This Week in August

I glanced at the calendar this week and realized it's been three years since Scarlett came to live with us. As with everything, it feels impossible that it's been three years already and that there was a time she wasn't here. People often ask me if we celebrate the day she moved in—some call it "Gotcha Day" (which, honestly, makes me shudder)—and if we have a party, like a birthday party. I usually fumble with an answer, and think afterward about what I wish I would've said. So, here. This is what I usually wish I would've said:

I haven't written much about how Scarlett came to be part of our family on social media—and won't, because, like I said before, it's not my story to tell. Most of the parts of it that are mine are so tangled up in hers that I can't tell them either. I think this is one of those things that is very hard for anyone who became a parent in a unique way. It's a story that lots of people seem to want to hear—from the grocery store clerk who noticed that you have an extra person in your company all of a sudden, to the nosy lady in the park who observed that one of your kids "doesn't look very much like any of you!" And it feels like it's your story because people are asking you, because it impacted you a lot, because it changed your life.

But it's...just not your story.

The only part of the story that really feels like mine is that early on in 2017, Barclay and I had some pretty interesting conversations about feeling like we were waiting for someone, but we didn't know who it was. We briefly discussed foster care, but—I know this is going to sound a bit crazy—that didn't feel like "it." So we just waited. We met Scarlett when she was four months old, a few months after we'd begun having these conversations. She was living with my aunt at the time, and she came to live with us three months later. 

Since then, we've come to know and love her—and we've come to know and love her parents. To answer another common question, yep, we do call them her parents...for that is what they are! Scarlett calls me Mom, and she calls her other mom Mom too. And when I'm talking to Scarlett, I call her mom Mom and her mom calls me Mom when she's talking to Scarlett about me. This stuff is only as confusing as the adults let it be—she has two grandmas and two grandpas, and that doesn't weird her out, why shouldn't she have two moms and two dads? 

So she's got this big, weird family that operates a bit differently than most others, and we're all okay with it...which is why it would feel strange to me to celebrate the day that she moved in to the bedroom across the hall, as opposed to simply celebrating her birthday, the day she came into this world to all of the people who love her. I don't think there needs to be a division, as though there was a time when she was "theirs" and a time when she became "ours." What's important to me is that she knows she's loved by all of us, and that her parents feel honored and loved too.

Other people might see all of this differently. I might see it differently later on, who knows? But for now, this is how it is. For now, every August, I quietly observe that day as it passes, and remember seven-month-old Scarlett laughing in the back seat of my car at Sully as they got to know each other. I remember the many sleepless nights that followed that reminded me vividly of the sleepless nights after Sully was born. I remember her first steps and first words and first Christmas and birthday. I remember trying to figure out what she liked to eat and how she liked to play and how to bring out that hilarious belly-laugh she's so famous for. I think when she's a bit older I'll bring her into this quiet reverie, and this week in August might just be a chance to talk to her about herself, to tell her the stories I'm not going to tell you. 

The Near Bike Theft (In Which a Teenaged Boy Learns His Darn Lesson)

There's a teenage newspaper delivery girl who comes to my street corner every Thursday afternoon with her papers in a blue foldable wagon. She grabs a stack and, leaving the wagon on the sidewalk in front of my house, runs up the street, returning every fifteen minutes or so for more papers. The other day, she brought a friend along, a guy who left his bike on the corner with her wagon. 

The weird thing was that he didn't leave the bike on the sidewalk, or even beside the sidewalk—he left it way out in the middle of the street with its little kickstand out, forcing cars to drive around it. Maybe he thought he was being funny? I remember being fifteen; I remember doing stupid things, thinking I was being funny. 

But now I am 33. Now I stand at my window, clutching a mug of cold coffee and scowling at fifteen-year-olds who can't see me hiding behind my blinds. I do not think they're funny. I do not think anything's funny. Hey you kids, get off my lawn! Or, off the street, rather! Get off the street and THEN get off my lawn! 

I took a picture of the obnoxious white bike sitting out in the middle of the street and texted it to my neighbor. Who, I wrote with an air of disdain fit for a queen, leaves their bike in the middle of the street like this? I began to daydream about someone stealing the bike, or driving over the bike, just to teach the kid a lesson. Am I a bad person? Does this make me a bad person? I've hit the stage of adulthood where I talk nonstop about politics and wish harsh life lessons on the young people.

I looked out the window again, in time to see a man ride up on a pink bike. He noticed the white bike in the middle of the street, but he was more pleased about it than I was. He was downright thrilled, actually. He dismounted his own bike and grabbed the handlebars of the white bike. Two bikes, for the price of none! What a lucky afternoon! He nudged the kickstand with his foot and started to wheel it away.

Theft! I realized then that I didn't actually want anyone to steal the bike. I felt bad for the kid. He was just trying to be funny. He didn't deserve to lose his bike over it. 

Fortunately for me and my conscience, and unfortunately for the would-be bike thief, my mom was there.

She and my dad had just pulled up. They were visiting from out of town, and she's no fool. She knows a bike robbery when she sees one. 

"I don't think that's your bike," she said to him, smiling, because my mom is always smiling, at everyone.

He stared at her. "I need this bike," he said simply, as though she were misunderstanding the situation. "Mine has a flat."

"Well yes," she said, "but it's not your bike."

I was out there too by this time. The guy looked defeated when he saw me, like he thought it was my bike and now that I was there he couldn't have it.

"Is this your bike?" my mom asked me.

I said it wasn't, but that I knew whose bike it was. The guy perked up. "Whose is it then?" He lifted his chin defiantly at me, as though he suspected I was making up the fact that it had an owner. Like bikes don't usually have owners and it was inconceivable that this one did, like maybe I just didn't want him to have a bike and was messing with him to be mean.

I smiled at him. Like my mom. My dad was smiling too. Everyone was smiling except the man who just wanted to steal a bike in PEACE, people. "Some guy out delivering newspapers. He'll be back soon."

"How do you know he'll be back soon?" the guy challenged me. "What if he doesn't come back?"

My parents and I gawked at him for a moment. "He'll come back," I said finally. "He was literally just here. Shouldn't have left his bike in the middle of the street though. That wasn't a great idea." I was trying to lighten the mood. Didn't work. 

The man was getting annoyed with us. He had a bag draped over the handlebars of the pink bike, and he started to rummage through it, discarding the things he didn't want right onto the street. Something made of green tulle and ribbons that looked like it had been part of a wedding favor. A pair of underwear.

My dad gestured at the guy's bike. "Where'd you get that one?" he asked. My mom and I looked at my dad like, Don't ask don't ask don't ask.

The guy shrugged. "Found it." And he glared at us, like, How else does one get a bike, exactly?

We all nodded a lot, like, Okay, of course, that's how we get bikes too that's how everyone gets bikes.

We went back and forth a few more times. The guy tried to explain to us a few other ways why he should be allowed to steal the bike. We countered with some pretty persuasive arguments about how stealing is just, like, against the law and stuff. He mentioned his flat tire again. We tried not to mention that it wasn't really his flat tire to begin with.

"Well," said the guy at last, resigned, "I'll come back to this address later and get this bike."

"Okay," we said, like, Okay, that's a good idea. 

And then the guy left. 

And then the white bike's owner came back and I got to say to him the thing I'd been dyyyyyying to say to him for the past thirty minutes. 

"Hey, how's it going?" I said. I pointed at the bike, which my mom was still holding onto, "Some guy just tried to steal your bike. Probably shouldn't leave it in the middle of the street like that."

Learned his lesson, he did. 

And I went back to my spot in the window to guard the neighborhood and judge the kids for trying to be funny, as is my duty.

Already! But Also Only

Time to say the thing we always say in August:

How is it August already?

We always say that in August.

Actually, we say that in July too, and in June, and May. Every month we say that and again at every month's halfway point. Adult human beings exist in this constant state of wonderment that it is the day that it is—already!—while also constantly wishing it was a different day. And the different day we wish it was is never the day we thought it was going to be, or if it is we're surprised and upset when it ends, as though we thought that day might come and time might freeze and we might get to live in that day for a few years, at least, or forever if we're lucky. 

I guess this year is different in that a lot of the things we were going to do—from work to music festivals to vacations—have been canceled or shuffled or adjusted or modified beyond recognition. Time marches on like our moms at Walmart, right past the toy aisles, straight to the school supplies. So maybe this year it does feel like May and June and July were truly lost, not just fast.

In other ways, for some of us, it's just felt like summer. 

Barclay and I never do summer vacations—because we're broke and he's mostly always done seasonal work and summer is busy and I'm in the creative lull that comes after releasing a book, which means that I've had neither the desire nor the ability to work on the next thing. So summer this year just kind of looks like it was going to look, Covid19 or no Covid19. The kids and I, at home, at the park, on walks around the neighborhood. Drawing, playing, cleaning, baking. Sometimes meeting up with friends for outdoor playdates.

But while I may not have physically travelled anywhere these past few months, I have covered a lot of distance emotionally. Through March's feelings of disorientation and fear (what is this thing? What's happening?), through April's grief (we miss people; we miss normal things—and still, what's happening?) and the increasing dissonance of May, June, and July as the illusion of togetherness completely shattered and everyone began to vehemently disagree about whether the virus was real, whether it was "that bad," whether it was all a conspiracy, whether we should obey the government's guidelines or not... 

Honestly, that's been the worst part of all of it for me. It's been—at the risk of sounding just a tad hysterical—psychological torture to hear first-hand accounts of the abject horror of this sickness from friends who live in hot spots or work in Covid units or have had loved ones die or have fallen sick themselves, even as folks are out there shouting as loud as they can, "People aren't dying! It's all a hoax, an overreaction! It's just the flu!" My brain hurts. 

I have been thinking of similes to illustrate this strange time in history, simply because I love similes. Here are three:

1. It's like someone's humming a note and ten other people are holding ten other notes just slightly off-key to create this discordant, confusing DRONE. After a while, the noise becomes part of the background but you feel unsettled all the time and a little like you're losing your mind.

2. It's like I am standing beside a person watching an avalanche come roaring down a mountain, and I am like, "AAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!" And the person beside me is like, "What's your problem?"

3. It's like a bunch of people decided to start driving through school zones at 100 km/h and are incredulous that I'm still going 30. I often feel like a completely crazy person, but why? It's not like I'm going to drive 20 or 10. It's not like I'm going to set my car on fire and never drive again; I'm literally just obeying the law. I just trust the professionals who've done the studies and decided that this is the safest speed for driving in a place where vulnerable people might possibly be walking... And if those professionals are, for whatever reason, actually evil villains who just want to take away my rights to drive really fast...okay? At least my conscience is clean and I'll know I made choices I can live with in the event that they're not evil villains? 

Anyway.

We've arrived at August. Already. And now school is looming on the horizon, which is a bit weird, and if time keeps on going the way it has always gone, September will be here before we know it. There are a lot of opinions and sides and anger and fear swirling around the subject of school—but I suppose I should be used to opinions and sides and anger and fear by now. Those are basically the mascots of 2020. There was an announcement last week about what the school year is going to look like, about what the plan is. The plan, it turns out, is very...skeletal. No masks, no reduced classroom sizes, etc—it's very much about normalcy and not making the kids feel like they're going to school in a pandemic. The problem is: the kids are going to school in a pandemic.

So I suppose that's a thing I will need to figure out soon here. What this fall will look like for Sully and Scarlett and me. 

But for now? It's August. Already! But also, only. Today, I'm going to take my kids to the park. I'm going to enjoy it. If there's anything I've learned from living through a pandemic, it's that thinking about the pandemic all the time doesn't actually do anything at all. 

Fancy 

that.