Dear Olive,
You put a translucent water bead up your nose last night. If you ever decide to do that again (please do not do that again) I have two requests for you:
1. Wait until quarantine is over
2. Choose a colored bead, so that when you tip your head back and I look inside your nostril, I can actually see it.
All evening you were telling us there was something in your nose, but on account of being two and a half, you were light on specifics. I kept peering up there but I saw nothing. It was your dad, the guy who never approved of the water beads in the first place, who eventually put two and two together. I would have put you to bed with a bead in your brain and a reminder that ‘your body will work the booger out if it needs to.’
You saw the aftermath of how I tore the bathroom apart searching for the tweezers. Yes, bug, your mom has a lot of medicines in bags stored under the sink. That’s a story for another time. The tweezers were in the bottom of the last bin of stupid I don’t know what bathroom clutter that I emptied onto the floor. Of course.
One of my first memories is of sitting in front of my doll house and holding a tiny teacup in my hand, considering whether or not I should shove it up my nose. I was three. I shoved it up my nose. Your grandparents took me to the emergency room, where the doctor warned me to lie still or he would have to put me under. I lay still, and afterwards we went to Baskin Robbins and I had a cup of strawberry ice cream and your aunt Anna got to have an ice cream too, even though she hadn’t been through what I’d been through.
But this time, there would be no Emergency Room, no anesthesia, no ice cream; just me, getting it out or getting it wrong by pushing it further up your nose and setting us on a path for I don’t know what. I got it out.. And I felt for a moment like a hero, stoic and gritty like a war time surgeon, until you sneezed half a minute later and I realized it would have come out in the sneeze anyway.
Otherwise, day six of quarantine was this perfectly glorious day. I felt surges of joy and optimism that were based on nothing. But if for whatever reason my brain is offering those particular blends of chemicals, I’m going to enjoy them.
You enjoyed yourself today. You rolled around the yard on your bike, and helped me tear up the soil in the old gardens. You only asked for your friends once, in the morning. I can tell you are confused sometimes. I tell you the whole world is taking a break and everyone is home with their moms and dads. It’s not a lie, maybe a bit reductionist. It’s a cozy concept, and as I’m constantly telling you: your mom puts a high premium in coziness. But then I turn the radio on and you hear everything. I turn on a podcast (and another and another) and you hear everything. You’ve started asking, ‘mom? you sick?’ out of nowhere.
As evening rolled around, I left you with dad and went for a mountain bike ride in Bent Creek. Last time I did that, I was pregnant with you. I forgot what it’s like- it’s feels like flying, an endless roller coaster. I also forgot that I’m too short to put my bike on the stupid car top roof racks I bought seven years ago. It became a bloody fight - man vs. machine- and every time a car rolled through the parking lot I’d have to give up and put the bike down because I was embarrassed. And I couldn’t ask for help, because we can’t go near one another. I was triumphant, but for a while there I thought I was going to have to live in that parking lot.
It’s been a whole work week and it’s been okay, sometimes it’s been wonderful, but we have had novelty on our side. That will wear thin, kiddo, but maybe not for you. You are two. You are marveled by most things. And when it the excitement evaporates for me and is replaced by dread, fear, boredom, depression, grief- all things I see on the horizon, I promise to fake it.
But here’s the good news: after years and years of living with the illness I have yet to explain to you, your mom is really good at faking it.
When your aunt Anna and I were little, our dad would tuck us into our bunk beds, and every night he would say the same thing. He would tell one of us, you’re my pride and joy. And to the other- you’re the light of my life. My dad is old now, and I worry about him all of the time now. But that’s not the point here. The point is, you are now the light of my life. You are my pride and joy. You are also the light of your grandparents’ life, although you’ll have to share that position with Jan Matthew. You are an unending source of delight and sweetness in this most uncertain and frightening of times.
Glad you’re here.
Love,
Your mom
