The Day I Reread Attachments

 Dear Rainbow Rowell,

    I first read your book Attachments in September of 2014.  You were coming into Northern Virginia for a signing, and I read the book before attending.  That might seem like a random fact to remember, but I recall it for several reasons.  One is that you came into town the same week of my birthday and my husband planned a surprise party for me that year.  As my friends and I left the signing, I asked them their plans for the weekend and they kind of shrugged awkwardly.  Not that my friends can't keep a secret: they later told me they felt like they were awkward.  I just thought they hadn't made any plans yet and didn't think it odd at all.

    The other reason I remember it so well is because I'd experienced the same tragedy that Jennifer does in the book about a month before reading it.  Unlike Jennifer, I didn't know that I was pregnant.  I woke up in pain and it took a visit to the emergency room to confirm what was happening to me.  A month later, I was still grieving, though not so continuously as I had been.  I'd ceased thinking about it every minute of the day, but random things could still make me cry or give me anxiety.

    I suppose there's a scenario in which reading this book would have been terribly upsetting and hard to manage.  In reality, though, it was the exact opposite.  Throughout Attachments, we get to know Jennifer and Beth through their emails to each other as best friends.  Just like Lincoln, reading their emails makes us feel like we know them, like we're part of their conversation.  So when I read the exchanges between them after Jennifer's miscarriage, when Beth comforts Jennifer and they grieve together, I felt like Beth was comforting me.  And even better, when Jennifer mourned, we mourned together.  She cried, just like I cried.  She wanted to rant and rave to everyone she knew, just like I did.  The thing is, that ranting and raving about your miscarriage to everyone you know is painful for everyone in the long run and still doesn't heal the wound.

    Jennifer's experience made me feel incredibly seen.  The kindness Beth and Lincoln show her was as soothing as the kindness my own friends and family showed me.  The entire book is sweet and wonderful, but it was also therapeutic.  

    It's six years later now, and I no longer experience the same kind of anxiety or crying at the thought of my lost child.  I do think of him/her wistfully from time to time, and wish that my daughters could meet their oldest sibling.  But again, reading this book was a comforting experience.  It was reuniting with old friends and revisiting our joys and our sorrows.  It was not just being seen this time, but also being remembered.

    Thank you for that, not just then but also now and with every reread (and I anticipate many).

Sincerely,

Jeannette

The Day I Made Empanadas

I made empanadas with my daughter for the first time last week.  She's only 3, so I'd thought I'd have to help her a great deal.  She caught on quickly: three spoonfuls of stuffing, fold, seal.  I don't know if I caught on so quickly.

To be honest, I don't remember the first time I made empanadas with my own mother.  I know I did it.  I know I would stuff them, and she would have to help me seal them, until I learned how to fold the edges properly myself.  I do remember when she taught me to do that.

I don't really know how to cook a lot of the food my mom would make.  I'm not as well-versed in Latin American cuisine as I would like to be.  I want to share what little I have with my daughter, but I also want to learn it for myself.  I want to connect with my heritage.  I don't want my daughter to lose it.

My daughter is an amazing, curious, clever kid.  She deserves so much.  Being quarantined is a weird thing, in that we're all basically shut in here except for brief walks and quick trips to the store for me and my husband.  At the same time, I feel like it's more an opportunity than a limitation.  Maybe it's an opportunity to think more and be creative and catch up little things that need it.  But most importantly, maybe it's an opportunity for me to share all these things that I want with her..

The Day I Became a Work-at-Home Teacher

It's been nearly one month since I woke up and found out, quite by accident, that I wasn't going to work due to Covid-19.  I'd woken up at my usual time of day, grabbed my phone in my desire to procrastinate actually standing up, and randomly logged onto social media.  There it was: an announcement that due to parental concerns, the school was closing, but just for the day.  Within 3 days, school was closed for the next month.  Shortly after that, the governor closed all schools in the state for the rest of the school year, though they are required to provide for some sort of continuity of learning.

It's a strange thing to be suddenly a work-at-home teacher.  For one thing, I miss and worry about my students - "my kids," as I call them.  I don't know that they'll do their best work in an online situation.  It's different and it's a stressful time.  Though I know they might surprise me; they have before!

It's also just hard to stay focused on work.  There's a child running around, the knowledge that my husband is running around after her with his mind preoccupied by our precarious finances, and just the fact that my mentality is different at home.  It's hard to focus when there's about a billion other things I want or need to do.  I've gotten done the things I've had to, but it's been a bit rough.

The nice thing has been the actual being at home during a stressful time.  My husband and I have time to talk.  I have time to read.  I don't sit in traffic so long.  We've planted roses.  My family washed cars.  I can be sluggish about chores, because there's no rush.  We're here all the time.  I'd certainly like to be more productive, but I also feel like it's okay to be kind to myself, because everyone is feeling a bit out of it.

The one thing I would like to do is write a bit more, and journal, so here we go (again).