new paths

For someone who seems to be stuck in familiar repetitive patterns, I have to say, to me it feels like I am forever tweaking things and making adjustments. Life demands adjustments. Gardens demand adjustments. Grandkids and especially parents of grandkids and babysitters of kids -- they all have schedules that demand adjustments. So today feels to me very different even if you're thinking -- oh, she's doing the same stuff.

The day starts off cool and cloudy. We had rain showers overnight and the world smells damp and wonderful.

There's no going back: the beauty of this month will not recede. 

But breakfast is definitely in the kitchen.

 

Immediately after, Sparrow comes over. This is the new pre-vacation normal. Thursday mornings belong to him, here. 

He is agreeable. I want at least a few minutes outside. He's up for it.

But not too long. The bulk of our time is spent inside the cozy warm farmhouse.

The afternoon? I'm back in the garden. Just for a handful of hours and no, it's not the same old digging in new flowers. Now that the flower beds are filling in, I see where I really need to make adjustments. Paper plans just do not fully explain how gardens grow. And so I try out some new designs. I create a Virginia bluebell patch. I put in some lilium bulbs in bare spots. Tweaks. New stuff. Some of it wont even grow this year. I'm planting for next year and the year after.

But toward mid afternoon I stop. Here's something really new for us: Ed's college friend and his wife are in town and fully vaccinated. It feels strange and a little unreal, but they in fact do come over and do eat dinner with us and do spend the night here -- just as they did before the pandemic.

 

 

 

You'll tell me  -- ah, you're slowly returning to the old life. This would be untrue. There is no going back. My Polish friends asked me if I will be traveling to Warsaw this summer. In the old life, I would think -- well now, that's a good idea. I should do that! This time I responded -- no, I'm not feeling it's right to travel right now. And with our friends -- we're not going out to dinner and indeed, it very much feels like we are navigating a new landscape. 

Still, a pretty landscape. It's May and life for us is a heck of a lot more normal now than it was a year ago. A new normal, but still, not a crazy isolated pandemic times normal. And for that we are so grateful.