The tent we ordered for summertime camping arrived a few days ago, and I had been promising the kids we’d practice setting it up in the backyard. I might have done this sooner, it would have required a machette to cut through the unruly, unmowed grass to get to it. I finally got out the mower and accomplished that on Saturday afternoon, so Sunday was looking good for a test run.
While I was doing some things downstairs, I heard the kids up playing with their mom, who was upstairs getting ready. I could hear they were having a fun time, and it turned out they were trying out some of Erin’s makeup with her. They came down, both looking quite beautiful.
That said, if either one of them had said, “Wanna’ see a magic trick,” I would have been pretty freaked out.
A little later, we trotted out the tent and I was delighted to find that the setup for it is indeed so easy, Even I could handle it with relative ease. Erin and I got it up in a couple of minutes, and the kids were super excited.
Some rain rolled in a little later, so I took it down. Much to my own surprise, I was able to get the entire tent, the poles and everything back into its original bag. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spike the football or get cocky over that, because I fully recognize that might be a one-time accomplishment.
I do think it would great for any manufacturer of tents, sleeping bags, air mattresses, or inflatable anythings to include a bag about twice as big as it really needs to be. It would really make life so much easier.
After that, Henry had his nap, I did a little writing and then decided to try to indulge in a little nap myself. It was a failed attempt, in part because it was just one of those days that I couldn’t settle in. This might also have had something to do with the fact that Amelia was downstairs watching cartoons and nudged me awake every five minutes to either request something or to tell me something funny that Bullwinkle just did.
So ultimtely I gave up on the sleep part, and took some time to just kind of lie there and listen to music. I often forget how extremely important those kinds of moments are, and they’ve become sufficiently rare that it didn’t occur to me how much I missed experiencing those.
Meditation has long been on my “I should do that one of these days” list, along with things like learning French, picking up the guitar and flossing. I imagine taking a moment to quiet one’s mind is especially important when the world is so very, very noisy.
I know I wrote about heavy stuff yesterday, and it’s my general routine to go back to simple and silly fluff the day after something more serious. But clearly this is a difficult moment in our history, and I’d be disingenious if I didn’t say I am still feeing angst about that. We continue to live under the specter of COVID, but of course the protests are front of mind right now. There have been inspiring and positive moments of unity, but structually I’m sad to say that much of what we see is only escalation.
Yes, there has been an arrest in the murder of George Floyd. But is anyone talking about meaningful reform? Or even starting the conversation? No, becasue as I feared, we’re already seeing lots of blame shifting and tough talk that neither helps nor addresses the root issue. Like COVID, institutional racism isn’t just going to go away. Attention may shift to other things, but it will still be there.
I try to take it a day at a time, and I try to keep my optimism up. That is in part for my own sanity. It’s a little bit of “fake it ’till you make it,” I guess. I also try to keep my chin up for my kids. Becasue I want them to believe the best is possible, even if their own man doubts it from time to time.
But like I said yesterday, we all have a responsiblity to learn, and listen and act in the coming weeks and months. Let’s not let the conversation shift away from this, like it has so many times. And that’s not going to be easy. We are in a time where we continue to face a pandemic and very uncertain economic prospects. Those are also very front of mind and important for all of our familes. But let’s not let this issue fall to the margins again. We do need to walk and chew gum at the same time.
One simple thing to do is to get zeroed in on local officials and elections, no matter where you are. As former President Obama said in his recent post, “The elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.” So make your local leaders understand this is important to you.
So that’s what I “napped” on yesterday. While I may not have gotten a ton of rest, Henry did OK. He came downstairs and told Amelia he felt like getting cozy on the couch, so she got him set up pretty well.
Would that any of us could look as comfortable as Henry did in that moment. Someday.
