What is Missed

There are hundreds of words that could describe the feelings and reactions that humans are sharing since the arrival of Covid-19.  The media runneth over. Our conversations with friends and family members allow us to wash and wear our emotions and over and over as we sort out how we are "doing".  We're all just trying to keep our heads above water, really, as slowly we drown.  We come up for air just long enough to realize that the surface we desperately seek is far from the relief that we had wished it would be.  I can clearly recall the words of friends as this all started....."hopefully, this will all be over by the Summer.....if it's not.....??????" The Summer is officially here now.  There's no turning back to make it different. The drum has rolled and we're dancing to a new beat.

 We  await a current set of statistics, those that will reflect the outcome of relaxation, either by defiance or government decree, of the "rules" that have successfully contained the Virus, flattened the so-called curve.  I suspect that we are in for some surprises.  And, I am in the group that believes that we are still in for the long run. I hope I am dead-wrong. 

I take a self-inventory every so often, assessing the impact of all of this on my life. In those hundreds of possible words, only one rises to the top, one makes it through the pounding surf of emotional waves. Spontaneity. That's what I am missing. That's what we all are missing and have been since late March of this year. The simple acts that used to be woven so gently into daily life, making them virtually un-noticed.  Going out for a morning coffee with a few good friends for a chin-wag, stopping by to visit a shop owner, collecting ingredients for a special meal. Doing art together. Browsing in a thrift shop. Hugging, kissing, shaking the hand of a new friend. Using hand sanitizer wipes on the handle of a shopping cart just out of habit, not necessity. Acting on impulse.Selecting dates and making travel plans, casting fate to the wind.  The bliss of anticipation, counting days until departure, packing slowly and dreaming of being transplanted to happy places. Getting a haircut. Buying an ice cream. Sitting on a beach at sunset, grasping onto the last of daylight and feeling sad that a day has ended. Not looking forward to a day's end, to the catapulting of life into a brighter future.

  

Tending

Sitting out here on my patio, it's now just past seven in the morning. Just starting to warm up a bit. Mornings have been cold, afternoons have a chill and I still wear fuzzy booties to bed. I use two blankets.

I come out onto my patio each morning to enjoy the first rays of sunshine and inspect my garden.  Mostly pots on the patio. The raised bed is outside the fence.  Adjacent to it is my little St. Francis garden.

Nothing seems to be growing.  It's as if the plants are holding back. I don't know what more to do.  I've given them the advantage of good soil from the nursery, proper organic fertilizers, and water.  I totally give up on trying to grow herbs.  It is like some sort of reverse sorcery. I never have luck.  I can't produce enough for a garnish, never mind a Medieval sort of compound for skin rash. But the failure to launch the rest of my plants, that baffles and annoys me.  Maybe my impatience is weighing in.  I have to keep reminding myself that it is only June and that we have a short growing season here. Don't ask me how the local produce that makes the farm stands and little markets so inviting, has managed to bloom and burst into the gorgeous array of salad ingredients that find their way into our weekly "Salad Club" bags. 

Maybe by August, I will produce my own salad.  Isn't that what the world around me is suggesting?  Be patient.  Be diligent. Continue to water. Move pots around so that they all get an extra few moments in the sun. Don't over-fertilize. Use only natural, organic, boosters. Fend off slugs and little creatures that gnaw away at blossoms and stems. Resist the temptation to pluck zucchini flowers, for the result will be less zucchini. Wait it out. Be a good and patient farmer. If August does not bring results, move on. Learn from the mistakes. Start again next Spring or maybe, just maybe, gardening is not my thing. Some things are just left for God to tend.

Before the Masks

I'm sitting here staring at a brand new sewing machine.  It's all set up and ready to go, a constant reminder to me that I should be making face masks.  It's a sweet machine and was reasonably-priced and easy to order on-line, just like so many of the new arrivals in our house lately.  I have yet to sew one face mask, although I have tried several times.  I'm late in the game so there are hundreds of different YouTube videos that offer instructions and it's not only time-consuming plowing through them but also, very confusing. Which one is the most comfortable, the easiest, the quickest, the most durable. I don't know how to chose. I am thinking it must be easier to simply go back to Amazon and order a box of paper masks, the ones used by health professionals, those that were virtually impossible to obtain just a few short weeks ago. I could cross my fingers and hope that from date of order to date of arrival might be before the end of the Pandemic.  Those purchased face masks will be good enough, chic enough, and enough for the job for which they were intended. I bet that very soon, everyone will finally give up on the face-mask-fashion-show and when we're shopping in the supermarket, we'll find boxes of paper masks in the diaper aisle, a staple on everyone's list. Toilet paper, face masks. Don't get caught short!

This Pandemic life is filled with so many lessons. As we cut through the layers and become accustomed to living with the fear of human contact of any kind, we also cut through layers of our own personalities.  For some of us, that in itself will be a positive by-product, something good rising out of the ashes of this unspeakable horror.  For others, it will cause greater problems.  Long into the future, we will see the evidence of shattered lives, failed marriages, undiagnosed illnesses, and countless other results that will shape the rest of our lives.  I do believe we will survive this and that we will carry forth our new ways, tempering everything with which we come into contact. But for now, we're still just trying to get through each day, week and month, akin to those layers that make up the face masks. And it still does feel quite surreal.

At home, it seems that we're constantly fixing or improving something.  How did we not notice that so many things needed our attention?  How did I survive without a Swiffer? Slowly, we're replacing things like the old sewing machine, the oven thermometer, the nozzle on the garden hose.  We're waiting for the arrival of a sound bar for our T.V., our son telling us that we must have it to improve the quality of the presentations of the Metropolitan Opera that we can pick and choose from at any given time, right in our own den.  I guess that the sound wasn't "good enough" before the Pandemic. Like the spray on the hose. Like the oven. Like the old sewing machine.

 Like our lives before. Like the lives before the masks.