blink, and you’ll miss it

“As we age, we are bound to find comfort from the notion that it takes generations for a way of life to fade.
But under certain circumstances…this process can occur in the comparative blink of an eye.”

                                                                                                      — A Gentleman In Moscow, Amor Towles

scenes from Halloween

Ferdinand. Coco. The Lego Movie. Frozen (at the outset). The list of movies that Junebug, age 4, has found fear-inducing is long and, at times, surprising. Even more surprising is the one movie we thought would terrify her but which she instead found delightful: The Nightmare Before Christmas. We watched it on the big screen at an outdoor movie night with some friends a week ago as a precursor to Halloween, and Junebug found the entire experience utterly delightful. We joined the same friends last weekend to celebrate the holiday in earnest.

big thoughts and bigger feelings

Language betrays us all, young and old. As adults, we learn to keep a poker face and hide our feelings. Kids, on the other hand, wear their emotions on their sleeves — none more so than Junebug, who at four is a whirlwind of big thoughts and even bigger feelings.

layers of uncertainty

There is a certain amount of tension between our love of change and thirst for new experiences on the one hand and the stress of living in near constant uncertainty on the other. These two aspects are integral to the Foreign Service experience and coexist in a delicate balance. Stay in one post too long, particularly if the assignment is arduous, and one is bound to develop itchy feet. Change positions too often, and life becomes a blur of continuous packouts, job searches, and intercontinental moves. The pandemic has tipped the scales in this equation, magnifying the stress and uncertainty at the same time that it has nullified much of what makes this lifestyle appealing.

the best of times

The pandemic has simultaneously magnified the joys and horrors of parenthood. Spending every waking moment of every day with our kids is sure to strengthen our familial bonds…assuming they don’t drive us to lunacy or homicide first. Just as Munchkin has become more pliant following our relocation to Arizona, Junebug — who for many months had embodied the ideal of giggly, cuddly toddler sweetness — developed a disagreeable streak. Not for the first time in our six-and-a-half years of parenthood have we juxtaposed Junebug’s antics with our vague recollections of Munchkin’s behavior at this age, debating which phase of childhood we liked the best.

summer break

This is the first year that we could tell that Munchkin was really looking forward to summer vacation. He had always liked school and was enjoying his year in kindergarten until the pandemic hit. What was evident before – and became crystal clear during the coronavirus lockdown – is that he enjoyed the social aspect of school considerably more than academics. After in-person classes were suspended, sustaining his interest in school became a daily struggle, even though he maintained his motivation to learn how to read.

deep down the rabbit-hole

Birding is, admittedly, an eccentric hobby – and, as with most niche obsessions, things get weirder the deeper one goes down the rabbit-hole of serious ornithology. Birding has its own language, centered on bird taxa and the frequency of their occurrence in a given location. There are clubs that do bird counts and elected committees that adjudicate sightings and compile bird lists. D is thankful for their efforts, without which his relatively casual engagement with this hobby would not be possible.

solitary confinement

As Americans under coronavirus lockdown in the Philippines, we feel like we are living two alternate realities. On the one hand, we are mortified by the news back home. With testing delays and half-measures contributing to the United States now leading the world in the number of confirmed cases, the American response seems critically inadequate. On the other hand, we are now two weeks into an increasingly restrictive “enhanced” community quarantine in Manila and feeling the acute pressure of draconian measures imposed on us. If the response in the United States has not gone far enough, the reality we are living suggests that it is also quite easy to go overboard in the other direction.

the sacred deer of Nara

Much as we loved Kyoto, after a couple of days of jam-packed sightseeing, it was time for a change of scenery. The crowds might have been less oppressive had we planned our stay midweek. Instead, as luck would have it, our visit to Kyoto fell on the first pleasant weekend after a massive typhoon had rocked the country. After two days of battling the crowds and trying to squeeze in a representative number of sights, we realized we needed to take the intensity down a couple of notches. Instead of spending a third day shuttling between temples in Kyoto, we headed south for a day trip to Nara.

hometown Halloween

We hit the sweet spot with last year’s Halloween celebration. Munchkin was obsessed with The Three Little Pigs for most of the year. Dressing up as the little pigs to his bad wolf was an easy win, and the wolf costume S’s mom made for him got plenty of use before and after the holiday. This year, Munchkin’s tastes have evolved too fast to keep pace.