Post 13: April in July
Eastertown, USA
April in July
Hello again, it’s July and I’m ready to tell you about April. For many months I’ve had writer’s block, or more accurately life block.
I’ve felt stuck - not sure what to do with my time, caught in a cycle of doing the same things every day and spending far too much time avoiding my reality and problems through mind-numbing pursuits like shopping online and generally the INTERNET. So while it feels silly to post about April in May June July, it’s me crawling out of the rut a little.
April is our busiest month. My birthday, Reuben’s birthday, Mae’s birthday, and my favorite holiday, Easter, come hurtling at us. The month is full of fun and activities and laced with sadness. Annual milestones remind me of how much I’ve progressed physically since the last one.
Last year I stood on the deck watching Mae’s party, this year I sit on the deck watching it. A year prior I could smile a full smile in photos, this year I smile off kilter. For a few years I’ve been on the sidelines watching events, longing to be fully in them. I was much harder to understand at my own birthday party than I was last year.
This Easter I decided to live as though I might be here for a while and started a new tradition. Inspired by my new obsession from December (a Peanuts Christmas Village), the kids and I painted wooden birdhouses to be part of an Easter Village.
Mae is at an age where she could take charge of the activity and follow my directions. I managed to paint a pastel lighthouse, dwindling dexterity be damned. Mae instinctively knows what is challenging for my hands, so she jumped in to put flower stickers on the lighthouse, pointing to spots and saying here? Or here? What about here? She knows yes/no questions are easier to answer than an open ended, “where do you want it?”
Reuben wants to do everything Mae does, so when he came home from pre-K to find us crafting he immediately demanded to paint a house too. He slopped on paint and marveled at accidental marbling. We delighted in adding a train, bunny figurines, sparkly eggs, and, of course, a lit Easter tree. They enjoyed it so much that Mae wants to make one for every holiday.
These holiday villages are not only for memories, but also represent hope that I will be here for more rounds of these holidays, in which we will add to the villages and I will get to watch the different ways they react to the villages as they grow. The constant push and pull I feel is this: do I live as though I have a year or two to live (very possible) or like I have five (possible but unlikely) or 10 (unlikely but can happen) more years? And what is the difference in how I live? Before I had ALS I lived as though I was dying, but now that I actually am it’s paradoxically harder to. I suppose I’ve landed in the middle - doing the trips and living in the present but also allowing for a future, however far it may be, with me in it.
Mae’s tea party birthday. Reuben’s Pokeman birthday. My surprise plant store birthday.