I blogged yesterday that I am going to write some posts inspired by Glennon Doyle’s new memoir Untamed so by god, that is what I am going to do.

My inner Resistance is putting up a hell of a fight. I love the idea of Resistance. Steven Pressfield first introduced me to the concept (and I think he coined the term as well). I have read a lot of Pressfield’s books, but I am 90% certain it’s in The War of Art. If you are a creative, you should read something by Pressfield. ANYWAY, Resistance is the force that keeps you from doing the creative work you are meant to do. Sometimes it manifests as the voice in your head. Sometimes it manifests as physical illness. Or sometimes it manifests as a series of ridiculous events that consume your time and keep your butt away from the desk, easel or wherever it is that you create.

Resistance is a bitch.

And she has been putting up a helluva fight ever since I decided yesterday that I should start blogging about the books that inspire me. First, she tempted me with blog post ideas that are less personal. Blog about your favorite pandemic hobbies! That would help someone. Or, ooh, I know! Blog about the health benefits of cardio. I added the ideas to my list of possible future posts, and then told my Resistance that I was still going to blog about Untamed.

Then my Resistance got personal.

You are not ready, she said. This is too vulnerable and uncomfortable. You have a lot of ideas and you need to think them through. Write about them in your journal, if you must, but don’t put them on your blog. Then you are committed to what you have blogged and if you change your mind-

Then I might as well never write another word, because as Doyle writes so beautifully:

I am a human being, meant to be in perpetual becoming. If I am living bravely, my entire life will become a million deaths and rebirths. My goal is not to remain the same but to live in such a way that each day, year, moment, relationship, conversation and crisis is the material I use to become a truer, more beautiful version of myself. The goal is to surrender, constantly, who I just was in order to become who this next moment calls me to be.

Untamed, pg. 77.

This. Wow. All my adult life, I have clung to the idea that I would make one more change and that change would be The Getting Together Of All My Shit and then I’d be done with self-transformation. I’d have everything figured out, end movie, play the credits, nothing more to see here.

I went to law school convinced I had figured out my career and life.

But being a lawyer made me miserable. I could feel my soul screaming for fresh air. So I left the law — sort of, that’s a long story — and started a novel. I was making some money working part-time as a lawyer from home while having plenty of time to write things that lit me up inside. I felt better than I had in years. Surely I had figured everything out.

But then I had a baby and fell into the darkness of postpartum depression. That experience transformed me. I emerged from the darkness less anxious, less apologetic, more me. I published a memoir about it, so surely that meant it was time to roll the credits on the story of my life. At last, I could get down to the business of Happily Ever After and not be so preoccupied with personal transformation.

Except now I am 41, and I realize that Happily Ever After is not what I want. What I want is the work of personal transformation until the day I draw my final breath. Glennon Doyle says it perfectly:

I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution.

Untamed, pg. 51

I am meant to write about my personal journey and transformation. And that means things I write today may not hold true for me tomorrow. Hell, writing this post might lead to the realization that I am meant to not write about my personal journey and transformation.

This makes me uncomfortable, but hey, I was also uncomfortable the first time I told a group of women that I had postpartum depression. Those first months of my recovery from PPD, every time I told someone that I had a mental illness, I felt as if I was confessing some great crime. But the discomfort eventually faded, and now telling someone that I had PPD feels as comfortable as wearing my favorite sweatshirt. Maybe this sort of writing will eventually become comfortable as well.

Here is something I have learned: the more Resistance fights something I want to do, the more important it is that I roll up my sleeves and get to work.

I am so grateful that Glennon Doyle had the courage to write not one, not two but three memoirs. I have only read her second and third books, but wow, the difference between the two is so great, they could have been written by two different people.

And that is incredible. Doyle wrote a wildly successful memoir and it would have been so easy for her to stay stagnant, and keep writing the same thing, rather than disappoint her followers. I confess, I have sometimes felt paralyzed by the work I have done as an advocate for maternal mental health. My spirituality has been exploding, but I thought: how can I write about spirituality if it’s not helpful for moms with PPD? So instead of writing about my spirituality, and current adventures, I ended my PPD podcast and blogged very, very rarely.

Fortunately, the crisis of sheltering-at-home during the Covid-19 pandemic pushed me to a point where I could no longing ignore my call to blog.

And now, with her memoir Untamed, Glennon Doyle has shown me how to be a writer in a flow of “perpetual becoming.” I can write what I feel called to write today, and not worry about how if it fits perfectly with Future Courtney. All this work is necessary to keep becoming my truest, most beautiful self.

I have been reading Glennon Doyle’s new memoir Untamed for about a week now. I still have about thirty pages left but my god, I can already say it is one of my favorite books.

I also read Doyle’s memoir Love Warrior when it first came out in 2016. I highlighted it and wrote notes in the margins and felt transformed by her ideas. Doyle’s husband (now ex-husband) had admitted to sleeping with other women since the beginning of their marriage, and by book’s end, they had renewed their commitment to each other and appeared to be enjoying their Happily Ever After.

Shortly after I finished Love Warrior, I learned that Doyle was divorcing her husband, and I remember thinking, WTF? Why did I just read a memoir about saving her marriage if she was going to divorce the guy so soon after publication?

So when I first heard about Untamed, I was not interested. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice… But after I heard Brown’s interview of Doyle on the Unlocking Us podcast, I knew I had to read Untamed. Actually, that’s not entirely correct. Within the five minutes of listening to the interview, I knew I had to read Untamed. I had ordered the book from Amazon long before I finished listening to the interview.

I know understand that writing the Love Warrior memoir was part of Doyle’s personal journey. If you have not read Love Warrior, you could definitely read Untamed first. But having read Love Warrior, I really appreciate just far Doyle has come. It is inspiring. She is a work a progress, just like all humans, and she is not afraid to let us see the work of her life before it is finished.

I’m not going to try to write a proper review since there are already over 1,000 reviews of Untamed on Amazon. But here are some quotes that made my jaw hang open:

If you are uncomfortable–in deep pain, angry, yearning, confused–you don’t have a problem, you have a life. Being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong, it’s heard because you are doing it right. You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy.

Untamed, pg. 93

Oh, I could just sit here and reread that quote all day. Maybe I should. (No, wait, the kids will need to be fed. They are eating like hobbits during quarantine!) But I feel like I have spent so much of my life trying to numb the uncomfortable feelings, but those are the feelings that mean I am living my life.

Another quote:

Brave is not asking the crowd what is brave. Brave is deciding for oneself.

Untamed, pg. 106

I am pulling out these quotes because Untamed shone a brilliant radiant light that I needed. It flooded my heart with love and filled my brain with ideas I needed. But as I cite these quotes, I feel like I am circling the thing I want to do, without actually doing it.

I read a lot of nonfiction books that I think of as self-help, but that fall into lots of different genres: memoirs like Untamed; books about spirituality (also Untamed); psychology; parenting (Untamed again); and philosophy (definitely Untamed). And I often think: I should write several blog posts about this book so that I can internalize what I have learned. Now I am actually blogging nearly every day. Maybe it’s time I do what I have been thinking I should do for several years?

This idea is coming from what I think of as my intuition. Glennon Doyle calls it The Knowing. Whatever you want to call it, I think it is my connection to the divine, sending me ideas that lead me on the adventure that is my life. And my intuition just keeps popping into my mind, suggesting that I write about the book I am reading. It has been doing this for years. And I always come up with an excuse (Pippa needs help with homework! I have to fold the laundry! The dishes are dirty!) and then I’m reading another book and the moment has passed.

I don’t want to let the moment pass again.

Today, I waxed poetic about Untamed but tomorrow, I’m going to open the book and when I find a quote that inspires me, I’m going to start writing and see where that leads me.

It’s going to feel awkward AF but I Brene Brown keeps admonishing her listeners to lean into the awkward.

My intuition has nudged me in the right direction many, many times. Now I’m going to let it nudge me again. Even if that means I am about to venture into writing territory that feels awkward.

It’s Week “I Completely Lost Track” of the Great 2020 Adventure, and the house is wrecked.

It’s actually not that bad. It just feels oppressive because we are here all the damn time. And now that I am writing about it, the house would probably feel oppressive even if everything was neat and clean BECAUSE WE ARE HERE ALL The DAMN TIME. But still, everywhere I go, there is somethingin need of sweeping, tidying, scrubbing or burning. (Burn the toys! Burn them all!)

The problem is that all four of us are home basically 24/7, so more dirt is being tracked on to the floors, so no matter how often I sweep, there is always somewhere in need of sweeping. We eat all our meals at home, so there are more dishes to wash, and then there are more towels to clean from drying said dishes. And then there are the toys. Don’t get me started on the toys.

It is not fun to live in a house that feels like a toy store that was just hit by a natural disaster. But when the kids are home all day every day, a mess-free house is just not realistic. Hell, a semi-mess-free house is not realistic. Still, I look around and when I see all the messes, I get agitated.

That’s when I remember the wisdom of a wise soul at the car wash.

It was over five years ago, before I was even pregnant with Julian. I took my SUV to the car wash and even though I just had toddler Pippa at the time, the car was absolutely disgusting. The floors were covered in crushed Cheerios and spilled milk. (Oh my god, I just had a lovely flashback to how my car used to smell like a latrine whenever a bottle got lost under a seat. The horror, the horror!) There were toys everywhere. There were probably also several toddler purses because Pippa had this phase where she could not leave the house without three bags (minimum).

The car wash attendant asked what sort of wash I wanted, and I apologized about the mess in the car. He took one look at the car seat and said, “It’s a blessing! Healthy kids are messy kids! Kids stop making messes when they get sick. If there are messes, thank God. The kids are healthy.”

Looking back, it was almost as if God was talking to me through that car wash attendant, to make sure I got the one piece of parenting advice that I really needed at the time.

And it’s the one piece of advice I keep remembering, again and again, as the children keep wrecking the house as we shelter-at-home. Did they disassemble the couch and use all the pillows to build a fort in the living room? Thank God, the kids are healthy! Is the kitchen floor covered in bits of paper and glitter? Thank God, the kids are healthy! Did I just find a tractor in my closet? Thank God, the kids are healthy! As between (1) a clean house + sick kids, and (2) a messy house + healthy kids, I’m going to choose Door #2 every damn time.

p.s. As I was finishing this blog post, Julian came to me with a bag of dominos. He had been playing with the dominos and then put them all away. He brought me the bag so I could return the dominos to a shelf he cannot reach. He cleaned a mess without being asked! Hallelujah! It’s a social distancing miracle!

I was room parent for Pippa’s kindergarten class last year, and I have been reprising that role for her first grade class. I never really thought of myself as room parent material, but I actually enjoy the work.

Teacher Appreciation Week is the week of May 4. For weeks, I had it on my radar but could not wrap my mind around what Teacher Appreciation Week might look like while we are distance learning. Last year, we did everything in person. The kids brought flowers, cards and sweets, and I brought in a big cake to end the week. How the eff could we manage any of that from home?

But a week ago, a few ideas started to take shape. This morning, I finally emailed my ideas to the first grade parents.

1. I asked everyone to have their kids fill out the form that is in this blog post by The Suburban Mom. Parents will then email me photos or pdf’s of the finished forms (that talk about what they like about our first grade teacher) and I’ll collate them into a single PDF. Now, this time next week, I might be cursing myself for adding this item to my To Do list. Or, the other parents might be cursing me for adding something to their lists. But hey, it feels good to try.
2. We have been having online class every morning, so I suggested the kids each pick a flower and bring it to “school” on Monday, May 4. Then they can all “give” the flowers to the teacher. It’s not the same as an in-person plant or bouquet, but it might turn into a sweet photo if we can get all the kids to hold up their flowers at the same time. I also suggested that kids draw a picture of a flower if getting outside to find a dandelion feels like too much. Crazy times, folks! Let’s keep a low, low, low bar.
3. That’s it! But I also suggested that for kids who are looking for ways to keep busy, they can make cards or write paragraphs about what they miss about school during quarantine. Then they can take photos and send to our teacher.

I thought about sending an online gift card to Amazon or Starbucks (Pippa’s teacher is obsessed with Starbucks), but I figure I’ll just gather money in May by Venmo for an end-of-year gift.

I emailed the class an hour ago, so fingers crossed that I do not get too much hate email in response.

But I’m glad I tried. It felt beautifully normal. If Covid-19 had not blown up the school year, then right now, I would have been organizing Teacher Appreciation Week. It felt damn good to ignore the quarantine, put on my Room Mom hat for a few minutes and do exactly what I would have being doing this week, quarantine or not.

This is what I know right now: as a California resident, I am practicing “safer at home” until May 15. Even if we are allowed to start going places in mid-May, Pippa’s school year is effectively over. She is doing distance learning for the rest of first grade.

It is tempting to think beyond May 15.

Will the “safer at home” order be extended? Will some of the restrictions be lifted? When? When? WHEN?

But when I start down that line of questioning, my anxiety starts to heat up. My skin tingles unpleasantly and my blood races.

That’s when I force myself to take a deep breath and stop thinking about the future.

Full disclosure: it is so tempting to wonder about life beyond May 15. It feels like if I wonder about it long enough, the answers will magically appear. But no amount of speculation on my part is going to result in the answers I seek. All I will manage to do is make myself feel crazy.

I’d like to know if my kids will be able to go to summer camp. I’d like to know if we’ll be able to visit the zoo and have friends over for pool parties. And I would really, really, really like to know if my kids are going to attend school during the 2020-2021 year, and if so, what their school year will look like. And I want guarantees! Give me the freaking answers, written in blood, notarized and witnessed by Lucifer himself.

But all I can do is ground myself in the present moment.

Right now, we have enough.

Right now, we are healthy and safe.

Life is always uncertain. Shit can and will happen whenever it damn well pleases. Right now, though, the uncertainty of life is just a little less subtle that it usually is. Uncertainty is usually an itty bitty mouse lurking behind a curtain. If you did not think to look behind the curtain, you would not even know it’s there. But with Covid-19, uncertainty has morphed into some huge beast that shredded the curtain and started rampaging all over the world. It’s kind of impossible not to notice it.

Right now, we are all living with the same awareness of the uncertainty of life. That’s actually pretty cool when you think about it.

It’s also pretty shitty. We are all living with a profoundly unsettling amount of uncertainty. But the uncertainty is rampaging out there, in the future. It’s not here in the present moment. So if I want to stay calm(er), I just have to breathe and focus on right now.

Inhale.

One day at a time.

Exhale.

One moment at a time.

Inhale.

One breath at a time.

Exhale.

When the time is right, the answers will come.

And someday, we will be able to talk about the pandemic in the past tense. It’s okay that I don’t know when that day is, and it’s okay that the uncertainty is making me uncomfortable.

This pandemic is like a crash course in the uncertainty of life. When this is over, I am going to have so much perspective. Flat tires? Pimples? Unexpected traffic jams? Bring! It! On! At least when this is over, I am going to kick ass at shrugging off the smaller uncertainties of life.

Sleep is the foundation of my mental health. I learned this the hard way in 2013 when I had postpartum depression and suffered from insomnia. The insomnia did not start until June 2013, about three months after Pippa was born. Before the insomnia kicked in, I was definitely experiencing many symptoms of postpartum depression: especially anxiety, obsessive compulsions (like checking locks), extreme guilt, and of course, depression.

But once the insomnia started, that’s when shit got dark. It was not long after the insomnia started that I fell into despair, thought my life was over, daydreamed about being put in a coma while the doctors figured out what was wrong with me, and started having intrusive suicidal thoughts.

And then, once I was hospitalized and started taking Zoloft and Mirtazipane and got some decent sleep, I started to recover so quickly, it still takes my breath away to think about it. One afternoon, I was waiting with my husband in the ER, convinced I was broken beyond repair. Three mornings later, I felt as if I had been reborn.

Long story short (but hey, I wrote a book if you want the long story), I know firsthand how much sleep affects my mental health.

Now that we are sheltering-at-home during the Covid-19 pandemic, there is no way I am going to fuck around with my sleep.

Here is what I have been doing to get enough sleep:

• I am taking my Vitamin B supplements. Which reminds me, I forgot to take my lunch dose. Hang on… (I need TONS of Vitamin B because I have a genetic mutation that makes it difficult for my brain to process Vitamin B. I wrote about that last month in this post.)
• After the kids go to bed, I watch t.v. with Nathan but t.v. goes off by 9 p.m. Okay, 9:10 p.m. if we are watching something good. Maybe 9:15 if it’s Tiger King. But seriously! I need to get away from the television as close to 9 p.m. as I can manage.
• I then attend to my bedtime supplements. First, I take two tablets of SLEEPSolve 24/7 . Then, I mix a quarter teaspoon of this magnesium powder with hot water and drink it as a sort of bedtime tea. And lastly, I take 7.5 milligram of Remeron. (And duh, I’m not a doctor. Check with your doctor, blah blah blah. I need more magnesium but hey, you might not!)
• Then I write for a few minutes to get any nagging thoughts out of my head and on to the page. I also make sure I have prepared my bullet journal for the next day.
• And lastly, I read until I am too exhausted to read another word. This usually happens around 10 p.m.

I mentioned in this March post that I am probably read to wean off Remeron (a.k.a. Mirtazipane) because I am finally getting the Vitamin B that I need. But hey-o, weaning off an anti-anxiety medication during a pandemic does not seem like the best idea!

This is not the time to be brutal with ourselves and think, I should be able to sleep without medication or I should just suck it up and deal with being tired. This is a time for being tender and gentle with ourselves and do everything within our power to get enough sleep. (I mean everything that is healthy! Gah!)

About a week ago, I had a shit lousy day because the kids woke me from a deep REM sleep. I had slept nearly 8 hours, and should have felt great, but they barged into my room while I was still in dream land. And when that happens, I feel groggy, cranky and disgusting all day. Also, dehydrated. Does anyone else feel dehydrated when they don’t get enough sleep?

So after feeling groggy all day, I went to bed thinking how badly I needed a good night’s sleep. Well, as soon as sleep feels like an issue, it becomes an issue. Of course I had trouble getting to sleep. Instead of passing out at 10 like I usually do, I tossed and turned and tossed some more until past 3 a.m. And then once I finally got to sleep, I still woke up every hour to toss a little more. Because you know, I had not tossed enough during the first half of the night.

I felt exhausted all day for the second day in the row. Though my exhaustion was actually not as bad as the prior day’s. For me, being woken from REM sleep is like 10x worse than just not sleeping enough. (Jeez, it’s like I’m trying to make it easy for someone who wants to kidnap and torture me one day.)

So that night, I decided to take 15 mg of Mirtazipane instead of my usual 7.5. (I have done this many, many times with my psychiatrist’s full approval. I actually took 30 mg after both my pregnancies. You have to know what works for your body before you tweak your medication dose. My doctor and I have discussed that when I am stressed or anxious or just suffering from intense PMS, I can and should take 15 mg of Mirtazipane. Please don’t just double the medication you are taking because that’s what Courtney did. Ok, lecture over.)

I slept like an angel.

For five nights, I took 15 mg of Mirtazipane because I knew I was having some anxiety over not getting enough sleep. And right now, in the midst of a pandemic, is not the time to try to tough it out. Actually, when it comes to sleep, my philosophy is: it’s never the time to tough it out. Get your sleep! Stigma be damned! Take whatever medication or supplements you need! Sweet Jesus!

Then, on the sixth night, I checked in with my intuition, and my intuition told me, Just 7.5. mg tonight.

I paused and thought, Are you sure?

My intuition told me, Yes, so I shrugged and took 7.5 mg and slept as angelically as I had for the previous five nights. That was two nights ago. Last night, I again took the regular schmegular 7.5. mg and slept beautifully. I assume I will take 7.5 mg again tonight, but I make no guarantees. This adventure changes hour by hour, so something (anything!) might rev up my anxiety. And if my intuition tells me to take the 15 mg, then I will listen.

Because as much as things change during this adventure, here’s the one thing that never changes: I need my sleep!

I love you.

Truly, I love you and I miss your extroverted exuberance and I can’t wait to see you in person and maybe ugly cry for a bit.

But.

The first day that my kids go back to school/camp (whenever that may be, let’s just pray it is sooner than later).

As much as I love you.

As much as I miss you.

I’m going to need to spend that day alone.

Because I am an introvert, and that means I get my energy from my Alone Time. And lately, there has been a severe deficit in that department. Even when I get to sit alone and write in my bedroom, there is often the sound of children fighting not ten feet from where I sit. Or sometimes a child bursts into the room while sprinting to the bathroom. Or comes to me distraught because a bumped finger is in dire need of a boo boo kiss (or amputation is likely). So the Alone Time I am getting is not quite as alone as I need it to be.

I NEED TO SPEND A WEEK IN A GODDAMN SENSORY DEPRIVATION TANK. CAN I GET ONE ON AMAZON? IS PRIME DELIVERY AVAILABLE?

So when the kids go back to school/camp (whenever that may be, holy shit I know life is uncertain but maybe we could dial the uncertainty back from an 11 to a 4 – we’d all still get the point!).

As much as I love you.

As much as I miss you and your extroverted exuberance. (Truly, it’s infectious and I’m not being snarky. Introverts need extroverts!)

I am going to need to spend at least a day alone in my house. Shaking a little as I detox from all the overstimulation.

We can have lunch on Day 2, okay?

With love and a little dash of insanity,

Your introverted friend,

Courtney

We are living through an unprecedented moment in history, so holy effing eff, I do not know how to do this. Because no one knows! We are all figuring this out as we go. Fortunately there are some inspirational podcasts sharing timely advice. Here are some episodes that I have found to be especially helpful during The Great 2020 adventure:

• I could list several episodes from Unlocking Us With Brené Brown but Brene on Anxiety, Calm + Over/Under-Functioning was very helpful.
• Same for Awesome with Alison, but I have to especially recommend Episode 118, Don’t Make Assumptions (During a pandemic?!)
• Yesterday I listened to #239 How To Go Easy on Yourself in A Pandemic on Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris and damn, I will be listening to several more episodes of that show over the next few weeks. Or maybe all of the 200+ episodes!
• The Creative Penn posted an episode on April 12 called How to Stay Creative in Difficult Times With Mark McGuinness. Highly recommend to all my fellow creatives!
• On How Do You Write, episode 176 dives into writing during a pandemic. That episode is called Katie Forrest on Time Management for Writers During a Crisis.
• On The Story Grid, the March 26th episode, Phere and COVID-19, tackles the pandemic from the perspective of storytelling.
• I have just discovered The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos. I really enjoyed her episode called Coronavirus BONUS: Laurie’s Personal Tips. The tips were really great!
• And if you like the enneagram, check out the first episode of Enneagram Mapmakers with Christopher Heuertz. It’s the one called Covid-19: Thoughts on Solidarity and Self-Care in Uncertain Times. This one was so good, I might need to listen to it again soon.

I have also been binging Even the Rich, which is not about mental health or writing. It’s about really rich but dysfunctional families. In other words: brain candy! Oh universe, do I need brain candy. But I only have two episodes before I am caught up. Panic! Crisis! I desperately need more shows like Even the Rich that will distract me and help me forget, for just a little bit, that we are living Groundhog Day: The Pandemic Edition.

Shit, I may just have to try the Tiger King podcast.

A few days ago, it occurred to me that someday, I will actually want to look back and remember the things we did during The Great 2020 Adventure. Maybe my kids will need to write essays about this experience when they are in high school and college. Maybe I’ll write a book about this someday. Or maybe I’ll just want to remember for the sake of remembering the event that shook (and paused!) the entire world at the same time.

So yesterday, I opened a new document in Word, named it My Covid-19 Captain’s Log, and started writing. I have only been keeping this log for two days, but so far, this is what I’m writing about:

• The weather! Seems so trivial, but hey, it can really affect our mental health.
• A paragraph about what Pippa did
• A paragraph about what Julian did
• A couple sentences about Nathan (He’s not as interesting at the kids)
• A paragraph about the highlights of my day

And that’s it! It’s simple and quick. I am also going to use my emails to construct a timeline, e.g. when our schools closed, when we were under orders to shelter at home, and when we had to start wearing face masks to essential business.

I am not locked into this format. Yesterday, I ordered stamps online because we have been sending so many letters. I wrote about that. In regular life, the purchase of stamps does not seem like a big deal; but right now, for me, it does. Today, I wrote a few sentences about our breakfast because we have been eating banana pancakes 4-5 each week – it’s like our Covid-19 breakfast mascot!

But in ten years, will I remember that we ate banana pancakes almost every day during quarantine? My brain is pretty overloaded these days because everything is so weird and new, not to mention the global collective anxiety. With all the days bleeding into each other, how many actual memories will my brain be able to collect? And honestly, what the hell did I have for breakfast 10 years ago? Shit, I don’t know! If I can’t remember what was happening in 2010, a year that was very ordinary for me, how will I remember these details for 2020 in 2030? (Ah! Too many numbers! My brain is shuddering!)

With the Captain’s Log, my brain will not have to remember the details. One day, when my kids have questions about life during quarantine, I’ll just print up the document and let them read my memories. Hey, this might be a habit that I continue after quarantine lifts.

p.s. I do journal every day, but journaling is very freestyle for me. Sometimes I write about things that happened, but usually, I write more about feelings and issues that I’m working on. I’ll be keeping my journals as well! But those are not for public consumption, thank you very much.

We have been social distancing and living at home for over a month now, and there are many things I miss. For example: going places! And: seeing people! And: don’t get me started because if I get into specifics, holy shit, I’ll be writing all night!

But as we live through The Great 2020 Adventure, there is space and time for new activities. And you know what? I’d like to continue doing a lot of these activities when The Great 2020 Adventure is over. For example:

• Gardening! We usually plant a few things in the spring and then forget to water them … not this year! We planted basil from the grocery store and then planted all the seeds I could find in the garage: flowers, zucchini, cucumbers, and pumpkins. We have an avocado pit suspended over water near the aquarium and a plastic bag greenhouse with bean seeds taped to the window. (Preschool sent us the greenhouse project but it’s right here if you want to try.) There is a pineapple top drying out (that gets planted in a few days) and we are trying to grow a tree from a pinecone. Nurseries are still open in California, so I’m hoping to secure some more seeds and soil in the near future.
• Snail Mail!Oh, how I adore snail mail. It’s the thing that is often on my list of New Years Resolutions, and it’s the resolution that always gets abandoned by January 4. But Pippa has been writing letters to school friends, and Julian likes to dictate letters to his cousins. We spent a lovely hour this afternoon preparing letters with sticker sheets for friends. I think I’m going to start writing letters to my friends as well.
• Home Cooked Meals! We have been cooking a lot more than usual and discovering a lot of healthy and delicious recipes. I will be very excited when I get to sit down in a restaurant and order food off a menu again, but I suspect Nathan and I will be doing less take out even after this adventure ends.
• Dance Parties! I bought a cheap disco ball off Amazon and the kids love to have dance parties. The disco ball was especially helpful when we had a week of endless rain and the kids were going stir crazy. Dancing lifts all of our spirits.
• Music! I play music in the car but I often forget to play it when we are home. Well, now that we are always home, and almost never have cause to be in the car, I’ve been making an effort to play music that makes me happy.
• Phone Calls! Remember that thing we used to do before we had cell phones and texting? I actually enjoy texting my friends a lot. It’s especially convenient with young children underfoot. But I’ve been talking once or twice a week with one of my best friends from college, and I hope we continue our phone calls when this is over. I’m also trying to call my grandma 2-3 times each week and I’ll try to continue that as well. It just feels good to be connected!

I think we have found our sheltering-at-home rhythm. We might lose that rhythm at any time! But new habits, like writing letters and working in the garden, are taking root and giving meaning to our days. We are slowly figuring out the things we need to do to thrive during The Great 2020 Adventure. Our shelter-at-home order is currently scheduled to end May 15, and it would be amazing if that actually happens (oh please oh please oh please) but if the order is extended, I know we will be fine.

We just might need more stamps!