Sep 19, 2022
Watching the Clock: On Parenting in the Climate Crisis
I practice thinking about time like a geologist, but, mostly, I can manage only to think about it like a mother.
I practice thinking about time like a geologist, but, mostly, I can manage only to think about it like a mother.
I have never felt further from a former version of myself as I do now, here, today.
When it comes to food prep, I have to be honest with myself about what I’m capable of—and, more importantly, what I’m not.
In Nigeria, I grew up to see what difference a generous family member abroad could do for their loved ones back home.
I tell her I’m surprised that no one else had ever brought up her stutter to her before. She’s surprised that I’m surprised.
They led me to a place where trust became possible.
In that way, lullabies are like a language of their own.
Immigrant nostalgia is a Hydra—a lashing, many-headed thing made of grief.
The problem isn’t the students. It’s the unforgiving reality of the American education system.
The problem wasn’t that I was lazy or easily stressed out. It was that grocery shopping is often inaccessible to neurodivergent people.
What a gift it is to be asked to feed a person, but what a further gift for that person to ask if they might be taught to make what you make.
The body tells many stories—ones of solace and delight, indulgence and languishing, stories of ache, illness, love.
What I needed was a lifeline—a project that would make this whole thing feel worthwhile. Monica Lynne led me to that answer.
I knew there was nothing natural about my homeownership. I had merely found a lucky loophole in the midst of tremendous misfortune.
As I was learning to say with confidence that I was a woman, I struggled to understand what that meant to me.
When I developed nerve problems in my hands, so much of what we do in the kitchen was suddenly inaccessible to me.
We had no sense of “ecological time,” the cadence of the natural environment. Mostly, I experienced the natural world as lack.
“In Cantonese,” my mother says, “love isn’t so frivolous.”
