​This weekend we did our first – and last, for awhile – socially distanced entertaining. Saturday night Jory’s cousins and aunt joined us for an outdoor candlelit dinner, and new friends did the same on Sunday. The weather was in the 70s, and, with the mountains as a backdrop, the evenings were gorgeous and fun (how could they be anything but, with those mountains?!)
 
And just like that, everything changed. 
 
Monday, we awake to a 52 degree temperature drop and a snowstorm.
 
Our children, born and raised Angelenos, don’t know what to think.  Neither does the dog.  In fact, she won’t pee or poop outside.
 
There’s nothing like a first snowfall. And I mean first.  Sure, those of you who live in winter regions enjoy the annual inaugural storm. However, having lived in LA for 26 years, I can’t remember my last snowfall. Our kids had played in a preschool yard of snow, but this.…this is a country. A new one at that.
 
Preschool and dance classes are canceled, and Jory risks his life on a Target run to buy three sleds.
 
Our kids are foreigners to snow, and the cruel irony of 21st century Coronavirus is that the girls’ (now virtual) school (located in perpetually sunny LA) is business as usual. Yes, I put on the “you signed up to stay there” hat.  But there is delicious time before school, during break, after school….
 
As the first flakes drop, Ali declares we need to break out the Christmas movies. All three kids think I am overdressing them (until they are outside for 30 seconds). Lillie thinks she can just take off a boot and walk around in a sock to get rid of a prickly (until the sock gets wet and she is far from home). Both girls say we need to return the “broken” sleds because they don’t know how to position their body weight to gain traction on a hill.   
 
My Massachusetts years serve me well, as, like throwing a Frisbee, there is an art to playing in snow. I am proud to say, by Day Two, the Kids Had. It. Down…Frozen. Solid. 
​
The snow, my weather app tells me, will melt by end of the week, so like a coveted guest, we savor every moment with her.
 
As my world outside becomes pristine white, I feel how very deeply I have missed seasons. (And for the record: we pretty much went from summer to winter here!). 
 
The week has had its challenges: the Supreme Court position is prematurely filled as the election looms. A student at Tyler’s school tests positive for Coronavirus. A friend is burying her husband. 
 
And yet, right here, right now, this. This is joy. I teach my kids to sled. We build a snowman (because suddenly, “Do you wanna build a snowman?” isn’t just a Disney ditty). I make hot pumpkin bread and tea. We sit, mesmerized by the falling snow.
 
The alabaster blanket nestles everything; even the mountains bundle up behind thick clouds. Still, the snow falls. And the gorgeous lilt of James Joyce serenades my soul: 
 
Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
 
Upon all of us. Living and dead.

 Corona fatigue.  Almost eight months of quarantining with no end in sight, and we’re all feeling it, from my parents in their 80’s to my 4-year old son.  The novelty of daily life with COVID has worn off, even in a new state. I’m out of ideas to motivate my daughters for virtual learning, despite their amazing teachers.
 
Mentally, we know we're totally fine (barring anyone who has the disease or has lost their job, of course), and yet, emotionally, we’re tired of quarantining.  
 
I find unexpected inspiration in my daughter Lillie Grace and her fourth grade “passion project”. She is designing a comparative study of living through COVID 19 vs. what my grandparents lived through (WWI, Spanish influenza, the Great Depression, WWII – (Grandpa fought in the European Theater), Korean & Vietnam Wars).  My daughter’s keeping it historical, not even getting personal, as Nana was raised in an orphanage after her Polish immigrant mother died in childbirth with her fourth child, when Nana was 2.
 
Lil's project shows it’s pretty much an open book test for this, our generation’s time of testing: wear your mask, don’t gather in large groups, socialize virtually. We can still find solace in Netflix, zoom meetings, the internet, shopping, great books, family games, long walks outside… Yet COVID cases are skyrocketing again. Why the epic fail?
 
Lillie’s exploration into WWII reminds me of how I was Anne Frank’s age when I visited the hidden annex where Anne and seven other people lived for 761 days.  At the time, what I most recall thinking is that, aside from her actual demise, the setup was actually kind of cool: this bookcase hiding stairs to a secret apartment, wherein she no longer had the pressure of school breathing down her neck. Now, I’m thinking, “WTF, teenage self: you thought that was kinda COOL? How bad did you make the pressure of school??? Talk about missing the forest for the trees!”  (sounds like somebody needs a hug....)
 
It shows me how hard it is to really empathize with someone until you’ve experienced even a drop of what they’re going through. 
 
Now that I have the slightest inkling of Anne's predicament, my thoughts drift to that awful moment when the Nazis finally took her away. Did she feel a secret moment of delight in breathing fresh air for the first time in over two years (??!?!?!), or was she too terrified to register that?  Could I ever, even at my best self, while trapped inside with the same people fearing for our lives, write: “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”? 

I struggle with her optimism during Trump’s presidency, where almost half our country thinks his leadership of hate, greed and deceit is not only acceptable, but worth continuing. So when I'm honest with myself, my fatigue is not just about our quarantine, it's helplessness about the blatant selfishness our leader promotes, and the minions who think that is what makes our country great.  How on earth did Anne maintain her faith in humanity during Hitler’s genocide? "WTF Anne?", I can hear my teenage self ask.
 
Wishing I could share her belief in the goodness of people but fearing more fraud in our upcoming presidential election, I distract myself by trying to get the new house together. In our case, that means hiring a mask-wearing handy man. My husband, gifted at a myriad of things like marketing, marriage, raising children, and cooking, lacks the handyman...knack. Give him a Chinese-made desk to assemble, and, many hours and curses later, things appear as clear as a Trump tweet.  For sanity, there are some risks that must be taken in these dangerous times.
 
Enter Handyman Ben*: a kind retiree in his 70s, a father to four boys, grandfather to seven. While building the aforementioned Chinese desk, mounting the TV, and repairing our armoire, I learn that he is also unexpectedly becoming a father to two more boys this week.
 
You read that right. Now, in the age of Trump and Harvey Weinstein, it sounds kinda sordid, so read on:
 
Ben and his wife fostered a boy named Isaac about five years ago. Isaac moved on in the system, and then got into trouble with the law. When asked what social workers should do with him, Isaac replied, “Take me home, back to Ben and Irene’s.” So Isaac, now 11, returned to Ben and Irene’s, who by this time had stopped fostering, but cared deeply about him. This time, Isaac’s 12-year old brother Paul visited him, and decided he wanted to live with them too. Ben and Irene agreed to foster the brothers until their case came up.  They still envisioned a quiet and peaceful retirement, visiting their children and grandchildren. However, at the case meeting, they learned the boys’ father is still in prison, their mother still on drugs, and no one else in the boys’ extended family wants them. 
 
Ben said it broke his heart to think of Isaac and Paul being unwanted.  He looked at Irene and they knew.  Their adoption is finalized today. 
 
So only weeks before our unchartered election, Ben (two decades younger than Anne Frank) breathes new life into her words, and I marvel once again at the beauty in our broken world: 
“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”  

Yes, I keep my ideals because in spite of everything, I do still believe that people are really good at heart....certainly not all people, not even many people, but just enough to keep me going.

*I changed the names ​

​In this amazon age of corporate convenience, we are all urged to shop local.  This was even before small businesses became COVID’s silent fatalities.
 
To be honest, it was low on my priority list, until as a stranger in a strange land, I was recently re-awakened to the joys of shopping local.
 
Turns out, there is a heavenly trifecta of local stores five minutes from our new home. One is a consignment shop you’d think was a one-of-a-kind Crate and Barrel, from which we have yet to leave empty-handed. The second is a huge local bookstore, founded in 1981, where slow browsing is not only allowed, but encouraged. And finally, a bistro called “La Quiche Parisienne” run by a Frenchman named Bruno and his wife Sabine. 
 
Since La Quiche’s décor is American, I was startled by how authentic their food is.  If Proust stumbled upon his madeleine, I have discovered my pain au chocolat.  
One bite into this flakey, buttery pain, and I could taste my years of middle and high school.
 
Those years had become a secret inside of me, but were brought to my consciousness by a simple croissant. Looking back, I now realize we were living in the last days of post-War France. The metros still had cars reserved for those wounded in the war. Everyone over the age of 40 (which seemed so old to my 12 year old self) lived with both a memory of the purpose of community and the faded scars only a Nazi occupation could inflict. 
 
I was aware of this, and yet not aware.
 
We lived on Rue Windsor, named for the Duke of Windsor, whose Duchess, the scandalous Wallis Simpson, was still alive, cloistered in a chateau about a two miles down the road. 
 
It was the last days when people really lived locally.  Next door to us at #11 was a music conservatory; the students’ piano tunes serenading us on hot lazy summer days when the windows were open. Next to that was the year-round marche (farmers’ market) which celebrated the seasons. Three times a week, we honed our French by learning words for the sweet juicy fruit we devoured. 
 
Our neighborhood had every shop you could want: a tabac/brasserie engulfed in a cloud of cigarette smoke, a boulangerie/patisserie whose sweets honored each holiday with jaw-dropping colors and designs, a butchery which proudly hung, along with more sanitized slabs of beef, carcasses of pigs and chickens the sight of which made my siblings and I run. A cheese/dairy shop, whose rancid odors forshadowed its presence, keeping my siblings and I at a run, and around the corner, a seldom-entered pharmacy whose interior always made me think of the recently slain John Lennon’s living room: white white white.  **Note to Helicopter Parents: my parents would send us preteens to these shops by ourselves, armed with only our pigeon French and a purse full of francs. Imagine...**
 
Finally, there was “Comestibles” the local grocery, run by “Monsieur Bigot” (whom my father dubbed Biggie Bigot).  Biggie Bigot, (think fat version of the Muppet’s Swedish Chef) was ancient, though in retrospect, possibly pushing 70. Shopping at Biggie’s was not for those with a timetable or for the faint of heart, thanks to his rancid breath (probably from smoking all those Gitanes at the tabac across the street).  Biggie kept himself mentally sharp by adding all the items in a purchase by hand, muttering the numbers to himself as he wrote them down on paper and added them together. This is how I learned those difficult French numbers over fifty. “Soixante-seize et quatre-vent-trois font cent-soixante neuf et…”  He would then hand us his handwritten receipt of our items, accurate to the smallest denomination of coinage: five centimes (probably about 0.005 American cents in those days).  
 
This became the life we got to know, and the vendors got to knew us.  Whereas my siblings and I were initially ignored and then begrudgingly served at the boulangerie, as we kept returning, we earned their esteem, and even their fondness.  I would order, “un baguette s’il vous plait”, to which I would be corrected, “UNE baguette”. The next day, I would say, “UNE baguette s’il vous plait” to which they would smile (Sacrebleu! A smile from a vender in Paris?!) and jokingly say “un baguette”…We learned the delicate distinctions between a baguette, a batard, a fiscelle, and a pain.  (I still struggle, however, with distinguishing whether any random word is “un” or “une”.)
 
When I was in my mid-thirties, I returned to the charming rue Windsor. But my idyllic neighborhood had disappeared. The butchery and cheese shop, the music conservatory and Biggie Bigot’s – gone.  Apartment buildings belied that there had ever been a vibrant community.  The bistro was empty: for sale.  Everyone drove to supermarches now, and plied their freezers with food for the week, a l’americaine. 
 
Paradoxically, while my years in the City of Lights appear picture perfect, if I’m honest, I realize I’m actually happier now.  How can I say this, in the midst of a pandemic, with the challenge of social distancing? It is largely because back then, I thought happiness was an “outside job”, meaning someone or something other than myself would/could/should make me happy. This belief contributed to my feeling powerless and insecure.  
 
Here, now, today, my daughter and I get our weekly (not daily!) baguette et croissants. Upon seeing us, Bruno leaves his kitchen to tell me (in French bien sure) about a great restaurant I need to try downtown run by a friend of his, and Rebecca (the barrista) checks in with Lillie because she reminds her of her younger self, out for special times with her mom.  I have plans to see if I can work with owner of the bookstore to start a local book group. And Clairon from the consignment shop gives us a special deal on a pair of gorgeous crystal candlesticks that match our chandelier at home.  Because we keep coming back. Because we are home. This, I know, is happiness.
 
When you come visit, I’ll be sure to bring you to my neighborhood nirvana.

Turns out her name is Mrs. Collins!!!

​When our oldest started preschool at the age of 3, the search for the “right” preschool was akin to the diligence some put in to finding a mate.  Dropping off Lillie Grace that first day, I fought back tears, lingered at their “observation window”, and then went calmed my nerves with a Mimosa or four…
 
Seven years and a few grey hairs later, we selected a new preschool we felt most at home with...which also happens to have a strong emotional intelligence program, won the National Blue Ribbon Award, and has been recognized for excellence by the Department of Education (well before our current administration).  Even so, in the time of COVID, there are a lot of unknowns…
 
And unknowns and change are scary, whether you’re four or…significantly past four.  So this morning, when my child wanted to stay home with the dog, I may or may not have gotten him dressed by bribing him with candy for breakfast if he made it to the car in time.
 
Once in the car (while he is devouring the breakfast of Bravehearts, M&Ms) I’m trying to reassure him how much he’s going to love his new school.   “Your teacher is really kind,” I say. “What’s her name?” asks a wise sister.  “Oh.  Yeah. She wants to tell Tyler that herself,” I reply, because frankly, we’ve never even seen her. 
 
I try to get Ty excited about his classroom, except neither Jory nor I have seen his classroom either, because when we interviewed, they did not allow parents to tour.  So I remind him of the fish he liked in the reception area, and the bikes we watched him ride in the outside play area, and the swings the Admission Director pushed him on while we spied from her office. 
 
We arrive early, as one does when nervous.  When the office manager arrives, she lets us in. After temperatures are recorded, the principal takes Tyler back to his classroom, and his teacher, a kind woman whose name is Mrs. Collins, sits with us in the admissions office while her other students take their temps and sign in with the Assistant Teacher.  We tell Mrs. Collins about Tyler and she reassures us of the quality of the program (because in my deepest darkest fears he’s lingering in a corner of a room I’ve never seen, with people he’s never seen, friendless, disoriented and scared.) 
 
She tells us that she talked about Tyler with the nine other students yesterday and they are so excited to have him join them. (Ty had sat in on a class reading of The Gruffalo when he toured with the Admissions Director).  I remember that The Gruffalo is a story about a little mouse who overcomes, practically befriends, his fears, earning the respect of everyone in the forest.  
 
I take a deep breath, realizing that my Littlest Mouse is going to thrive in this beautiful school, and as a parent, so am I.
Jory and the girls and I then go out to celebrate with donuts.