few Mary Berry & Nancy Birtwhistle books).

Instead: Actually Find the Recipe for the thing I wanted to make because I finally have all the ingredients but I’d completely forgotten I needed to look for the recipe and also that I wanted to make it.

Actually Find Brownie Recipe.

And the one for the nurse!

Find a bunch of other recipes I want to make….

Get overwhelmed by the breadth of tasks.

*Don’t* get overwhelmed! I meant DON’T.

Also, don’t get totally grossed out by the scent of overripe bananas that were, several days ago, tipped out of the fruit bowl onto the table at which I am sitting, when we needed the bowl for something else.

Chocolate chip cookies, for those that must know.

Make banana bread? Scratch that. I need to buy more flour.

Freeze overripe bananas. (This I actually did! Eventually.)

Get/Remain overwhelmed with number of potential tasks.

Leave everything alone and bake brownies.

Remembering while I do that I need to pick birthday foods for husband’s birthday dinner tomorrow.

Everything always happens all at once around here!

Clear craft supplies off kitchen counter.

Clean Brownie bowl.

Wash brownie bowl.

Rinse tea cup to remove cocoa powder spray.

Have a cup of tea.

While trying to remember that my husband’s computer does not have a touch screen.

Check clock to see if there is actually time for anything to get done before pickup.

A Year in Great Books

And others. 

For over twenty years the main books that I read were the Harry Potter series. Over and over and over again. Sometimes reading and most of the time listening to the books read to me by Stephen Fry.

At some point in the past three to five years, my sister sent me a membership to Libro.fm and I took the opportunity at last to experience stories outside what had become such a huge part of my existence that it permeated every aspect of my life.

I downloaded book after book, leaving some unread/unlistened to and some partly done, and still others making a mark so huge that I rearranged parts of myself to make room. Well, it was the books really. *They* rearranged parts of me.

This year for the first time I set my GoodReads Reading Challenge above the 2-5 books I often managed not to reach. I decided for better or worse I was going to read 20 books before 2023 turns to 2024.

And I have!

58 actually.

Well. Almost. Because I am finally counting all the books I Try. And all the books I REread. Because I deserve an accurate count.

Last year, 2022, passed with a marked change in favor.

JK Rowling has made it really difficult to keep the level of participation in the HP world I have had and my ability to keep my place diminished greatly over the past three or so years.

I had heard of The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater because of a necklace I bought from The Bookish Box sometime in the Spring of 2022. That summer I finally read the series and it changed my world forever. It’s one of those series that I couldn’t get over. The books enchanted me. I fell in love with not one but all the main characters. You have to experience it for yourself because my feelings for it are too overwhelming and I also don’t feel like spoiling the magic for anyone else.

In the late fall of 2022 I discovered Carry On: the Rise and Fall of Simon Snow by Rainbow Rowell. It has become a comfort series.

January 2023 came and I started the new year with a determination to learn more about the vast sea of literary worlds that have been waiting for me, seemingly forever eclipsed by The Weasleys and all the rest.

I started with a book that had been recommended by a dear friend with whom I share many interests.  Unfortunately, despite this and the raging fire of delirious fanatics, the book remains unfinished, having been placed firmly on my DNF list as an overrated piece of contrived meh:

ACOTAR, and all its sequels, is not for me.

Having melted happily in the fires of Chapter 61 and all the rest, I dove into another well loved and friend-recommended book by Rainbow Rowell: Eleanor and Park. It was fine. I didn’t love anyone in the book and honestly I’ve forgotten most of the story. It was fine. That’s about the extent of it.

I tried out Cemetery Boys, it having been recommended, like Carry On, by a Pinterest-Load of Fans. It was a good story, but the characters were underdeveloped. I did learn a bit about several cultures I wasn’t well versed in and I am thankful for that.

I reread Simon & Baz’s trilogy.

Then jumped back into Heartstopper with volumes two, three, and four. #nickandcharlie <3<3<3 (another brilliant film adaptation, btw)

I read Red, White & Royal Blue. Steamy, my friends. I despise politicians and royalty on principle but still managed to adore this book. A pretty good film adaptation, too.

The Throwback List was a huge disappointment containing no real plot. I LOVED Lily Anderson’s UnDead Girl Gang so much and I was really underwhelmed by this non-story.

I decided to pursue some academically recommended literature and chose a dip into history with All the Light We Cannot See. It was devastating. As most books set during WWII are bound to be. It was brilliantly written. I’ll never pick it up again. And no matter how brilliant it looks, I will also not watch the film.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe…..another recommended by Pinterest’s knowledge of my current faves. I chose the audio. And discovered that I can’t stand Lin Manuel Miranda’s narration style. I quit listening a couple chapters in. Maybe someday I’ll get a physical copy and give it another go but I’m not in any hurry.

Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco was a chance I took, based once again on Pinterest-found fan art, while at Barnes & Noble picking up an already beloved Terry Pratchett Discworld Novel I had once borrowed from the library or more probably purchased the audio edition of from Libro.fm. I wanted something new. It was weird moving back into hetero-fiction tbh. The first book, while a little overdone, was enjoyable, so I followed it with Hunting Prince Dracula. I did a lot of eye rolling during the contrivances. I gave up on the third, something about Houdini, which was so tremendously unhinged from believability, I didn’t even add it to my GoodReads challenge, though perhaps I should to keep a proper record or maybe to warn people off it?

I reread Melissa Albert’s delightfully dark one off, Our Crooked Hearts.

Having fallen in love with the Complete Fiction tv series of Lockwood & Co, and finding out it was based on Books, I decided to give Jonathan Stroud’s quintet a try. While slightly harder to get into than the show, I fell deeply in love with Lucy’s narrative, and even more so when truly accustomed to Skull, a character barely yet introduced to television audiences before Netflix pulled the plug on one of those rarities: a film version that outstripped the brilliant books upon which it was based. I fell into a slightly deeper depression upon reading the announcement of its cancellation, knowing exactly which scenes I craved to see with that cast and crew, which I would only ever be able to imagine, which I did anyway having read the books now more times than any other series I can think of, save one.

I read and listened to The Screaming Staircase four times. The Whispering Skull four times. The Hollow Boy nine times according to my tally on GR. The Creeping Shadow, 11 times. The Empty Grave six and two half times.

Adding Book Boyfriends has never been so fun nor so devastating.

I decided it was time to revisit something special to me in my youth: Gothic classics. In high school English, 11th grade, AP, I was given the choice between three famous books in the genre: 

Dracula

Frankenstein

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde

Back then, I went with Dracula – an amazing mix of perspectives and narrators.

Throughout my years in the theatre community, I have seen several stage adaptations of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel and enjoyed every one. So I decided to purchase a cheap copy of the book.

I. Hated. It.  

Another unfinished, barely started fan favourite.

Very disappointing.

At some point last year I started reading or listening to Reverie by Ryan La Sala thanks to recommendations on Libby, my library’s choice for audio and ebook loans. I picked it back up a few months back, restarted it having very little memory of the first couple chapters, and finished it easily, enjoying but not retaining much of the fascinating plot detail which contained twists I sort of saw coming and was still surprised by – a feat I am always happy for in print, film, etc.

I chose another recommendation next, which I also had to restart having forgotten what few things had already happened whenever I started it before: The House in the Cerulean Sea. By TJ Klune. An excellent book.

I listened to The Hollow Boy and The Creeping Shadow again.

I picked up TJ Klune’s other currently popular novel: Under the Whispering Door. A book where I started out not really caring for the characters but learning as they did to love what they became. A fantastic job by the author of actual character progression that evolved naturally throughout the story.

A boon.  GoodsReads knows I am a Melissa Albert fan.  It notified me of a Giveaway by the Publisher.  I signed up so fast I don’t think the email had fully loaded.  

A week before Christmas I got an early gift in the form of Giveaway Winner! notification.

A few days later I was swapping my attention between Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries and Melissa Alberts upcoming “horror”, The Bad Ones.

I finished The Bad Ones on Christmas.

While not as beloved to me as her other books (The Hazel Wood, The Night Country, and Our Crooked Hearts), I could hardly put The Bad Ones down and read like my sanity depended on it.

I suppose if I had to complain or change anything about it, I might have chosen a different title. The Goddess Game perhaps. But the true name still fits.

I would like to give Melissa Albert a HUGE THANK YOU for giving us so many Emotionally Available dudes in her books.

There is nothing like it.

#BookBoyfriendMaterial.

And today I finished Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett with enormous satisfaction. Everything in that book was carefully laid out. The character progression was not forced as in some other fictions. It came naturally with the circumstances of the story. How lovely it was to rush through yet another delightful book in so few days.

And now, with four days left until the new year, I am wondering if I can somehow find a book good enough to finish before the start of 2024.

Theraspew

When I was 13 and feeling poorly, my aunt, with whom I was staying, gave me Theraflu to pep me up. 

It was Disgusting. 

Several months later I found myself in London for the first time, and in a bit of overwhelm and culture shock. Seeking some familiarity and sustenance I excitedly ordered a lemonade from room service. 

In America, where I live, lemonade is sweetened, diluted lemon juice. Much like orange or grapefruit juice. It is refreshing and delicious. 

It is NOT carbonated. 

And to me, a recently scarred, grumpy 13 year old, it tasted just like Theraflu. 

Now, at 42, after about two full months of various ailments and my entire family being sick in some way or other, I dropped my two variably under the weather children off at their school this morning and high tailed it to the grocery store across town to get our weekly stop in fast just in case I have to go pick up my son early.

I bought two boxes of kids’ cold medicine – one for each of them. And for myself?

A box of Theraflu packets for the first time in 29 years. 

And you know what?

It’s still bloody disgusting.

But, next time I’m in London, I’ll probably still give British lemonade another try.

The Book List: The Hazel Wood

 

[this post may contain spoilers]

 

The Hazel Wood

by Melissa Albert

Alice and her mother, Ella, have been near transient for Alice’s whole life, pursued from place to place by the bad luck that has destroyed every ounce of stability they’ve managed to get their hands on.

When it finally seems that their long journeying may be over and they can take a rest and finally build a decently ordinary life, the bad luck returns in a flurry as Ella disappears amidst other strange occurrences and Alice is thrown into a new journey as she works tirelessly to find the mother who has always been there for her.

This book came highly recommended and now I must pass that recommendation on to you.

You see, I read The Hazel Wood in less than three days.

I am not a fast reader. I am in fact such a slow reader that when I recently finished Terry Pratchett’s Jingo a couple months ago it was after a full two year struggle to get through what was in fact a fairly good book about my favourite set of Discworld characters (the city watch).

A book really has to catch me in the first couple of pages if there is any hope at all of me getting through it. Let alone flying through during nap times, and even once – during a late chapter – a bathroom run.

While some readers have insisted that The Hazel Wood is some strange retelling of Alice in Wonderland, Albert herself has confirmed what I think obvious: that it is Not. She just likes the name Alice. Though, as she puts it, it is a ‘Loaded Name‘ when it comes to literary use. While there are references to the Carroll book within the dialogue and narrative, if anything, the latter half of The Hazel Wood resembles much more the trials of Through the Looking Glass. But it’s still not the main point of this incredible, original story.

Melissa Albert wove together this adventure mystery using every fairy tale element I could imagine to give us this masterpiece novel.

Either in obvious reference, allusion, or echoing taste just at the very tip of my tongue, Alice’s adventure seems to whisper of Harry Potter, Un Lun Dun, Perdido Street Station, Fables, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Silent Hill, Once Upon a Time, Doctor Who, The True Meaning of Smekday/Home . . .

I think she must have read, in her lifetime, every book I’ve ever loved, and watched every fantasy tv series or movie I’ve ever enjoyed, because, stitched throughout The Hazel Wood were fragments, elements, flavours, and subtle (and not so subtle) pieces of literally every story that has ever captured my attention. As if this book, itself, like The Neverending Story, could read my inner depths and pull from them things I would recognize and relate to.

You know that part in Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets when Harry reaches for Riddle’s diary for the first time in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom and Ron stops him telling him it could be dangerous and lists all those confiscated books?

“And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could *never stop reading!* You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed.”

Well, he could easily have been talking about The Hazel Wood. It really was very difficult to pull myself away from it. It has a magic all its own.

I got my copy from my local library in the Teen Fiction section, so I suggest checking your local library for a copy.  The Hazel Wood is also available from various booksellers and inside some of those collection boxes you can subscribe to. It has been translated into several different languages. And I really think you should go read it.

Half Moon

When I was four years old my family moved from Manhattan to a tiny upstate town along the Hudson River. The town, looking back, was shabby and odd, but it had some really special things about it.

We rented a neat house with an amazing view of the water and a garden along one side.

It wasn’t a long walk down the hill roads to the boatyard where the Clearwater Sloop docked during the fall and held pumpkin festivals and made stone soup, with the help, of course, of all attendees who brought vegetables and seasonings to add throughout the day.

In town there was a small bookstore with a permanent collection of toys where little kids could play while their parents looked for books. The little barn that moo’d when the door opened. The little stage with a turntable and curtain so you could put on little doll productions.

And nearby, a bakery.

You know how memories never seem quite as strong on their own? But add a scent or a piece of music and suddenly you could be right there, at some specific point in your past?

There is a rare occasion when I remember exactly the feeling of standing in that little bakery. Picking out a half moon cookie.

It tasted exactly how the bakery smelled.

 

Last week, while we were waiting for our Chinese food order, we stopped in the grocers  nextdoor to get a few things. While my husband ran after our laughing, running toddler, I wandered over to their bakery, where my father-in-law works nights, just to see what they had in their case. Not much at that time in the evening, but there was that smell.

That smell that five year old me encountered, picking out a half moon cookie, all those decades ago.

It’s magical what sense memory can do.

About a year ago, I started baking. Inspired by The Great British Baking Show, I decided I would try making things I never thought it would be possible for me to recreate.

Today, inspired by a tiny memory from what feels like a distant past, I made Half Moon Cookies.

 

Who chokes up over a cookie?

I guess I do.

 

If there is

if there is a toddler toy it is on the floor

if there is a cake in the oven the sink is full of bowls

if there is a toddler he is poised atop something high ready to leap

If the toddler is crying he was probably told not to climb on the dog

if there is a mommy she is tired and not as clean as she likes

if there is a dish it is probably dirty

if there is a daddy he is hard at work wishing he were home to get climbed on

if there is a radio it is turned up high tuned to classical music

if there is a mommy she is poised to catch the leaping toddler

if there is a mommy she is crying over the one time she didn’t catch him in time

if there is a toddler he was fine

if there is a counter top he can reach it

if there is a mommy she is ready for him to go take a nap

if there is a napping toddler there is a mommy wishing he were awake for her to hold.

if there is makeup it is probably smudged

if there is a dog he is probably unwalked and overfed

if there is hair it probably has something sticky in it

if there is a tower of anything it will be knocked over

if there is something that can be stacked it will be

if there is something really anything at all it will be lined up

if there is a door the toddler will beg to go out it

if there is a ball it will be thrown

if there is a scrambled egg it will also be thrown

if there is a tantrum mommy will eat chocolate alone in the kitchen sitting on the floor

if there is a mommy she will hold her baby tight

if there is a toddler he will smoosh his face against mommy’s as hard as he can

if there is a family they will love each other mess and all

 

Nothing Deep Enough

I have loved things.

But never enough to want to prove that they are mine.

 

You have studied them.

You know them intimately.

 

While I appreciate them

to you they are old friends.

 

There is nothing I could love enough

to make up for my distance from them.

 

For today, everything is in extremes.

Either I must be fanatical

Or I am nothing to that world.

 

This seems especially true of hobbies I have tried to make my own.

Political activism.

Spirituality.

Personal history.

 

I only lived there for X amount of time….I suppose compared to others it doesn’t really count.

I only love the book not the fandom….others own it more than I do.

 

Everything today must be All

 

or Nothing.

 

I have loved things.

 

To you they are your bedfellows.

To me, they are the stars.

 

Beloved but not mine.

Momlife

Some days you spend your grocery budget on snacks and come home with your purse full of spilled blueberry muffin and snot filled wet wipes and unload groceries while your sick baby sleeps in the pack n play at 4pm because his 2 hour nap only lasted 44 minutes this morning.

And you spend your first bathroom trip in hours wishing dinner knew how to prepare itself and wondering if you’ll remember to pour the tea water you set before going upstairs when you go back down.

You listen to the baby breathing heavily through the monitor and think about pulling the crockpot out and try to decide what sauce to use for the chicken.

But instead you really just think about the open tube of Pringles potato chips you left on the counter after you emptied all the bags.

Shopping when momming or sick babying is worse than shopping while hungry when it comes to filling up a cart or emptying a bank account.