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And the whole East Coast family comes out to visit.
And it's all a big party festival type thing.
On the other, it's usually hot and smoky and basically the least Adella-friendly weather of the Pacific Northwest year and there is NO stopping for a break unless you manage to wind yourself up in the hospital like I did last year. Oh what a year it's been!
Gotta say I'm not magically healed, but I guess we've ruled out a ton since then; and I certainly am capable of some essential feminine "cycling" with a little extra weight and some birth control pills.
I think I threw out my list of excluded diagnoses not long ago, so I'll just add that the neurologist thinks my brain looks beautiful, my "neuropathy" at this point is a mere parasthesia, and my cervical MRI/EMG looked unconcerning to the orthopedist. He's pushing "nerve blocks" which sound 1980's sci fi to me, but don't actually involve becoming an android in any recognizable way.
. There are many more tests on the horizon as I pinball between my various specialists, but I'm also just kind of learning to honor the messages my body is sending (pain is a pretty specific message the nerves can telegraph out for myriad reasons) and realizing they may not be telling the whole story in an unbiased fashion. It seems to be a theme that once something triggers or damages nerves in any part of the body they can be eternally sensitized and misfire signals. So take seriously but not literally? Meditate a ton. Lean into the pain. Honor my body. Etc. etc.
My reflux issues have resurged with a vengeance, so we'll be going ahead on that endoscopy as soon as I finish this three month pre-req and locate a new doctor since the one I saw just left the area. Eating as I can. Realizing I've had symptoms of this for a lot longer than I realized and maybe my restricted eating prior to now based on "not feeling right" was kind of intuitive of that.
The heat ain't helping, but we're fanning ourselves through it anyways so long as the air doesn't get any thicker and today appears to be a delicious break for some pouring rain at the county fair!
Andrew and I are mulling our overwhelmingly plentiful options for climate controlling the house. We've flirted with curtains, window treatments, awnings, new-windows, new roller shades, screen doors, and maybe with ductless air conditioning. A lot of feelers are out there, but there's still a ton of uncertainty. And let's not discuss my struggles to figure out a way to actually water our dying trees and arborvitae.
We might just convert the living room into a walk-in fridge and call it good. Oh August and your smoky heated ovenly ways...
But party!! County Fairs. More parties. Plane trips. More parties. Preschool parties.
It's all gonna be ok. Just hot and sweaty for another eon.
Meanwhile things are changing, as they always do.
As promised, the Alex and Olivia brigade have moved back East. Chaya's very first preschool teacher also announced she's moving at the end of the month. And most recently Chaya's good friend Sebstation may be coming back from his many months in Mexico and moving back to Bellingham. In bigger picture news, the Preschool may finally be poised to move ahead to full time school licensing, which would be huge for them and expand their options grandly.
And, the church houses Chaya's preschool - and which I had taken as a spiritual roost this spring - is having some major transition as well. They cannot - by their estimation - afford to continue paying Helen, the rector. After some stir, much confusion and a variety of surprise announcements, her last service will be at the end of the month.
Fortunately it seems like the preschool is mostly insulated from this (there were some concerns for a while about what it all might mean), but it has the most unfortunate effect of leaving the church without a minister. No, not without a minister, but without the minister who drew me to the church in the first place and whose presence mediated some of the challenges of attending a church that is ultimately not very family friendly at this juncture.
A church without young families in the community has a circular problem. With few children, there aren't the resources or involvement for Sunday School or youth ministry, but without youth ministry, young families cannot participate. The church ultimately can't grow and the few families who do attend will likely be limited in their ability to reach out and participate. As such, the church can't grow.
It's a moot issue in one sense, as Andrew is secular and prefers to take Daddy-daughter running time with Chaya when I go. But it's still a big loss of potential community and can feel a little isolating. I still long for a spiritual community that I can obliquely share with my family. There are so many lovely people at St. Paul's, but they are at a different place in their lives for the most part.
I had previously leaned towards attending St. Paul's Bellingham (bigger community and my dad still attends) more often, but I didn't because Helen gave the most amazing transformative sermons and attended prayers in a way that outright spoke to my soul. .
Set adrift, but in an open way. I don't really know what will evolve. What will happen at the nearby church? Life is full of question marks and different tides to float down mindfully.
And honestly, there is now a chance that our own family might move. It's too ill-developed a chance to discuss, but in some grander ways I think we understood that living in Mt Vernon while Andrew works at EI in Mukilteo was perhaps not sustainable for the rest of our lives. I was hoping to live somewhere for longer than 2 years (I guess 3 is a record in my adult life) and we still might, but there are a series of opportunities that may be coming together. If they do align, I think it would quite appropriately be called Fate. Or something akin to that. Maybe just "an offer too good to refuse."
More on that later perhaps if anything develops. But it certainly lends to the ebb and flow and changeability of life.
I'm surprised at how much more easily I contemplate moving at this point than previously. Moving from Bellingham was painful and hard. It took a long grieving process and I don't think I would have handled it as well if I didn't have friends and family out here (it helped was still so close to Bellingham). Now, I still feel very attached, and would love to move back to Bellingham or stay here forever. But I'm also kind of at a *shrug* and adventure if it's the right place and the right time.
I wonder if some of it is Chaya growing older and removing myself further from that cocoon of the first few years. Somebody told me before she was born that I would nest deeply into HOME when she was born and it would be a small fiercely protected world of her and me for a while. In retrospect that seems apt. Now that she's a little more mobile, adaptable and independent, my own adjustments to a new place seem less devastating and more interesting.
Or maybe I just recognize that there's a wind of change in the air and am ready to cast myself aloft into it. To every thing there is a season turn turn turn turn turn turn and keep turning because Chaya is impervious to the nausea and dizziness of a grownup AAAAAAAAH KEEP TURNING!!!
Ok, and with that, we shall now enjoy our little cool spell and celebrate Chaya's impending birthday with a trip to the county fair!
Bring on the animals for petting!!
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