Getting Ready by Living Forward
The sneakers are still by the front door, and the school forms are filled out, and I test another batch of Italian meatballs (at my daughters request) while watching the news with the sound off because I can't handle hearing about Gaza again today but I also can't stop checking. The backpack has claimed its hook on the playroom wall— not ceremonially, just practically, because that's where it makes sense to live now while children are dying and democracy feels like it's dissolving and somehow I'm still supposed to pack lunches and teach phonics sounds.
Last week I wrote about almost being ready but not feeling ready at all. This week something has shifted, but not into readiness exactly. Into something more like dissociation, maybe. The kind of preparation that happens when you realize the world your child is entering isn't just scary in the abstract way — school shooter drills and lockdown procedures — but scary in the immediate way. The way where you scroll through images of children in Gaza who look exactly like your child, and then you research lunch box options in the same browser window, and somehow both tasks feel equally surreal.
It turns out getting ready looks like living in multiple realities at once. The micro reality of morning routines and meatball recipes and kitten names. The macro reality of genocide happening while most Americans argue about inflation and seem perfectly fine pretending that democracy isn't actively collapsing around us.
How do you explain to your child that she's starting school in a country that funds the killing of children just like her? How do you not explain it?
•••
The kitten — Figgy — has her own rhythm that has nothing to do with our schedules or anxieties. She's been exploring the house with the kind of fearless curiosity I wish I could channel, and has decided my daughter's trundle bed is the perfect headquarters for her adventures. She doesn't research anything or worry about whether her choices make sense. She just shows up to each moment and adapts. This morning I found myself envious of her ability to exist purely in the present while I toggle between packing school supplies and reading about children pulled from rubble.
Something changed when I stopped researching how to get ready and started just getting ready. When I moved from consuming advice about school transitions to living through one while the world burns. The endless browser tabs closed themselves — or rather, got replaced by news tabs I refresh compulsively while stirring sauce and testing whether this batch of meatballs needs more salt.
•••
I've been perfecting the meatball recipe, not because we desperately need another dinner option, but because something in me needs to practice making something nourishing with my hands while everything else feels like it's falling apart. This time I was determined to get them actually juicy, mixing in breadcrumbs and finally using some of the parsley we grew from seed before it joins the rest of our bolted herbs. Rolling meat between my palms while thinking about mothers in Gaza who can't feed their children. Watching onions turn golden while democracy browns and shrivels in real time.
My daughter loves helping me in the kitchen — the way she approached rolling the meatballs with equal parts wonder and slight disgust at the texture of raw meat reminded me so much of cooking with my grandma, that same mix of fascination and sensory overwhelm. Her hands working next to mine, both of us focused on the immediate task, fills my heart with a kind of joy that feels almost rebellious when the world is so broken. We made them together while talking about school, and they did turn out juicy this time, though they definitely needed more salt.
There's something about cooking that keeps me tethered to the immediate when my brain wants to spiral into the impossibility of sending a child to school in America in 2025. The way preparation happens through engagement with the tangible — breadcrumbs and eggs and salt —when everything else feels abstract and overwhelming.
That night, as the house filled with the smell of simmering tomatoes, my daughter was chatting away by my side, very excitedly asking how she could help. I wondered how I could help as well. We finally settled on her setting the table while I stirred the sauce, both of us tending to what needed tending. I didn't tell her that I'd been crying earlier while reading about Palestinian children. I didn't tell her that I'm terrified about what kind of world she's inheriting. We just worked together preparing dinner and talked about whether she was excited or nervous about school, and somehow both conversations felt equally important.
How do you hold hope and despair in the same hands? How do you teach your child to believe in goodness while not lying about how much darkness exists?
•••
"Getting the house sorted" has become a euphemism for getting my head sorted, which isn't working because my head contains multitudes of horror alongside grocery lists and school supply inventories. I'm not organizing perfectly — I'm just creating small pockets of order that can hold us when everything else feels chaotic. Clear surfaces for schoolwork that will happen while wars rage. Launching pads for morning routines in a democracy that might not survive the next election cycle.
The work isn't about achieving Pinterest-worthy organization. It's about removing friction from daily routines while trying not to think too hard about the friction between my comfortable life and the suffering of children whose only crime was being born Palestinian. Having a place for the backpack means one less thing to hunt for in morning rush. But it also means another small ritual of normalcy in a world that feels anything but normal.
•••
I keep wondering how other parents are managing this cognitive dissonance. Are they better at compartmentalizing? Do they just not read the news? Are they all secretly falling apart too, or am I the only one who finds it impossible to research lunch box reviews while genocide happens in real time, funded by my tax dollars?
The questions that keep me awake aren't just about school anymore: Will she make friends? Will the other kids be kind? But also: How do I teach her about justice without traumatizing her? How do I prepare her to live in a country that has blood on its hands? How do I send her into a system that teaches her to pledge allegiance to a flag that represents so much beauty and so much horror?
Maybe this is what readiness actually looks like in 2025: learning to hold enormous contradictions without breaking. Teaching your child to pack a backpack while the world unpacks itself around us. Stirring meatballs while democracy crumbles. Believing in the possibility of good schools and good teachers and good friends while knowing that goodness coexists with systems that allow children to be murdered with impunity.
•••
What I'm learning about preparation is that it happens in layers now. There's the surface layer — the school supplies and the backpack and the gradually shifting bedtime routine. There's the emotional layer — the conversations about new teachers and making friends and being brave. And then there's this other layer, the one I don't know how to talk about with a young child: the layer where you prepare someone you love to live in a world that breaks your heart daily.
I'm still scared about lockdown drills and stranger danger and all the traditional fears. But I'm more scared about raising a child who will inherit a country that has normalized genocide. Who will grow up in a place where democracy is optional and human rights are conditional and somehow most adults just keep going to work and posting on social media like this is all fine.
The kitten doesn't have these layers. She just exists, fully present to whatever moment she's in — the warmth of afternoon light, the sound of us moving through our routines, the simple pleasure of finding the right spot to rest. Sometimes I watch her and remember what it felt like to live in just one reality at a time.
•••
We're almost ready for school in the way that you can be ready for anything impossible. The backpack is packed. The meatball recipe finally achieved the juiciness we were after. The house has spaces that can hold new routines. Figgy has found her favorite exploring spots, especially that trundle bed. We've practiced talking about hard things in age-appropriate ways, though I haven't figured out how to make American foreign policy age-appropriate for anyone.
Maybe this is what living forward looks like now: moving through preparation rituals while holding enormous questions about what we're preparing for. Teaching your child to pack her lunch while wondering how to raise someone who won't accept injustice as normal. Stirring sauce while stirring up courage for the conversations we'll need to have as she gets older and starts asking harder questions about why the world is the way it is.
I don't know how to be ready for any of this. I just know how to keep showing up to the small moments — the meatball testing, the kitten watching, the bedtime conversations — while carrying the weight of everything else. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's all any of us can do: tend to what's in front of us while not looking away from what's happening beyond our kitchens.
The school year starts this week. Children in Gaza won't be starting school because their schools have been bombed. Both things are true. Somehow we have to figure out how to live with that.
