It reads like a plot from some dystopian Ray Bradbury novel:
 
People wait months for their chance to get injected with poison so they can safely re-enter society. 
 
And, as in all good novels, there’s a twist: like an inverse lottery, some select few will become fiercely afflicted over the next 48 hours, suffering the very illness they are trying to avoid. 
 
28 hours after my second Moderna vaccination, I actually feel well enough to take a hot bath (because I could not, even under my mountain of blankets, get warm).  It is at this point that my fever has gone down to 102.3. Such relief!!  The hot bath helps, but of course, once out of the bath, chills ravage me.
 
Hours before I had actually wondered, as one does in the depth of night, if I would be the first person to die from the vaccine. At its worst, everything ached except my stomach (I had not eaten much because I did not want energy to go to heavy digestion). My back, all muscles, head, arm - oh my poor arm!! -  all ached and ached (arm was throbbing). The worst part is that every time I moved, even an inch in bed, chills would overtake me. My body was under siege, and I felt (viscerally felt) an understanding of what it must be like to die from COVID: to feel so wasted, so helpless. My sympathy about COVID morphed into empathy. I could not fall into a deep sleep (too uncomfortable) and had no energy to do anything but lie there, drifting in and out of consciousness.  COVID is real, I grasp in a new way, from my no-man’s land of malaise. Once it gets into your lungs, your body is too utterly wasted to fight. Having no energy like this frightens me.  I can’t even get warm.  

Yet if this vaccine will keep me from getting the real thing, I am forever grateful.  I like to think I’d be one to survive COVID, but I also liked to think I’d feel fine after the vaccine. I feel renewed sympathy for those who contract COVID.
 
“Are you still sick, Mama?” four-year old Tyler asks 30 hours after the injection, his head pressed close to mine. I grunt affirmatively. “Drink this, you’ll feel better,” he assures me, handing me water from the pitcher I had filled on death’s door at 3AM the night before.  After the water, I have to promise him that we will play catch tomorrow because I simply cannot today…tomorrow being code for when I can.
 
My husband Jory has done an amazing job of feeding, occupying and getting safely to school all three kids (the oldest still in elementary school). He gets his shot on Saturday, and I will be on high alert. (He felt effects after his first shot!!).  So I pray my energy is back 75 hours post-vaccine.
 
And it is slowly coming back. Last night I felt well enough to read to my Ali.  She launched, with the support and guidance of her amazing school librarian Annie Huggins, a Newbery Award book group for third-graders. They are reading The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth.  It is the simple story of a Japanese artist who, commissioned to create a death scene of the Buddha, reflects on the character of the Buddha in each animal he paints. As we are reading it together, it gives me insight in to the beauty and wisdom of Buddhism. 
 
In synchronicity, I find that Buddha is quoted as saying, “To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep the mind strong and clear.” A duty. Bang.  The older I get, the more I understand what a DUTY exercise, good diet, and proper supplements are.  From there, emerges good sleep, good focus, good mood, and, as the Buddha says, good mind. 
 
As for the author who inspired this post, I respect Ray Bradbury enormously. However, I find him depressing, so have only read him when tutoring (yup, someone actually had to pay me to read Bradbury).  Still, his insight is tremendous.  
 
48 hours post-vaccination, my fever is down to 99.7, my arm still in anguish, and my energy fragile at best.  There are those who would say (despite my asthmatic lungs) that I was foolish to subject myself to the vaccine.  To them, I quote Bradbury:

​“Jump! You will learn how to unfold your wings as you fall.”  

​Much of life is mundane, punctuated by mayhem.  
 
This week, in addition to trying to deal with Mom’s failing health from across the country, we received the surprising news that Tyler’s instructors do not deem him sufficiently prepared for kindergarten, so they have rejected his plans to advance from their preschool into their kindergarten.
 
Mayhem indeed….like who was supposed to prepare him for your kindergarten if not you? And what about all those kids who – gasp – don’t attend preschool before your kindergarten??? (Will stop reflecting on this madness here and now as I need to start researching kindergartens. Clearly this school is not a fit). 
 
That is why it is so refreshing – and necessary – to plan for the magical amidst the mundane and mayhem.
 
When I was in 12th grade, my Godmother Christine Whelahan came to visit us in Paris after the tragic death of her husband. One day, my mom invited me to skip school and go to Giverney with her and Aunt Chris to see Monet’s enchanting gardens and charming house. I remember every thing about this day.  It was the only time I had a hooky day with my mom, and having my Godmother there was an added bonus. It made a huge impression on me.
 
So much so, that every year, since they were in kindergarten, I have taken the girls out of school one day a year for a hooky day: Ali in the Fall, Lillie in the Spring.  (I will do the same for Ty, should he ever make it to kindergarten…).
 
It is a day that we just focus on each other and splurge.  When we lived in LA and had Disneyland passes, that was our Day.  Then, we had Universal passes for two years. 
 
So I had to do some serious research for Hooky Day 2021.  I heard fantastic things about a Victorian Tea House in Albuquerque that has thematic seatings that last for two hours. April’s Theme? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Perfect. I booked it in February, as the Tea House is operating at 25% capacity.
 
So on Wednesday, after the school counted Lillie Grace as present, I biked to school and released her for our Day of Fun. 
 
It was as Magical as we had hoped. Time did stand still in this private corner nook they gave us, with flowers brightly blooming outside the  windows in both walls and a curtain hiding us from the rest of the establishment. I was reminded of how much I love to spend time with this dear 10-year old girl. How funny, interesting and unique she is.  How much social drama there can be in fourth grade. How important it is to have a bigger goal for yourself, so the pettiness does not become all-consuming.  How fast time is flying. How delicious the scones and dainty Bucket family empanadas and Oompa Loompa Salad are. 
 
A chance to exhale and breathe in the moment, here, now with my precious daughter. To forget about dementia and school applications, and tests and bills and my impending second vaccination and the book project.
 
It was a golden ticket day in every way; one that I will well remember in my golden years.

Having a parent with dementia is like riding a bike with an irreversible leak in one of the tires.  Only it’s a tire you can’t change.  And you can’t patch the leak.  Slowly, daily, the life you have always known is slipping away from you. You must keep pedaling, keep living, but there’s nothing you can do to fix it.  
 
I am never quite sure what I will find when I call my mom’s room in the nursing home. Some days, my mom is her normal sweet self. And other days, although she always still recognizes my voice, she is disoriented. And her aphasia has her saying things that just don’t make sense. The hardest part is that this could go on for years. 
 
Compound this with COVID. There was a case on her floor, so she is in quarantine for two weeks as per Massachusetts, despite having been twice vaccinated. Some of the staff (I discovered in a lucid call yesterday) have been sarcastic and disrespectful to her.  I have called her nursing home (literally) fifteen times in the last 22 hours to address this, mostly talking to answering machines of administrators who don't call back.  I will prevail until solutions are found.  Hell hath no fury like the daughter of a scorned mother. Two weeks to the day after my second vaccination I will fly out to see her, and will be there for Mother’s Day. 
 
For the first time, I missed my blog deadline last week, and a zoom meeting I had set up with friends.  I’m abnormally distracted.  Having parents whose health is failing is a low level constant stress, like pedaling a bike with flat tires.  I don’t like to talk about it, or even think about it, but it’s exhausting. My friend Molly, whose mother has full-blown dementia, found out in neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta’s latest book Keep Sharp that when you are the primary 24/7 caretaker of a dementia patient (usually a parent) your likelihood of getting dementia skyrockets unless you take daily action ASAP. I'm not even the primary caretaker, but the disease casts a malaise on all the involved and concerned.
 
On the bright side, having kids later in life means that my waking hours (when not calling the nursing home) are filled with hustle & bustle and LIFE!  Our first week back at brick and mortar school has meant that we bike daily (we share shifts with a very hip neighbor mom). There’s been play dates, new swim lessons, playing catch (Ty has his first little league game tomorrow, with Jory as his coach. And he was put on the Red Sox. Hallelujah!), theater group, girl drama (realllllly??), vocal coaching, book group fun, delight with teachers, dinner celebrations, and the weekly spelling test to conquer.

Add to this the joy of dear friends Mary Clark and Lauri Lee, who are daily cheering me on to seven hours a week spent writing my book. It is ON. Full ON.
 
Combine that with biggest highlight of things opening up: friends from Los Angeles coming to visit. Uncle John Maraffi flew out for an amazing outdoor Easter dinner and kept us all entertained for days. Our dear friends Lauren and Austin Fite stopped by en route to Tennessee. We shared brunch, stories and many many laughs. Lauren asked if I missed LA. I honestly hadn’t focused on that, so my first answer was, “Well, the ocean…”. But as they drove off, I realized with great sadness that what I most miss from LA are friends like the Fites.  They are family to us now, as we’ve grown together and have gone through so much over the years.
 
A place is ultimately always the people who inhabit it, isn’t it?  
 
Thankfully, we’ve started to make remarkable friends here (one of whom, Marcia Gordon, is my Monday yoga buddy and joined us for Easter dinner.  We met through a mutual friend – in LA.).  
 
Canadian author Anthony Douglas Williams’ words are so true: “Mingle often with Good People to Keep Your Soul Nourished.” How starved our COVID-weary souls are!! 
 
Our old friends who become family keep us young, and it is our new friends who keep us current.  Here's to both!