I’m hungry for time that is gone.

Dear Friend,

Time is crushing me with change and passing.

For the first time, I long for an earlier stage of mothering. My child is no longer baby, no trace of her sweet pudge and toddle. She is long and lean, in physique just like my sisters-in-law and mother-in-law when they were children. Arms long, legs long, torso long—long long long.

But her face matches me and, perhaps even

more closely, my sister Jen’s. A strange mirror of genetics where photos of Aunt Jen could be photos of Pippin, minus the fact that her hair curls and twirls and Jen’s hangs straight. If I did not remember carrying this baby in my body and tracking her every breath, I’d wonder if there was a mix up somewhere, if this was actually Jen’s baby. And in some essential ways, she is. She and Jen as kindred spirits, a twinship in their needs and expressions.

I miss my baby. I miss her early words. Her giggles at slapstick comedy in tv shows. The way she’d run out of the house and we’d have to run after her.

I idealized this summer stretch. I made a long list of adventures I wanted to share with Pippin this summer. I missed a key fact: she and I are a little neurospicy on the sensory processing side of things which makes summer harder than I realized when I first pictured us doing all the fun things that have been completely miserable. I keep trying fun things that are just a miss, sometimes for her, sometimes for me, sometimes for us both. Don’t get me started on how Knoebels with its three currencies caused chaos in me and my mother’s adhd brains. The way the overhead lights and constant crowd movement at the Ninja World Championship sent me and Pippin into misery and subsequent shut down.

I used to think I’d grow out of my response to certain stimulus. I’d mature or handle my emotions better or take better care of myself in such a way that I’d be fine no matter what setting I ended up in. But that just isn’t the case; it’s a way of pretending that I’m wired differently than I am.

The summer I wanted isn’t here. The summer I want might never be here. Growing up seems to be the surrender of the wanted for what is.

So maybe I’m hungry for time that never was. What is more the definition of “nostalgia” than that?

With Love,

Dana

^link goes to my storygraph profile because why not also try to be a book influencer along with my other jobs!

1. Splinters by Leslie Jamison

2. An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail by Helene Giannecchini, an England acquisition because Fizcarraldo Editions doesn’t distribute to the USA.

3. O Caledonia! by Elspeth Barker, a group read with the Rebecca Pilgrims.

4. Star Shipped by Cat Sebastion (because I need to recover from Splinters)

5. No! The Art and Activism of Complaining by Sara Ahmed because I need a mental model of what we were trying to do when our daycare closed.

6. Queering Leadership by Hannah Smith. This was an ARC! Not in print yet but I’ll let you know when it’s out.

btw: if you want quality book influencing, try The Rolling Ladder by Abigail Cerquitella .

I kind of love it. Feeling the rush to get in over my head is the gift of an able body.

• Launching a Cohort for the Ground Truth process.

• Launching a print version of NAMING BLUE titled Blue Notes.

• Re-opened my strategy books and… included tarot?!

• Joined a writing cohort.

• Doing some strategic planning with some local nonprofits.

  Lugging the 4.5yo through Hershey Park at the end of a short visit.