Good morning from the back porch

Trying something different.

I'm sitting in the sole patch of shade on my porch. It's really a deck, a dubious structure of untreated wood glommed on to the back end of our kitchen by the house's previous owner's brother (a man my husband has disdainfully referred to in the past three years as Bubba Home Repair). I don't know how much longer it will last us, honestly. The wood is rotting in a few places. But for now it's fully enclosed and mostly visible through the glass kitchen door, and as such it's a godsend to me with two small children and an unfenced yard.

When we first moved into this house in fall 2022, I had grand visions for a tastefully appointed outdoor space. A picnic table, maybe, and a few tidy toys. Lol. See above.

When I sit down to write something, too, I have grand visions for a thoughtful and oft-revised essay with something important to say. But finding stretches of time when I can get my mind together, and when I can open my laptop without fear of catching strays from a plastic tube soaker, are harder to come by.

Here we are, then, on the muggy first day of summer. I'm taking this moment to write something and I'm going to let myself be happy with the outcome no matter what it looks like, and hit send. I am showing up on Substack as I show up with my kids on our battered porch: grateful to have it, such as it is.

It is the first day of summer and the promise of a day trip to the lake shimmers in the later distance. For now, it's popsicles for breakfast (another nonexistent facet of my one-time ideals) and tapping out this post with two thumbs while my four-year-old maintains a steady stream of facts about Tyrannosaurus Rex. My two-year-old is feeding his popsicle to a plastic parasaurolophus. I'm not going to intervene unless he dips the popsicle in one of my potted plants. It's none of my business (but ingesting more than, say, half a teaspoon of soil is where I draw the line).

A little over two years ago I wrote about being in the quiet, waiting for change. We were waiting for the arrival of my now-two-year-old (who made his appearance eleven days after his due date, not that anyone was counting least of all me).

Today I'm feeling a sort of second limbo, as my husband is in an uncertain spot with work and I'm checking my email every day to see if the federal education grant I applied for has survived the machinations of DOGE. Maybe I'll be back in school this fall and maybe I won't. Maybe our work-life balance will need to change soon and maybe we can just keep chugging along. In the chalk-and-popsicle chaos, I'm waiting for change.

My four-year-old is balancing a five-gallon bucket containing a few inches of water on top of a Sit-n-Spin. My two-year-old, still working on his popsicle, shouts unintelligible but vaguely encouraging commentary from a tiny plastic Adirondack chair. Early Intervention is coming on Monday to assess him for speech therapy. More waiting, more maybe-change. “If we cover up all the bird poop on the playhouse with chalk, it will be clean again,” shouts my four-year-old, who has shifted to another activity in the time it took to type this paragraph.

It's almost eight a.m. and I need to water my garden before the heat dome of this weekend settles upon us. We have a picnic to pack and bathing suits to change into— well, me and the two-year-old, that is. The four-year-old has been ready for the lake since dawn.

I wrote a few hundred words and I moderated a couple of fights and I drank my coffee, and the day is beginning. Birds have strung the power lines crisscrossing our yard like tiny notes on sheet music. I can't remember what the lines on sheet music are called. I could look it up, but I won't now. My two-year-old's socks are wet, and he's hollering.