When it Rains
Published in the World Journal, October 15th Issue
Hello Burgers. Boy is it good to write to you again. Where have I been? What a wonderful question with a meandering and mixed bag of an answer. I’ll start with the instigator of my disappearance, the Aspen Acres fire. The morning that horrible tragedy started, I was on my way to drop my son off at daycare in Rye — being a ‘burger means long commutes for basic needs like childcare sometimes. I saw the plume of smoke, called my husband and we decided to drop the boy off anyway, wait to see how things developed.
“If it gets much bigger in the next few hours, we’ll go get him,” we assured each other. I was back by lunch time.
The pre-evacuation alert for the town of Rye sounded while I was gathering my kid’s things. I drove home with no idea that we’d never go back to that center, which permanently closed their doors after the extended closure caused by the fire. When it rains, it pours.
We found out a few weeks before all of this that we’re expecting our second child in March — hooray for new ‘burgers! However, that also created the following situation. Our kid was home, full time. My husband was new at his job, thus had no accrued PTO. I work from home and own my own business, making me the most flexible option to multitask childcare and working, and I was five weeks pregnant with extreme nausea.
I don’t remember a lot of July, to be honest. Between working, parenting, and chugging lemon-ginger tea to try and keep from throwing up, most days I could hardly drag myself to bed when all was said and done. I stopped writing columns. Survival mode means cuts must be made, To be a Burger was one of mine.
Things have gotten better! We found a daycare provider in Trinidad. I hit the second trimester and the nausea has subsided. My husband is more established at his job and now everyone in our lives (and after this article, I suppose everyone in our readership) knows that we’re expecting. We came out the other side and have since travelled, celebrated, and recovered (no one ever needs to know what my house looked like while we were in the thick of it).
When it rains, it pours. I’ve thought about this saying a lot over my… sabbatical. Because it did pour, but not all in one flavor. It poured stress, and loss, and overwhelm, and desperation, and joy, and mindfulness, and resilience, and support, and love this summer — sometimes all at the same time.
The recent rains have basement flooding and poor driving conditions, while they’ve also nourished our trees and filled reservoirs. Fundamentally, when it rains, I don’t get any input on that. Sometimes all I can do is to find somewhere dry, get a warm beverage, and try to find warm moments in the storm.
