We’re only 39 days into this presidential administration and it feels like 180. To say it’s chaotic and unnerving is an understatement. I realize Trump and his people are “flooding the zone,” and the chaos is strategic; not everything he says is legitimately dire. It’s exhausting parsing the chaff from the truly dangerous, however, and even if we’re not driven directly into a Constitutional crisis, I worry about the long-term damage some of this will inevitably do as he and his billionaire oligarchs attempt to pull off the biggest grift in American history.
I’m most concerned about his cuts to Medicaid and his gutting of the Department of Education. Our daughter has Level II Autism Spectrum Disorder, and we’re nervous about the fate of her services and the future of children like her all over America.
Adding to the political anxiety is all the illness we’ve dealt with in our household. I described our bouts with norovirus a few weeks ago, and then on Valentine’s week, we all came down with COVID. That wasn’t as acute as the stomach bug, but it definitely lingered for a longer time. Even after my fever was gone, I was weak, coughing, and lacking an appetite. My poor husband, the last one of us to show symptoms, is only on about his third day of feeling normal again.
To top it all off, we’ve dealt with a true Vermont winter–temperatures continually below freezing, with several nights in the negatives and lots of snow. We got spoiled the last two years by mild cold seasons, but this one’s no joke, and it’s kept us nearly housebound.
It’s really no fun, when you’re feverish and just want to sleep, to clomp through thigh-deep snow, your fingers burning, in order to care for your poor, freezing chickens. And of course, these temps mean I have to go out there at least twice a day to change their water. Otherwise, they’re stuck with a frozen water bowl.
Poor babies. They’ve fared well, all things considered.
It’s even been too snowy for outdoor play. When I took Daphne out on a sunnier, milder day, all the white was too thick to sled easily, and we both got tired and trudged back inside, pulling a forlorn snow tube behind us.
Alright, I’m done whining. I’m sick of complaining, anyway.
To fight a perpetually foul mood, I’m working on noticing when little things jolt me into joy.
I’ve had a fair number of these moments, I’m happy to add.
First, I’ve found a few new eggs inside the coop nest boxes. Apparently, our pullets are no longer teenagers as they’ve begun laying lovely brown eggs.
That thrills me not just because of the price of eggs, but because it means we’ve succeeded in nurturing these little girls into young adulthood. They’re like our pets, so it’s gratifying to see them grow into healthy hens, despite the frigid weather.
Looking at that treasure in our kitchen egg stand, which has stood empty for so long, makes me warm and fuzzy.
Second, Valentine’s Day was as nice as it could be, given the circumstances. My husband spoiled me with the Chocolate Tower from Lake Champlain–three tiered boxes of their signature chocolates and truffles, along with their special chocolate frog (who’s too cute to eat) and a gorgeous rose and carnation bouquet from a local florist.
We also enjoyed giving Daphne a Mylar balloon and a cookie cake with lots of icing, since there were no Valentine cupcakes to be had at the local grocer, and seeing her excitement at these simple things. Topping off our array of V-Day sweets was a box of gorgeous dipped cookies from my wonderful in-laws.
Everything has been delicious. I definitely regained the few pounds I lost to illness, and that’s okay.
My Valentine’s festivities included sharing my novelette, “Flight,” on this blog.
I was pleased with its warm reception, and I truly appreciate everyone who took the time to read even just one part of it. Thank you for your support! I plan to share similar pieces here in the future, pieces I feel good about but would probably struggle to have published anywhere else.
Third, I’ve loved seeing how affectionate Daphne has been, and how well she continues to use her “talker,” which is what we call her augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device.
Basically, AAC is any type of system that facilitates communication for limited or nonspeaking people, and Daphne’s form is the communication application TouchChat that she uses on a speech-and-music-dedicated iPad.
If you’d like to learn more about AAC, you can check out this page with links from The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
As I’ve basked in the joy of these little things, I’ve also had the urge to cocoon in our home, a feeling not dissimilar to the one I had during the COVID quarantine, when everything was suddenly so uncertain and we all just wanted to hunker down. Now, I want to turn inward again, reading, writing, and avoiding the cesspool my Instagram feed has suddenly become, thanks to Meta firing most of their human moderators and instead letting AI push out nasty, indiscriminate content that, I’m sure, is getting them record-high engagement. After all, there can be something enthralling about the grisly, right? On my feed, it’s been these random AI-generated reels showing humans cleaning barnacles off various sea animals. The videos are asinine and quite literally make me break out in hives, but I admit it’s hard to look away from them. It’s like repulsive ASMR, and the reels keep coming. Ugh.
So, I’m on the verge of deactivating my Meta accounts and shifting to BlueSky and possibly Substack, though I’m absolutely keeping this WordPress site, my homebase and something I’ve grown to love. You might have noticed it got a bit of a facelift, too, and I plan to keep tweaking it. That’s something else making me happy.
So for now, I’m nesting here at home, making our little sphere as cozy and controlled as possible. In that spirit I’ve been doing some cleaning and reorganizing, particularly in Daphne’s room, and that always feels cathartic.
How are you feeling, and what are you up to? Reading or watching anything good? We loved the limited series Shogun, by the way. A nuanced, beautifully-restrained, and overall fantastic historical drama. If that sounds like your thing, check it out.
See you next week!
XOXO,
Jenn
Jennifer Shaw 