Soft Focus

Originally published on Sojournal

Boat alongside lake

I’m a planner. Always have been. I keep lists and lists within my lists. I covered one kitchen wall with chalkboard paint to accommodate schedules and reminders. On each flight home from vacation, I brainstorm the next.

Naturally then the Tanzania trip was methodically arranged and while my husband was eager to see all parts of the country, I held one fervent goal: to view chimpanzees in the wild.

Articles dedicated to jungle trekking in the Mahale Mountains described hours of bushwhacking along rugged, often ungroomed terrain in hot, humid temperatures. For months I planned accordingly, running at incline and refining my diet. In good physical shape and with my shots in order, malaria meds, Bismuth on hand and insect-repelling clothing purchased, I felt ready and excited when departure day arrived.

During a multi-day layover in London though, a vague anxiety replaced my typical travel giddiness. I strolled the vibrant neighborhoods unusually detached, my subconscious whispering that my “true” destination was still a continent away. At night I eschewed life outside the hotel to reread Tanzania guidebooks. They warned that chimp sightings were ‘common but not guaranteed’ and restricted to one hour. Preoccupation gave way to worry that my preparation would prove pointless.

My concern receded somewhat as we crossed northern Africa at 35,000 feet, the gorgeous red desert soil of Libya butting up against the striking blue Mediterranean. I soaked in vast fiery stretches of earth and felt pleasantly small and far away. Then a gnawing invaded my thoughts. “This place is not for you,” it intoned. I sat back and returned to my guidebooks.

Three flights later we touched down on a dirt landing strip. A waiting boat carried us for two hours past the rolling Mahale Mountains to a neat row of thatched huts tucked furtively inside the sprawling jungle. We tossed our bags into our cabin then quickly returned to the beach. “This may be the most remote place we’ve ever visited,” Jeff said contentedly as we sat on the banks of a blindingly blue Lake Tanganyika. Our pilot had described it as the world’s longest. I nodded, but, honestly, the lake meant little to me.

Early the next morning the chance to meet my objective had at last arrived. Following our guide, Sixtus, and a park ranger, we ascended and descended through dense, snarled vegetation. I know from my photographs that the landscape was wild and verdant, but that day I focused only on my increasing frustration. Four hours. Five hours. Six. Seven. No chimps. Sixtus came to a hard stop. “Challenging this time of year.” Then he smiled. “Tomorrow.”

Against the jungle sounds behind our tent and the soft rippling waves before it, my exhausted body should have been soothed to sleep. Instead, I lay awake questioning the logic of travelling over 10,000 miles for a shot at sixty minutes of bliss.

The next day began promisingly when Sixtus spotted fresh dung. He seemed confident. Three hours later the calls of the great apes echoed through the trees. “They’ve left the trail. We will too,” Sixtus announced. For an hour we traversed tangled vines and mud before reaching a dry waterfall. Bathed in dirt and sweat, we scrambled up the steep, slick slope to stumble, almost without warning upon a group resting among the brush. We donned our face masks and watched in wordless awe until the ranger directed us further down the ridge.

There stood a screeching chimp whose mother sat around the corner. “He doesn’t see her,” the ranger whispered as the youngster’s shrieks pierced the thick, gummy air. I nodded and took in each slow-motion moment. The mother’s long wrinkled fingers slowly scooping fresh fruit into her gaping mouth. The son’s black sunken eyes darting frantically about the dense forest canopy. The lumbering group reached us and dropped drowsily to the wet ground. Two females silently and meticulously groomed each other. The muscular male violently yanked out blades of ginger grass only to chew them daintily. Each mindful moment felt like one hundred so that when it was time to leave I felt immensely satisfied, not sad.

Along the descent I took in some of what I had missed on the way up: the emerald bush, the towering trees, the giant leaves that coated the fertile ground.

That afternoon on the beach I absorbed my surroundings as if for the first time. I had traveled for days to reach this lake, had floated along it to reach the lodge, had swum in its clear waters. Only now, squinting into the sinking sun, did I feel its warm tidy waves curl over my sandy toes, watch it retreat in a jumble of gentle foam and hear in its placid lapping the call to slow, slow, savor.

Timing Out

Originally published in defenestrationism.net

Willing the Other Line


The thin print paper crackled in my quaking hands. “The usual,” I thought. So I chucked eight inches of directions, disclaimers and diagrams into the bin. Then I peed and prayed.

Trying to fool the gods into thinking they would be cursing me, I circled the house. In the bedroom I swapped pumps for chunky slippers. In the office I scrolled until I wasn’t reading anymore. In the kitchen I drank water over the sink. In the bathroom cheap plastic conducted a countdown to life, antibodies on a stick waiting to attach to a hormone. If they did, they would trigger two blue lines and the course of the next half-century. If they did not, well, there was always n—

“No,” the mechanical voice moaned. “We’re running out of months.”

I rinsed the glass, dried it and arranged it in the cupboard so that the lip did not touch the others. Then I waited. Again. “That should be enough time,” I thought and tottered along the pictureless hallway to the bathroom.

My heart jackhammered through my blouse as I peeked at the waiting plastic.

One line.

One.

Always one short.

The plastic pinged against the side of the bin.

I started dinner to forget. A soft white onion bled when the knife punctured it, so I ran cool water over my sticky fingers, forgetting to rub them. “Maybe,” I thought, “maybe I didn’t wait long enough.”

In the bathroom I cracked open the bin and sifted. Warm wet trickled along my arm when I lifted the plastic promise, willing something to fight through. From the bedroom the nightstand clock ticked a faint warning.

“That was enough time,” I muttered.

“And now there’s not enough,” it whispered back.     

Here They Kill the Mustard by May


While her husband drove, Margaret kept her eyes closed, trying to identify each roll to the right, each jostle to the left along West Road. She had guessed the first curve was the bend around the Tudor house. The one being gutted behind a green privacy fence. “Privacy? Everyone knows what they’re doing,” she had laughed. Moments later a sharp bank had shunted her frail frame into the padded door panel, and she thought they might be at the place with the goats. Her uncertainty, though, had surprised her.

Six long years had passed since they had moved to the hills and found themselves quickly labeled “the kids from the flatlands” after the septic tank overflowed and raccoons tore through the chicken wire. Nearly every day since they had navigated this route, eyes alert to “all” potential threats. Margaret chuckled again, then promptly regretted the expended energy. In the momentary quiet she sensed her husband was staring so that the familiar pang of guilt struck. Six long summers ago she had asked him to trust her as they tracked the petite flags and glossy plastic signs along snaky one lane roads to the Open House. Six long autumns ago they had moved into their “forever” home. She tried to find it funny.

Soon enough, her contrition morphed into something warm as they descended a long, gentle slope. She knew they had reached the huge empty lot where the wild mustard grows. Where tall stalks burst out of compressed cracked earth with spectacular speed, growing taller than her in spots, revealing a radiant splendor seemingly overnight: intense yellow flowers arranged in delicate x’s atop sturdy hairy stems, their billowy ballet summoning dainty white butterflies. Margaret’s mother said that in the parable mustard represents faith. Well, here they chop it all down by May. In early spring, weed abatement notices start arriving. “Dried mustard plants? Highly combustible! Be safe and clear it out!” She chuckled for the last time. “Nothing that invasive is gone forever,” she thought. “After a fire destroys this place, the mustard will be the first thing to come back.” In her life before treatment, Margaret had jogged through the field each night, had stood rigid to hear what swaying sounds like, had heard the crunching beneath her shoes. She understood that well before the trucks and chainsaws rumble up to pull life out by the roots, wild mustard plants have already dropped much of their seed. She opened her drained eyes onto her husband. Oh, how she wished now that they had done the same.

Recalibrating


She had to swipe seven times to get to March. Seven.

“It’ll fly by!” they had squealed.

She hated how they spoke for her, for all of them, for all of it. For her, it would be a nine-month battle against the shades of past ruin, every day clenching as she checked the tissue, every night begging the invisible to stay.

“It’ll fly by!” they had squealed.

“Inconceivable,” the blood ghosts whispered back. 

Sara Martin swiped back to August, killed the power button and sank into the sofa. Eyes braced shut, she made out the familiar waft of the large leaves, the muffled swish, the sonorous slither down the ravine, the restful settling back. The small avocado grove along the back slope had entranced Sara when they first moved to the hills so that each morning she had walked under the tousled branches, gently pressing her thumb into the fruit’s rough skin. “Still rock hard!” The Martins did not know that they needed to pick them first, that avocados do not ripen on the tree. Then a neighbor scolded them. “Ripe and mature are not the same!” So Sara boned up. “Did you know the avocado flower has both components? Part of the day the flower’s female, and part of the day it’s male.” She had marveled at the potency in being recipient and donor, then protested when the flowers exploded in spring to block her view of the ravine.

The nausea Sara had expunged an hour earlier began its creeping, so she rose to forget, ambled to the window and pressed her forehead to already-warm glass. Through tassels of green and gold, she could make out the Mennonites’ round sheep to the west, but knotted branches and leathery egg-shaped leaves obscured the Byrne’s massive pool to the east. The family had built it so their daughter could practice crew. Sara never saw the girl use it. She never saw anyone use it. Same with the enormous batting cage two houses down.

Balancing on the sill, Sara wondered if a similar fate would befall the room being saved for “just in case.” Adjacent to the master, the room languished in a confused state of undefined use. In one corner, Ben’s guitars stood propped against a dusty amp; in another, a large keyboard Sara’s aunt had gifted her rested on a squatty table. A drab brown sleeper sofa faced an old television on the opposite wall.

“Too many functions, and not the right one,” the blood ghosts whispered.

She nodded sadly. How hard they had worked to erase all signs that children ever lived here. The week they moved in, the Martins had painted the workout room first, rolling a flat eggshell over so much carnation pink, obscuring with each soggy pass the kaleidoscope of yellow and purple butterflies that had danced along two windowless walls. The following week, they created the office, wiping clean the pale blue room with a matte apricot finish. In a mere two weeks, they had expunged the boy and the girl.

She squirmed on the windowsill. Seven. Her stomach twisting dully, Sara wondered if Mrs. Riley had thought she was in the clear.

The Rileys were expecting a third child and shopping for a larger place when they sold the house in the hills to the Martins. The transaction had felt seamless. The Martins offered the asking price; the Rileys accepted. The Martins asked for two thousand to fix inspection issues; the Rileys complied. The Martins began boxing up their small, tidy townhouse; the Rileys, their sprawling ranch-style. Things moved quickly. Until Ruth called, her voice lacking its customary brightness.

“I just got off the phone with the Rileys’ agent. We have a favor to ask. Mrs. Riley miscarried last week. Eight months, poor thing. She’s just devastated, so she can’t continue house hunting right now. You okay letting them rent back from you for a little bit?”

“But we already sold this place. Where would we go?”

Sara had not known what to feel, but she knew the words had come too quickly. A bloated silence filled all six miles between the two women.

Finally, Ruth lifted it. “I’ll call their agent.”

The sickness rose, and Sara bolted to the bathroom for the sixth time that day. When the still-petite frame feebly emerged, it felt pulled to the silent workout room. The eggshell walls had seen little company since Sara learned she was carrying two, and she scanned the room as if for the first time. Gripping the treadmill’s handrail, she climbed onto the walking belt. It squeaked under her chunky slippers. She ran a finger along the control panel, embarrassed to see she had left a trail. The dangling safety key swayed until it softly tapped her dress. Instinctively, she grabbed it and inserted it into the console, detonating flashes of red, a series of zeroes recalibrating for the promised action. Alarmed, she yanked at the key, and the numbers vanished.

Sara hobbled off the hulking machine to shuffle along the windowless wall being pounded by the sun. Tired eyes burned through the eggshell, searching for signs of the butterflies. She could not find them. She scooted three feet left and squinted to penetrate the layers. Nothing. They had done their job.

She lumbered down the hallway and returned to the sofa, her heavy head atop the hard corner of the throw pillow. Trying to forget, Sara Martin watched the avocado leaves rise and fall on the gales that haunted the ravine. Then she closed her eyes. She could not see the Byrne’s pool, but she hoped someone was using it.

Move-in Ready

Originally published in Issue 25 of Emerge Literary Journal

They’re snooping. I want them to, but I thought they’d go big picture, take in the bones of the place, the size of the family room, the light that fills the front of the house. Instead, the woman randomly stops to gawk. I saw her freeze in front of the framed boy on the mantel, and I felt wounded. Could she tell? She stared too long at my small tapestry, too. The one with the lemons. I bought it in Sorrento, folded it into a smooth, tidy square, tucked it under my travel pants then happily hung it over the barrel chair when I got home. I thought it was cute. Maybe it’s trite. Either way, I don’t want her scrutinizing my choices, like the faux fern on the end table. I used real soil, but I guess it doesn’t take much to spot a fake. Still, I want her surveying the twelve-foot ceilings, not my frizzy ponytail. It’s just that I didn’t expect anyone this early and he still needs my help with breakfast. I try ignoring her, but, my God, those velvet curls, the way they cascade onto her Oxford. It’s all so effortless, and I hate imagining how she would elevate this place. I mean, renovate. So I act at being blind. And then I feel devious, like I’m intentionally hiding things—the deep scratch under the area rug, the hurled accusations our sunny walls absorbed at night. I try reading the article, but all I’ve learned is that the guy who filmed the confrontation got arrested. I still don’t know why. I don’t even know how it started because I can’t get to the second paragraph. Because I’m afraid she’s missing the broad view. I want to take her into the dining room. I want her to envision how many folks could fit at Thanksgiving! Sixteen? Twenty? I’m not sure exactly. We never hosted Thanksgiving. We always meant to, then stuff happened. Spats. Elections. Betrayal. But maybe she, maybe her family could fill the room. If they all vote for the same guy. And her spouse never gets bored. I want to tell her to test the pullout slides in the the pantry. I ordered those so that I could take in the whole shelf, so that nothing could lurk in the back or dark corners. I want her to notice how massive the yard is. They can put up a volleyball net. Play baseball. A kid can spend hours out there. So long as he doesn’t have to split his time. Better yet, I want her to step outside and make out the entire façade, walk to the back fence and soak it all in, see the big picture. But she’s looking at the wrong things, and I want her to see what matters, what really matters, while there’s time.

Balance of Nature

Originally published in 50-Word Stories, December 14, 2022

When the doctor guided Josue into the world, his grandmother’s face crinkled in glee. “We’re fifteen now!” she squealed. The next month another doctor studied her tissue. When the pulley lowered her out of the world, bent faces crumpled in pain. “We’re fourteen now,” someone whispered while Josue squirmed guiltily.

Here They Kill the Mustard by May

Originally published in Burningwood Literary Journal

While her husband drove, Margaret kept her eyes closed, trying to identify each roll to the right, each jostle to the left along West Road. She had guessed the first curve was the bend around the Tudor house. The one being gutted behind a green privacy fence. “Privacy? Everyone knows what they’re doing,” she had laughed. Moments later a sharp bank had shunted her frail frame into the padded door panel, and she thought they might be at the place with the goats. Her uncertainty, though, had surprised her.

Six long years had passed since they had moved to the hills and found themselves quickly labeled “the kids from the flatlands” after the septic tank overflowed and raccoons tore through the chicken wire. Nearly every day since they had navigated this route, eyes alert to “all” potential threats. Margaret chuckled again, then promptly regretted the expended energy. In the momentary quiet she sensed her husband was staring so that the familiar pang of guilt struck. Six long summers ago she had asked him to trust her as they tracked the petite flags and glossy plastic signs along snaky one lane roads to the Open House. Six long autumns ago they had moved into their “forever” home. She tried to find it funny.

 Soon enough, her contrition morphed into something warm as they descended a long, gentle slope. She knew they had reached the huge empty lot where the wild mustard grows. Where tall stalks burst out of compressed cracked earth with spectacular speed, growing taller than her in spots, revealing a radiant splendor seemingly overnight: intense yellow flowers arranged in delicate x’s atop sturdy hairy stems, their billowy ballet summoning dainty white butterflies. Margaret’s mother said that in the parable mustard represents faith. Well, here they chop it all down by May. In early spring, weed abatement notices start arriving. “Dried mustard plants? Highly combustible! Be safe and clear it out!” She chuckled for the last time. “Nothing that invasive is gone forever,” she thought. “After a fire destroys this place, the mustard will be the first thing to come back.” In her life before treatment, Margaret had jogged through the field each night, had stood rigid to hear what swaying sounds like, had heard the crunching beneath her shoes. She understood that well before the trucks and chainsaws rumble up to pull life out by the roots, wild mustard plants have already dropped much of their seed. She opened her drained eyes onto her husband. Oh, how she wished now that they had done the same.

Vacancy

Originally published in 101 Words.

In the apartment, we only had a living room. Now the burbs have gifted us a family room, too. Another unnecessity, like the fireplace that will stand sterile in 70-degree winters.

“Drywall over it. Then you’ll have another wall,” said the husband.

“I don’t need another wall.” My words ricocheted inside the bare space.

“One day we might.”

One day. That pacifies six-year-old hopefuls. Deludes middle-aged unexplorers. Aborts yet-to-be grandparents. “One day. One day.” Placates doomed bathroom visits, plastic stick always trembling in my hands. “One day. One day. One day.” Until the phrase whittles itself down stick-thin, empty—like me.

Moving to Survive: The Morpho Butterflies of Panama

Featured in Intrepid Times

Four hundred feet above the column of ships waiting to enter the canal, we crossed the Bridge of the Americas to begin our winter escape in earnest. As Jeff and I climbed through steep Caribbean pines, rolled past arching ferns, and dropped into the sea of airborne palms in Almirante, I marveled that the rich landscape of Panama is ever eclipsed by something mortals made.

Our first stop was a week of snorkeling around Isla Bastimentos. Each day we plunged into the voiceless world of grazing lionfish and darting angelfish. Though accompanied only by the gentle ripples that smacked against my ears and the sound of my breathing, amplified through the tube, I did not feel alone. I felt at home among those who zipped and skittered below the surface.     

On our last day on the island, I had just returned to my towel when a nose poked through the glassy surface. I sprung to my feet, then cut through the water as silently as I could to trail the large green sea turtle. My presence was no secret, however, and the creature wrenched his leathery rubber neck behind him occasionally as if to check my progress. When we arrived at a bed of tall, wavy seagrass, I remained at the fringes, sure danger awaited me inside the slowly swaying blades. My companion coasted smoothly through the flapping grass, stopping now and then to nibble while I pushed the water forward with my arms, then back again, making eddies with my legs, eggbeaters of resistance that labored to keep me stationary. “A lot of movement just to stay put,” I thought. “I get it.”

Before visiting Panama, my husband and I had already enjoyed extensive travel to six continents. We were the couple that was always on the move, even as—or because—our family remained stagnant at two. Years spent trying to get pregnant only to suffer recurrent miscarriage had tainted celebrations like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and the holiday season reminded us of what we did not have. Though I carried the hope of “Maybe by next Christmas,” each December was endured as another when only two stockings hung over the fireplace. During my first failed pregnancy, I had purchased for our would-be child an extra one, a long, stretchy, knit stocking that year after year collected dust in the rafters. Each Christmas I cursed my presumption and hastened the end of my once-favorite time of year. “The moment it is over, best to strip the tree and mantel,” I told myself. “Best to keep moving.”

As I tailed my ocean companion along the sea grass that December, I understood treading water, working all my limbs at once only to remain still. I could have done it all day. Eventually, though, the sky took on a violet sheen, and I trudged grudgingly back to our room. Tomorrow was the mainland, and while I was sure the forest would prove lovely, it would not be the confidant the ocean had been.

The next morning, we swapped the open water and jungle of the island for the open air fondas and forest of the Cocle Mountains.

Photo credit

On our first morning, a fleet-footed guide led us from the lodge down to the cascades near Cerro La Vieja. En route we were enchanted by a silent three-toed sloth and the elongated oropendola nests that hung from soaring, curled branches. The tidy, soaring falls were entrancing, too, and gave the appearance of bursting out the side of a tree-clad hill. We soaked up the familiar roar and enjoyed a bracing dip in the pool, made murky by the agitated soil. Reinvigorated, we laced up for the hike ahead.

Our newfound energy proved short-lived. The trail, the same we took down, felt almost immediately grueling. I had not noticed how steep it was, and though I wore a hat, the sun seemed to bounce off the ground straight into my burning cheeks. I watched Jeff for any signs of struggle. He smiled meekly, but his drenched “Birds of Panama” shirt and sweat-speckled baseball cap were impossible to miss. With a mixture of concern and bewilderment, our guide began to urge us on. “Close! Close!” We knew that was a lie. This was the path we had followed down; it had not shrunk for our benefit. I felt lame. And irritated. “I was never this hot on the island,” I thought. Tiny droplets snaked down my enflamed neck, and I cursed my surroundings. I eyed a cluster of large, grayish-brown leaves on my right. How any plant could wither in this sticky landscape seemed preposterous. “Close! Close!” I mustered a faint nod and pressed both palms against my searing thighs in a miserable effort to stabilize my gait. Another labored step had just crunched the loose ground beneath my boot when an explosion of color and flight brought my spaghetti legs to a halt.

In a flash, the grayish-brown leaves had erupted into electric currents of blinding cobalt. Like miniscule fireworks, the intense blues bounced through the air in a frenzied display. “Morphos!” the guide declared. Forgetting how depleted we were, we followed the butterflies with quick steps up the rugged trail, though I was certain we would not be able to keep pace. At times it seemed a lost cause, the bouncing shapes racing forward only to flicker and circle back behind us. We stopped, and the morphos instantly catapulted forward and idled, as if to beckon we weary visitors. We paused in a vain effort to predict their movement, only to find our necks zigzagging furiously. Jeff threw his head forward and cackled, and I giggled in spite of myself. After a few moments of frenetic propulsion, the manic creatures alit onto the dark undergrowth and silently shape-shifted back to dull and motionless. We stopped and waited, statues of anticipation. Our patience was rewarded when suddenly the sequence repeated itself, luminous flares of blue appearing and disappearing in a rapid, fluttering quest to addle predators. I smiled, and though I wanted to keep them in our company, I understood. They were moving to stay alive. In a final blast of silent pandemonium, the morphos again took flight and flitted off the trail, while we landbound watched. There was nothing left to do but continue up the summit in the quiet of reverence and thoughts of our soft bed.  

That night I lay awake, listening to a pounding rain pummel the stucco sides of our small, simple room. I was strangely happy to be inside, happy to be in the mountains. A lightning bolt cracked violently and lit up the world behind our thin curtains. My thoughts leapt to the butterflies. I wondered where they might seek shelter. I was not sure they even needed to. Maybe, despite their delicate appearance, they were built for this ferocity. I had no idea. I was certain, though, that when the storm subsided, my morphos would once again be on the move.

I Said ‘Yes’ to Everything & Now I Am Glad I Did

Featured on Red Tricycle, September 1, 2020

Gathered on any random Saturday night before the pandemic, my friends and I would often recount our day. My tale usually involved our family of four bouncing from activity to activity like human pinballs caroming from one corner of the county to another. Inevitably, someone would kid me for our full itinerary. Dubbed “The Crammer,” I was accused of trying to win a contest of efficiency when, really, I simply operate on the principle that when opportunity presents itself, take it. It is a philosophy that has guided me since before I became a mother.

As a British Literature instructor at a small private high school, I loved teaching the importance of the written word. More so, I loved my students, including “Alex,” as clever and joyful as young people come. I still remember Alex’s smile and the way it won its way into a favor. I remember the way he ran his fingers through his hair when he became embarrassed. I remember the moment I learned he was killed in a car crash. I remember the wails of his brother, also a student at our school, during the funeral service, and how they were muffled when an instructor enveloped him in her long arms. I remember her jacket being discolored by his tears when he raised his head. I remember feeling guilty about all the life I had led and angry about all the life Alex would never experience.

That was the first funeral. Three more followed. In one school year, our tight-knit campus mourned again and again and again after separate, tragic incidents. It felt at once unreal and horrific. Students and staff were devastated by the overwhelming loss and jarred by the idea of young lives ending so abruptly. Much discussion and introspection followed, and though I appreciated that my job involved preparing students for the future, I decided then to enjoy the fullest life I can each day. Hyperaware that virtually any activity “could be the last time,” I said yes to everything I could. Years later, I still appreciate that tomorrow is not assured for me or for anyone I love, and this practice has made me abundantly happier.

My philosophy has allowed me to enjoy some exotic adventures abroad, but more often it has strengthened moments with family and friends. I am lucky to live close to my parents and siblings, and it would be easy to deem our frequent get-togethers as routine. Still, I never turn down a chance to catch up, and I never leave a birthday or Monday Night Football dinner without having laughed all night and feeling refreshed. Likewise, if friends text while we are out and about, we make time for them that evening. I know we may be tired later, but tired at home means dozing on the couch to bad TV. Seeing friends rejuvenates us. The odds are low that it will be “the last time” we hang out but remembering that it could helps me focus and appreciate the company of those I love.

It has been almost a half a year since we sat in my parents’ house, sipped cocktails in our friends’ backyard, or met another couple for dinner. Who knows when we will return to those days? Who knows when we will enjoy theme parks, playlands, or museums again? After remaining “safer at home” for over five months now, my kids talk a lot about “before” – long plane trips that no longer feel safe and quick visits to restaurants that have shuttered their doors for good. “That’s sad, mama,” Thomas recently muttered upon seeing a neighborhood ice cream shop boarded up. From the backseat, he sighed, “Well, at least we went before they closed!” I squeezed the steering wheel and thought, “My goodness, he gets it. He honestly gets it.”

Even before the pandemic, I had marked several “last times” with my boys. There was the last time I pushed Thomas in a stroller. The last time I fed Devin in a highchair. The last time I dressed either one. More lasts will follow. One day Thomas will not kiss me in front of the school gate. One day Devin will not write Santa a letter. One day they will leave home. Watching children grow is to enjoy many firsts and mourn just as many lasts.

So, when the boys ask me to join them in the pool after I just washed my hair I ask, “What if this is the last time?” Would I rather remember splashing and laughing with my sons or not having to shampoo twice? Any time I can, I do. Lately, my days seem spent saying “no”– no playdates, no pool parties, no movie theaters; I want to cram in every “yes” I can.

I also want to get back to packing our days with experiences and people outside of our home. Until then, we enjoy new interests like puzzles, gardening, game nights, and reminiscing about our adventures, big and small—not in sorrow for what we have lost, but in gratitude for what we did not let pass us by.