One Nation Under Raccoons

What ADHD taught me about the republic for which it stands

It is July 3, the eve of America’s birthday, and for reasons known only to God, caffeine, motherhood, and whatever committee of raccoons currently governs my frontal lobe, I couldn’t sleep.

Maybe it was because I was enjoying time with my husband and couldn’t quite bring myself to go to bed. Maybe it was because once I finally did fall asleep, I managed about an hour and a half before my daughter woke me up needing help, as children are legally required to do the moment your body remembers it’s mortal. Maybe it was because once I got her settled again, my brain caught fire with ideas for B-roll to build up the video side of what Mom and I are doing, plus a mural I am now absolutely determined to paint on the living room wall through a campaign of charm, persistence, and only light domestic lobbying.

Bless my husband. I don’t know how he puts up with me and all my strange little visions. No husbands were harmed in the making of this mural plan. He supports my weirdness beautifully, even when his face says he would personally prefer the living room remain a room and not become a woodland folk-art chapel.

Or maybe I couldn’t sleep because I remembered the slab of myrtle wood I have been meaning to turn into shelving for the last six weeks. Or because I started thinking about the plants outside, the tomatoes, the chestnut tree, the little green lives depending on me to remember water exists. Or because, by quarter after four, I had stared at my husband with such devoted and unsettling intensity that my undying will apparently woke him from sleep, at which point I persuaded him to come outside to water and prune with me.

That’s how we ended up in the garden before the day had properly introduced itself. And that’s how I discovered the bindweed was back. Of course it was. Bindweed is the unpaid intern of the garden, wildly ambitious, impossible to supervise, and somehow in three departments before lunch. I respect the hustle, but I don’t appreciate the management style.

There I was, dirt under my nails, one glove missing, weeds at my feet, the tomatoes waiting, the chestnut tree needing checking, the kids somewhere between sleep and chaos, and my husband beside me in the early morning light, participating in the sacred rural man ritual of helping his wife pursue a weed-based vendetta before breakfast.

Inside, the dryer I had no recollection of starting had probably finished, which meant, naturally, that the laundry had entered the witness protection program. And my brain, loyal goblin that it is, had already left the meeting.

This is ADHD. Not the cute version where someone says, “Sorry, I’m so ADHD,” because they bought two planners and forgot one appointment. I mean the full municipal infrastructure problem.

The kind where your mind operates like a small town run by raccoons. Every department is understaffed, the filing system is mostly just a wing and a prayer, and the emergency siren goes off because someone remembered an email with a typo from 2019. Meanwhile, the Department of Fascinating Soil Facts has received unlimited federal funding. Which may be why, standing there with bindweed in my hand on the eve of America’s birthday, I found myself thinking about the republic.

This is not the first time my brain has done this to everyone. Everyone already had to enjoy the ride when, against all reasonable orders from management, my mind connected the garden to Donald Trump. We have done earthworms, invasive pests, bindweed, soil, decay, the underground republic, and a piece on blight will be coming soon, stay tuned.

So now, with apologies to those who came here hoping the tomatoes would remain politically neutral, we are going one layer deeper. This is not just a piece about ADHD. It is a piece about what my disorder taught me about the republic for which it stands, “one nation.”