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Those raspberries from our San Francisco gardenLet’s see. I have been here for over a month, and have fallen right into the routine, with my San Francisco life seeming a distant dream, a nice one, like the three red raspberries, the picture of which my husband took in our garden yesterday before eating them. There are no berries of any kind here yet, it is too early in the season. In fact, that is the only major complain I have about being home (apart from single mothering), there are almost no vegetables that are ripe yet. I know, i know I could eat nettle and dandy-lion salad (if I got to the countryside, which I have not managed yet, because we don’t have a car), but my children… well… they will not eat it…. at least not direclty. I will have to try a smoothie though. That’s a thought!

Other than that I have:

1) Almost finished the Childhood Ethnography course (should be correcting exams instead of writing this right now);

2) Had the most wonderful birth experience of my friend’s baby boy who was born with the membranes still intact, which is called “the lucky shirt” in Latvian and  who totally warmed my heart;

3) Have been to the Latvian sauna “pirts”  four times, the latest at my uncle’s who has become a professional pirts master along with his wife and provided me with the best thrashing (part of the procedure, being beaten with birch branches) I ever got;

4) Have had to deal with my children’s (especially my son’s) intense missing of their daddy, which makes me sad and makes them sick (oliver has even said that his tummy ache is because he misses his daddy);

5) have been right back into worrying about my granma’s legg, my other grandma’s loneliness, the cat’s fertility etc. all the “natural” things to worry about when in Latvia that I manage to drag into the subconscious when not here;

6) and last, but not least have been warmly welcomed by the Latvian doula society and will meet with them again to discuss the experiences of doulas in the USA.

It really amazes me how normal it always seems to be back, the only difference is in appreciation, for example, despite the fact that I miss freshly grown vegetables (at affordable prices), I did value my last May in Latvia for a while, because once Oliver starts preschool in the fall, there will be school until June for many years to come. Presently, I am looking forward to the Latvian midsummer night celebration, arguably the most important festival of the year that takes place on June 23rd and 24th. And I am trying to take the most out of this summer and all the wonderful people I have met (not too many yet, as even my friends seem to be at least as busy as me) and will meet. 🙂