Truck house glimmer report

I'm writing this letter from the couch, sitting next to my tiny son who's watching rally car races on TV. We had been watching snow plows, and then he asked for Bluey, and then he got bored (I think because Bingo wasn't in this episode) and he asked for "dump trucks—no, garbage trucks—no, cool cars." So here we are.

It's the last day of midwinter break, an indignity we accept from his daycare because it's a Montessori School, so they operate on a school calendar, don't even get me started on the entire summer break, the summer programming that's on top of the year's tuition. But he's not going back to school Monday because there was a covid exposure last week, so we have another week at home in quarantine. So I'm writing from the couch instead of my desk while my husband goes to Target to curbside-pickup even more emergency toys. This time it's a little garage and service station for Matchbox cars.

I just paused writing to put on the next video, this time, as requested, trial trucks. I never expected us to be truck household, but last summer our nanny was taking him to the park for a few hours every day, because that was the only thing there was to do, and she pointed out the buses to him as they passed by, because that was the only thing to do, and so he started noticing buses, and trucks, and when we left the city he was in love with the moving truck, and one day at our big suburban Stop & Shop, before cases spiked and we stopped going inside, my husband grabbed a $2 Matchbox dump truck. Now I think there are probably 20, and that's not counting the two sets of plastic cars, the wooden trucks that go on the train tracks, the dump truck that's also a spoon. We're overrun, but the toddler is so happy, scooting them along the floor or the bookshelf or his belly during a diaper change.

I didn't intend to be a truck house and I didn't intend to write a whole newsletter about it, but what else can you write to the soundtrack of trial trucks churning through the mud? 

Last week I wrote about glimmers, and some of you shared yours with me, and I'm going to share them back with the (broader, plural) you. I've been thinking about glimmers still this week, the idea of them as a "cue of safety." It's not just crystals and scented candles, though those are very real. But understanding why they're glimmers—they trigger a feeling of safety in your body. Giving yourself joy isn't frivolous, it's keeping yourself safe. Here are some of the things keeping you safe:

"My glimmer fave is earrings. I've bought a lot of them on my travels but I wasn't wearing them. A few weeks ago, I took the little jewelry box from the cupboard to the kitchen counter, where I see it every morning. And then I open it and put on a pair of earrings that makes me smile, both remembering where I bought them and because they are pretty little things. Today, I'm wearing a pair of paua shell pelican earrings. And every time I think about them or see them as I pass the mirror, they make me smile."

"I just did a whole gallery wall in my office of all framed things that I am realizing now are glimmers: postcards from friends, letterpress prints, watercolors, illustrations from books, cross stitches made by friends, a copy of the first check I ever got for a piece of my writing (see attached photos).... my office suddenly felt safer, more protected, once I hung all those up. Like I had put on a suit of armor."

"I think the McElroys have become my pandemic glimmer, I listen to them every day while I wash dishes or cook. Just feels safe and friendly and family. Fantasy novels and tv, anything with magic. The music of Anonymous 4. Reading."

From twitter:

"Been thinking about glimmers and grief. Last year, I read a series of memoirs about unexpected, terrible loss. When I close my eyes now, and think of those stories, I see the glimmers, the moments when the writers felt not grief but gratitude. https://sojo.net/articles/unspeakable-grief-unshakable-heavens"

And a related observation:

"Pam Houston calls the little observations that spur her to write "glimmers"—she collects and records them and they become the basis for stories. It's not the same, but I like the idea that there are glimmers for writing and glimmers for life."

(Writing-glimmers are life-glimmers, too, we agreed.)

Plenty of people aren't safe right now, though, too. If you're able and haven't donated to mutual aid in Texas, here's how you can do that.