Life of Wry

I listened to a podcast today on a beautiful arboretum walk (aren’t they all). Listening to a lot of podcasts on solitary walks these days. And now with masks. Talk about weird, talk about isolating. Not only are you sealed off from others, people go out of their way to avoid getting anywhere near you (and you them), like walking off paths, or stepping behind bushes, like we’re all a bunch of pariahs. Nobody can see you smile at them. Alone, even in public places.

Brene Brown was talking to a grief expert, David Kessler. I cried under my mask when Kessler spoke of how we’ll never really go back to our lives as they were. It’s a shocking and scary thought; we didn’t get any time to prepare ourselves for this kind of transition. The planet was thrust into this sudden crisis, forcing everyone into near-immediate sequester, and now we’re looking at the likelihood that when we emerge from this, however that might happen, it will be into a new reality.

I hope that’s true, actually. I hope we return with a renewed focus on what is more important in our lives… for us, for our planet, and especially for our children. Skies are really clear, roads are easy to navigate, we’re not making as many unnecessary car trips, we’re making better use of resources, we’re spending time alone, thinking more, becoming more resourceful, mindful. For starters.

So maybe it’s all a big giant reboot. And I certainly hope we start fresh with leadership and return decency, justice and caring about humanity to our politics. We need to kick that great big baby out with his soiled bathwater.

Okay, so that’s not what I was going to write about.

It’s Easter.

In all our years, we’ve never settled on any reliable traditions. Been all over the map with different things in different years, all fine. Egg hunts and baskets and chocolate bunnies during the kid years, usually family gatherings, especially when Peter was little. Sometimes even hot cross buns and ham. We don’t celebrate the religious aspects of the holiday, but I think both of us look forward to the season. Spring is Jim’s favorite time of the year (I like them all), I love the symbolism of renewal and rebirth for a trillion reasons, including flowers. Here’s our front yard on this sparkling day:

Nothing not to love about that.

One of our new pandemic routines is Jim serving up Sunday breakfasts, rotating between pancakes, french toast and waffles (we’re thinking of cinnamon rolls next Sunday!). Today we were back to barnyard animal waffles…

This is a cow, lobotomized, with bonus udders:

We may be senior citizens, but we love our juvenile humor.

Here are a few shots from my walk today..

Nice ducks swimming in formations..

I saw this fellow sitting on a log with his dog in the sun. He had two canes, a bandaged hand and seemed a little lost in thought.. I was glad he had a dog. I wanted to say hello in there, channeling a John Prine song. I couldn’t catch his eye. I just teared up.

Sat for a while in the grove. Hung out with a couple of ducks who had to check me out. She said hello in there. I just teared up.

Walked around a little checking out some flowers..

I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the petal design on a purple iris…. so beautiful.

Then I saw these…

.. and lots more besides. Somebody played Easter Bunny and left I-don’t-know-how-many easter eggs around the grove. It was so sweet and unexpected, and such a total delight, even though I’m 64. I teared up again.

Not sad.. just a little melancholy, a little weirded out by all of this, a bit anxious with uncertainty, a lot overwhelmingly grateful. Headed home to make dinner.

We had pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, zucs with parmesan. Exceptionally good. I made bread…  though 1) it wasn’t done until well after dinner, and 2) it was the first batch I’d tried in our bread maker in about 20 years so I went basic with the only flour we had (white). Edible for sure.. but it sure is.. white. We’ll be experimenting with this….