“Did you know the Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the world?” I said to Nick as we crossed the Bay Bridge to Annapolis. The Bay below us was white-gold and flashing in the sun, a broad sheet of aluminum foil.
“Wait, what?” my five-year-old asked from the back seat.
“We’re crossing the Chesapeake Bay!” I backpedaled.
“Do you..not know what an estuary is..” Nick said, not unkindly.
“Shut up!” I said, hating to be seen as the bullshitter I am.
My child gasped like I’d said a slur. No, I don’t know what an estuary is. What am I, a clam?
Last year, Desi started public pre-K and I had a precious little tantrum about how we were going to deal with the 2-3 days per month that his school was closed or had early dismissals for teacher in-service days and holidays. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
It’s easy to laugh at now that we’re all in hell, but I was not then in a position to work from home without crawling on my hands and knees begging for permission. The logistical threat to our family was real. So we did the thing that American working parents are forced to do with our family-hostile work culture, absent any structural support: we leveraged our privilege in the form of hiring babysitters and taking paid days off in order to quilt together a solution that ultimately only benefitted our family. This would turn out to be good practice! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah hahahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha
Anyway, last October, I took Desi to the National Aquarium in Baltimore on one of the days his school was closed. He is still into marine life but a year ago, he was deep in the facts-reciting, species-memorizing subject-matter-expert phase. It was a hit, and at four years old, it was one of the first ever outings where I didn’t spend the day hectoring or corralling him; I had fun, too.
We got Shake Shack for lunch afterwards, drenched from the cold autumn rain. “You should have brought an umbrella,” he said in a pointed and bratty tone. “Maybe you should have brought an umbrella!” I said, matching him, which was a risk. He giggled, though. Just me and my short friend here, busting each other’s chops over malts!! A perfect day.
When I got the email from the aquarium announcing their COVID protocol for reopening, I was eager to repeat our outing again this year. My more risk-averse spouse didn’t flinch when I ran it by him. I was amped. I made a reservation for two days after the election thinking that no matter how things went, the aquarium would be a respite. Under the sea, there is no president, there is just the pull of the tides and certain death. Soothing.
The trip also marked the last week of fully remote school until the beginning of the hybrid model the following week, and my return to working full-time. Like an end of summer celebration, but in November.
Moving through the aquarium, emptied of other patrons, was dreamlike and luxurious. I remember feeling glad I’d worn a dressy top and worn makeup, even if the lower two-thirds of my face went unseen. It felt like we were Beyoncé and Jay-Z at the Louvre. It felt like I was at a wedding reception, a gala, an afterlife, a coma.
I watched the jellyfish as though stoned, struck down with awe and jealousy. I wanted to be like them, to have no body dysmorphia, no anxiety, no student loans. To be a few cells clanging together and that’s it. To have nothing to hide, for my guts to be on display through my translucent skin. There is a Silver Jews line: I want to be like water if I can/’Cause water doesn’t give a damn.
I cannot. Impossible, for me, to be like water, to be like the jellies. Impossible to not care, to not think. Though my winter skin tone approaches translucence.
When I was a high school swimmer, I hated everything about being on the swim team except the swimming itself. Clawing myself down the long watery panes of the pool, no lights, no sound, no racing adolescent thoughts. All stimuli extinguished for 90 minutes before dinner four times a week. I quit the swim team after my sophomore year and it took me more than a decade to find that version of peace again. It feels sometimes like I will be chasing it the rest of my life.
An aquarium placard: “The wood frog is frozen alive in the winter and can stay that way for seven months. In spring, it thaws out and simply hops away.”
When we left the aquarium and headed for Shake Shack, I found myself twenty paces or so in front of Desi and Nick as usual. A fast walker married to a slow walker, an unhurried child. They were pointing into the harbor, Nick was lifting him up to see.
There were two jellyfish floating there, inert, in the cold November waters. I wondered if they were dead, or just alone in the vastness of the largest estuary in the world. I did not want to be like them. I wanted to be a hot-blooded person eating cheese fries. How do jellyfish know what to do when they get up in the morning? Or, do they even sleep?
Desi started back in the classroom two days a week last week. I walked him to the entrance and he ran through the doors, his mask being sucked in and out with his eager breath. I don’t know what his classroom looks like, or who is in his class. I don’t know what any of the babies in Jane’s class look like, or who their parents are. It’s like I push both of them down a chute and they vanish.
This is not a complaint, I guess, it’s just unusual. It’s an uncomfortable preview of the lives they will have without me, the dorm rooms I will be asked not to enter when I visit, the text threads that will make them snort, and then when I ask them what’s funny, they will say, nothing, mom. It will be most of their lives that they will have without me. I wonder if I will be lonely without them, when I was not lonely before them.
Two days after Desi started back in the classroom, the superintendent sent a message out warning that schools might close again if our positivity rate keeps climbing. I will be crushed to deliver this news to him again. He needs to have his separate sphere, his opportunity to be himself apart from his parents’ gaze, to learn, to play. He needs, to put it plainly, a life!
I find it hard to believe that the wood frog thaws and carries on like nothing happened!! Like, it’s just spring now?? when the last time it was awake and hopping around, it was not spring? If I was a frog, that would hold my attention. I would feel a little differently!!!
Per Wikipedia, an estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. The largest estuary in the world is the St. Lawrence River.
yr mate,
Evie
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