Busy Changing Diapers Friday Night Round-Up a Day Late

I need to muscle up. The days when I could carry a thirty-pound-toddler in one arm and an overstuffed bag of groceries in the other, and still bend down to pick up dropped house keys, are over. Those were my glory days, man. I could fry it up in a pan.

We slept with our granddaughter between us last night. With no time to come up with better sleeping arrangements, we packed in like the Waltons and covered ourselves with two big quilts. The cat curled up on my leg and the two dogs folded in on themselves on either side. Sleeping was sporadic and uncomfortable, but when I woke up in the dead of night, I saw a perfect little Nicaraguan face, black hair framing, eyelashes arranged in two half-moons, a mouth arranged in a dream smile. What were all the things that brought you here, I wondered, who can remember them all?

Our camper van is parked in front of our house. It’s loaded with pillows and blankets and water and dog food and maps and binoculars and glasses to watch the eclipse, but we aren’t going where we thought we were going because we are here questioning our strength and sleeping with a toddler between us. That’s okay. The van is still beautiful, red, shiny, beaming a weird vibe of hope and possibility and long roads across deserts we’ve never been to. My new electric percolator is there with a tin of last year’s coffee. The mugs are packed in the kitchen kit. We have freedom in a bottle. We just have to wait a bit to uncork it.

My big life advice to young people is find a partner who is funny. Not wry, not clever. Funny. I can’t count the times my husband being funny has been an emotional rescue. We laugh your way out of so much. No joke.

Tomorrow, I am launching the fortieth year of fruitless gardening. It is the annual clearing out of last year’s neglect, a wiping clean of the slate, a new hope that the dormant vines and whatnot don’t reach up and strangle me in my stupid hopefulness. This could be the year for greatness. You just never fucking know.