Captain Mom's Log: Week 16: Day 108

Chief Mate's (left), Co-Captain Dad's (center), Captain Mom's (right)

The world needs color. We can't get by without it. Maybe some individuals can, but as a human race, certainly not. I was dipping down into the land of the low, and it was color that brought me back.

It's funny how the new norm now has its own new routine. The days still oscillate between wondrous, mundane, and sheer torture. At least the mundane days are growing in number and the space between wondrous and torture continues to get farther apart. Overall, things do seem to be getting more and more manageable.

The highs are incredible. Hiking with Chief Mate and Co-Captain Dad. Grilling with Admiral Grandma and Uncle Commodore. Finding time, if even for five minutes, to read a book of my choosing amidst the hundreds of assigned pages. Grad School Black Hole still looms large, but those five minutes of mine are everything. I've been riding the wave, trying not to complain when suddenly a wave smashed into me, knocking me out of the boat. Never turn your back on the sea. The bed had never been more cozy. The floor became dangerous, food was surely poisoned.
"I'm not coming out of bed today," I mumbled beneath the comforter to no one.
"I'm not eating breakfast," I said to a sad bowl of oatmeal.
"I'm not doing homework," I declared to myself.
I couldn't stare at another paragraph as the words cycle again and again, all meaningless dribble. Education, education, education, reading, reading, phonics, comprehension. Comprehension? Dammit.

It felt like the beginning days. The sticky glue days when "surely this isn't really happening and it will all blow over in a couple of months" days. I needed to go outside. I made peach ginger tea and forced myself to sit on the patio. The boys were pulling masking tape off of the roll with a schwip! I watched as they covered the sidewalk in an angular web. I didn't want to move. It seemed like they were miles away.

"This one's for you!" Chief Mate exclaimed.
"Yes," it was.

I joined them. Schwip! I could smell the glue of the masking tape as it pulled way from the roll. I pressed the strip down onto the bumpy sidewalk. I patted it with my fingers. It took me back to childhood. The hours I used to spend on the sidewalk. The games, the touching of the ground, how it felt to pick up a worm off the sidewalk, the knee scrapes and tears, the finding of the quartz and other conglomerate rocks. The hours of bliss and raw emotion that was childhood. Now, my aging body began to get dizzy as I squatted over the square of pavement. I plopped into the grass and leaned over my canvas. With every schwip and press I let everything fall off of me. Nothing mattered except the tape. When it was covered, I selected the colors.

I love the feel and smell of chalk. The soft powder is soothing. If you rub the loose powder into the sidewalk, you don't have to use up as much of the stick. It makes it last longer. It also makes the color more vibrant. Hurts like hell after you've finished an entire square, but it's worth it. Hope you can find something to make all the bad things melt away. We still need to take care of ourselves if we are to continue to take care of humanity. Sending hope.

#BLM (still and always)

END TRANSMISSION