hello IRL!

SUMMER 2024

You’re making a sandwich for someone else. You’re making a sandwich for yourself. You’re at the hair salon (covering your grays). You’re printing a boarding pass. You’re buying America-colored necklace strands at the five-and-dime because your kids will like wearing them on the fourth (but you feel bad about the plastic waste, the junk that will end up in the trash). You’re trying to snap a good photo of your zinnias (though you’ll show it to no one). You’re returning the sofa cushions to the sofa (mostly happily because it seems the kids aren’t too old for forts after all). You’re closing your book again and again and again, knowing you won’t get any reading done (but you carry it with you just in case). You’re stirring spaghetti noodles into boiling water. You’re fishing goggles off the bottom of the pool. You’re shouting, “Put on sunscreen!” (but you are worried about the aerosol, you are weighing which is worse, sunburn or endocrine disruption). You’re hauling yourself out of the SUV to move the soccer goal (the fishing pole, the baseballs, the sidewalk chalk) so you can pull into the garage. You’re listening to a podcast in the camp pick-up line, Googling Munchausen-by-proxy, whispering prayers for kids you’ve never met. You’re Facetiming your parents. You’re scrubbing sticky watermelon syrup from the kitchen counter. You’re washing towels. You’re locating a single flip-flop. You’re riding in the passenger seat, trying to set up a screen on the back of your headrest for a movie you can’t watch. You’re plucking warm grape tomatoes from the vine. You’re watching your daughter gather blueberries in the basket of her shirt (trying not to cry, trying not to be that way you always are). You’re lying in the sun though you know you shouldn’t anymore. You’re buying higher SPF sunscreen to atone. You’re buying the snack-size chip bags you allow only in summer. You’re muddling mint for mojitos, doing a can-opener into the pool for your fortieth birthday, mailing graduation presents. You’re shaving your legs, painting your toenails. You’re unlatching the locks on the chicken coop, watering the ranunculus, wondering if you should start a foster parent application. You’re dyeing your kids’ hair with boiling Kool-Aid (because who cares). You’re digging up the unruly oregano, hanging it from the oven hood (because you like the way it looks). You’re watching the new animated movie at the theater, sucking on Milk Duds. You’re pulling weeds, worrying about politics, calculating screen times. You’re making lists. You’re hunting travel-sized shaving cream at Target. You’re sitting cross-legged in the public library, your kids playing with animal figurines again, like they did five years ago (always: trying not to cry). You’re tying tags onto party favors, asking for hugs from the last of your children to ever be seven years old. You’re calculating how long until fall, how long until winter, how long. You’re letting go, holding on, letting go.