Still and Here

no. 42

I send my Substack to Leifer after I finish writing. He reads it. He says it’s good. He also says it’s hard to read—at least lately.

“I worry about you all the time,” I tell him.
“I worry about you too, amore, and how you’re managing with the kids,” he replies.

“I’m the lucky one. I have the kids,” I say.
“Yes, but it’s still hard. I know that,” he answers.

I can’t shake the heavy feeling on my shoulders. I feel like I’m in the center of it all, thrust into this position involuntarily. Like the hub of a wheel—every spoke comes to me. The clouds sit above my head and on my shoulders. Everything is hazy. I struggle to see through it, or see much at all.

My mom came for ten days. She drove the boys to school in the morning. She took them to the zoo. She said she felt troubled and discontent. I took naps while she was here—I cocooned. I let my mind stop racing. It didn’t feel necessary for both of us to be on the hamster wheel.

We did color-by-number drawings. We did color-by-sticker. Leif makes books—he fills the pages with stick figures of our family, with names and ages written above. He staples the pages along the left margin when he finishes, then immediately starts the next one, with the voracity of Stephen King. We read his books together.

Enzo has his own projects too. He is meticulous, and his creations are small. I watch him concentrate on the page. The boys create and create. I find their work taped to the walls, scattered across floors, stacked in the closet. Eleanor brings over a fresh stack of printer paper. I find the markers without caps thrown on the ground. The house feels like the art studio of a mad pack rat. I waver between wanting to clean and letting it be a reminder to all of us to keep creating.

We went to the protest on Saturday. I heard there were seven million people across the country who protested. If we reach eleven million, that’s when change begins, they say.

I took Leifer’s red truck and piled the boys into it. I wanted them contained since we were on the side of Highway 1. They stood in the back of the truck, then crawled into the cab. We opened the back window so we could see each other.

We met a woman named Joann who asked about Leifer and gave the boys granola bars. We met a dog named Lucy, who was content in the shade of the truck. We met another woman with a small boy—she asked about Leifer, and tears streamed down her face. “Not even Trump can make me cry,” she said. I hugged her.

I told the boys that what they were doing was important. I saw many people from my parents’ generation, not many from mine, and only one other child. The boys held up their signs for Dad. Lucy’s mom gave Lucca a small sign with a gecko on it and the word resist. Lucca held that sign all day; he wasn’t going to let it go. Eleanor tried to get a picture of him with it.

Enzo, Lucca, and Leif protesting.

Last night I opened New York Magazine. The cover story is about 26 Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan. Two women stare out with worried eyes, one clutching the other around the chest as if to hold her up. The shot is zoomed in on their faces, capturing excruciating agony. Along the page’s edge are words like: immigrants, court hearings, routine, targeted, ICE, taken, families.

I know there are others out there struggling through this convoluted, horrific system. A few pages later is a photo of a dad, a stroller, a mom, and an infant. The scene is chaotic and heartbreaking. The immigrants show their faces; ICE covers theirs with masks. Humanitarians witness and take pictures. I cannot tear my eyes from the page.

I did nothing yesterday. I rolled out of bed late and took the boys to school late. I came home and lay on the couch. Lucca eventually settled into a nap and we both slept. I awoke to what sounded like a knock at the door. I wondered if I was dreaming, my eyelids forcing themselves closed again. Lucca was sweating. We were calm and content and at ease. But it wasn’t “nothing.” I rested—we rested. Lucca and me. His full weight collapsed into my body.

I think about all the pictures we’ll take this year that won’t have Leifer in them. Milestones. The first day of school. Halloween. A day at the beach. Birthday parties. I wonder how many others will be missing from their family photos.

The rule of law is being prioritized above all else: if you broke the law, then we will take you out. It doesn’t matter if it was this year or fifty years ago. The act leaves a wake of destruction. There is an army of grandmothers, aunts, siblings, and community members picking up the extra responsibilities when families are chopped into pieces.

This is a family issue to me, whereas public discourse is concerned only with law.

When Leifer left, I watched the boys carefully for outbursts, disinterest—anything out of the ordinary. I assumed our life would work the same, or that everything would simply “slide over” to me by default. That I would do what Leifer did.

I see now that is not possible, and not even right. But I didn’t want to face that. How could I? It was all up to me.

I think about Leifer in all my decisions. I consider how he would feel, what he would want. I make note to ask him later. He has never pressured me or questioned me. It isn’t him who pushes—it’s me. I put so much pressure on myself to be mother and father.

This is the wilderness, and I am lost in it. Or at least, I was.

The boys and I hunker inside, having battened down the hatches long ago, to weather the relentless storm outside. We can’t see the storm or what’s in the distance, but I look for it less and less now. I see how we can live within it.

I dreamt of Leifer getting his papers, and I awoke with a feeling of hope. It was a relic—something long forgotten that suddenly resurfaced. I accepted it in my dreams. I let it in. I treasured that feeling, and I felt okay with it, even though I still don’t know. I don’t know anything about Leifer’s papers except that we’ve submitted what we were supposed to.

And now we sit with disorientation.

“Dad is going to Lima,” I tell the boys.
Leif says, “Oh, that means we are going to Peru soon.”

He knows Dad goes to Lima to get us when we travel to Peru.
“I told my friends at school that I won’t be here for Christmas because I’m going to Peru. I want to see my friend Roy (who is in Peru) for three weeks. But two weeks is okay too.”

Precocious, Leif is.

I don’t know when we will be together; our plans are still unmade.

Here is your moment of mindfulness:

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