I was told there'd be handbaskets. I'll concede that no one promised me a rose garden, but I distinctly remember the mention of handbaskets. Since, clearly, everything is going to hell. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what a handbasket is. Is it similar to picnic baskets of yore, made of smooth woven wicker with two hinged lids and a sturdy handle? That doesn't seem like the best choice of vehicle to transport me through the eternal fires of damnation, being that it's wildly flammable, but at this point I'll take what I can get. This nicely apportioned doom buggy can be found on Amazon . I'd like my handbasket to be woven of rattan imported from Indonesia, preferably an idyllic hilly countryside amid a lush tropical forest. Source the vines from trees near a turquoise lake or Hindu temple, please. Imagining those picturesque scenes will help pass the time while I float in my handbasket down the river, like a modern-day Moses, except to my destruction rat...

On those few blessed mornings a week that my house is as still as an empty auditorium, I sit at the computer and ask the words to dance. Some days they tango. Most times they stand defiantly on skinny legs and glare at me.  On days like today, I have the audacity to poke them until they move. Life is almost pre-pandemic normal-busy-overwhelming , and already I'm worn out. Kids, job, household, wife - it's a frenzied four-step hustle. I'm not funny. I'm not insightful. My heels blister. And I'm doing a terrible job of writing and submitting regularly. If I don't scribble out essays for publishing, am I still a writer? Are my words still real if nobody reads them?  What does being a writer actually mean?

Monday band rehearsals. Thursday boxing and soccer practice. Friday band concerts. Saturday soccer games. First communion, lunch out of town, preschool graduation, a community safety class.  In the next two months, my family will return to a pre-pandemic schedule. We'll go back to youth extracurriculars and events, adult hobbies, and a few safe social engagements. My husband's work schedule will revert to full-time regular madness: two morning shifts followed by two evening shifts capped off with one middle-of-the-day shift.  I am not ready. Normal means busy. Over the last 14 months the world came to a screeching halt, then only crawled along as absolutely necessary. Amid this slower pace and decreased expectations, I felt like I could breathe. I had precious downtime, something I haven't enjoyed much of since birthing children. Our calendars were blissfully light , filled in only with vital in-person functions. In terms of busyness, life was so much easier.  The holiday...

My husband's birthday came in January, just like every year. Over ice cream cake at the kitchen table (since we couldn't safely dine in a restaurant), we invited our kids to guess how old he was turning. "19!" Said the five year old. Her grasp of time is tenuous at best. "No, he's 46," countered the seven year old. My husband conceded. "You're 46?" I said, puzzled. "I thought this was 45. Weren't you 44 last year?" "Year before last," he said. I had to sit with that for a while.  If we mark time by changes -- the new moon each month, the shift in the slant of light that comes with each season -- then it's no surprise I'm struggling. For most of last year, each day of sameness slid into the next day until they piled up at the end of the calendar like cars in a chain-reaction crash. It feels nearly impossible to pick out anything recognizable from that mess.  It's been a year since the first U.S. case of co...

I feel like such a hypocrite. Since March, I've been talking, telling, and pleading that the coronavirus is real, with serious consequences. I told my friends, family, and strangers on the internet that we must take steps to slow or stop the spread. Stay in when you can. Keep your social distance. Wear your mask. Our most important task right now is to reducing the number of people who face death or long-term health complications from this pernicious virus. Now it's nearly September, and I'm voluntarily sending my children back to school in person.   Sure, whatever. This seems smart. We were left floundering when schools first shut down in the spring, just like most other families. Distance learning did not go well for us. Twice a week, I sat my son down in front of a Zoom meeting and spent the next 45 minutes telling him sit still, stop making faces, no one wants to see the inside of your nose, quite playing with your pencil, unmute yourself, don't work ahead of your ...

First, they closed the schools. Then the libraries. Then restaurants and indoor play spaces. For the last 10 days or so my family has been stuck at home, trying to prevent catching or spreading COVID-19, the dangerous coronavirus that has swept across the world. It's tough to be thrust into this kind of disruption of our normally scheduled craziness. Anxiety is high, the weather is cold and rainy, and we're all getting on each other's nerves. Here is what we've been doing to stay busy. Distance learning  Somebody help this octopus Bickering Distance learning while bickering Picking apart the mixed Play-Doh colors Using books as skates to slip and slide across the living room floor Looking for toilet paper Crying in the home office Kid yoga that devolved into rolling on the floor and kicking one another  Moments before it all went south Not checking our retirement accounts More distance learning Looking for hand soap Yelling "stop yelling!...