Rediscovery and Happy Marriage Cake

     Since Memorial Day, I have been living parallel lives are just coming back together now in mid-July, and it feels like what I imagine when the "streams cross" in Ghostbusters. All the kids are manic.

    I went to Iceland on a graduate student field trip for two weeks at the beginning of June. I was filled with so much social anxiety and mom to-do lists I felt like I would explode, but also Iceland is one of my favorite places on the planet, and I wanted to be back there enjoying it. The trip was filled with friends and also acquaintances, and I knew I would be straddling the different social groups. Frankly, it is amazing how much I can still learn about myself when I have space from parenthood, but also flooring how much it has shaped me as a person. A lot of the trip was managing disappointment, and feelings of being left behind in parenthood as friendships grew stronger around me. The rest was realizing that I can now be the even-keeled woman of perspective, a role I think I fell into after the trials of being a mom. A mentor on the trip joked that I needed to "turn off mom-mode" and relax on this trip, which turns out is VERY difficult to do. Overall I felt more like myself after this trip, but myself now after motherhood and after all of these changed relationships. Also I ate so many cinnamon rolls, and brown bread, and licorice chocolate and I cannot express how much I ADORE Icelandic culture. 

  After a terrible and insane week with my disregulated children I went to the Yucatán for fieldwork: wading around caves, wielding sledgehammers and power tools, and working with amazing women. This was truly a tonic. My advisor is also a mom, and together we relished our post-pandemic fieldwork and data collection (and some margaritas). It was another way of revisiting myself after a long year raising up twins and tamping down my own needs. I felt like a scientist again.

The twins' birthday was another HUGE milestone! All the kids leveled up amidst my travel, and also my marriage felt better. The first year postpartum is always overrun and it is easy to leave your partner to fend for themselves in the chaos. I am so grateful for time away and for him. Getting the twins to one year felt huge, but the celebration was short-lived due to increased mobility and larger feelings... so cute and so difficult. But so amazing. I am thankful for every single one of my friendships new and old for getting us through this year. It was such a doozy.

So, in that spirit: I am going to make the Icelandic classic snacking pastry... Hjónabandssaela, Happy Marriage Cake. 

-M