Friday - 35th

Spring is struggling. We haven't had that string of days that is radiantly beautiful. Instead, we've had one here, another there, the rest -- cold. Even Ed is wearing his jacket outdoors. (He has two defaults: t-shirt with jacket, or t-shirt without jacket. One jacket, two options. There is no middle ground.)

It's a stay inside day. It just has to be. The garden will wait. It's not ready for me and I'm not ready for it.






Breakfast. In the kitchen. Someday it will be on the porch again. Looking ahead at the forecast, I can tell that it wont be out there in April.






And so I continue to be in my "planning mode." As if it were January or February. I weigh options, I think about what to do with flower bed trouble spots. Call it low-energy pregardening. Like treading water before the big swim, only it's an awfully long period of not moving forward.


Snowdrop is here in the afternoon. It's interesting to watch her now, on these Fridays at the farmhouse. Typically she has had her fill of school by the end of the week. Coming home (or to the farmhouse) slows her down. But now, being home is a constant. Home, with a bit of grandma's. And she is the lucky one, because she has that change of pace that's missing in so many kids' lives.






And yet, you have to remind yourself that all these kids who do have reasonably (economically) secure homes and caring families -- they are lucky. If no one in their immediate family is sick -- double lucky. There are challenges, for sure. For parents especially. Still, I can't help but feel grateful for all that's in place for my three grandkids and for those who are doing basically okay

(sign of the times: face masks hanging in the background.)






(Bothering Ed. Not really. There's nothing that he wont let her do. Perhaps because there's not much that she does that could possibly annoy him.)






I drop Snowdrop off at home and I linger a bit with her mommy. Just to catch up. Would you believe it? Life moves forward! Stuff happens! Comparing notes is important. And so over a glass of bubbly (water these days), we catch up.

And in the evening, I reheat pieces of the frittata, mix up a salad and sit back with Ed, exhaling. (Until the very late evening, when supplementary foods arrive from the store.) Five weeks down into isolation and we are okay. And I hope with all my heart that you are too.