So many of us have gradually resumed some or maybe even most of what we lost starting in March of 2020. If you don't have kids and are fully vaccinated and live in a community where most are also vaccinated, the argument can be made that this is at it should be. But of course, many of us are around kids and we really don't want to take risks now when life isn't feeling so constrained, and we are not so burdened by the precautions, and you can do a lot and still be safe. So we go easy on picking up old habits.
Here, at the farmette, our days are much the same as they would be any summer of any year: we work outside when the weather is good and the bugs are low. So perhaps I haven't really paid attention to how much has changed in our community since last summer. But today I noticed. And the changes are reason to celebrate, albeit gently because the loss has been so great for so many, so that feeling jubilant is not possible. Too, there is the rest of the world -- there but for the grace...
Still, this morning, I found myself mixing tears with a smile as I stepped out into a world I hadn't visited for two years. After a very early round of morning chores...
I got in the car and drove downtown to the Madison Farmers Market. The market that always draws crowds. The market that reopened a couple of weeks ago. The market that I'd gone to for decades now -- first with my two little girls, then alone as a forager for a restaurant, and lately with daughters and their children. The market that was shut down all last summer. I went early, but the weather is beautiful and it was crowded.
There is a traffic pattern at this particular market: you walk in one direction, counter clockwise and since the stalls take up a good part of the wide sidewalk, there are always bottlenecks. To step into that world now felt unreal. Like a trip on some hallucinogen (I don't know anything about that, but I can imagine!): the colors, the noise, the feeling of normalcy! (Hence the smile and tears.)
I kept to the street. I still don't like crowds, even outdoor crowds. But I popped in to buy flowers and honey and asparagus and, well, lots of things!
It felt for a minute as if the pandemic was some kind of a weird dream. One farmer whom I've known for years and years said to me -- we made it. He's frail and old and I was so happy to see him. And of course, with total gratitude for all the luck that stayed with us all year long and then some, I said -- yes we did.
So long as I was downtown, I thought I'd stop at a bakery.
Oh, how I love a good croissant for breakfast!
And now comes the super busy part. Finish cleaning, finish baking, tidy the garden, start in on dinner. Because, as it happens, my younger girl and her family are passing through Madison on their way up to Minneapolis and they're pausing for a visit, both coming and going. And this is how I have all these awesome kids and their kids at the farmette today.
Dinner, en masse.
Dessert!
No time to write more. Just a deep sigh of gratitude for all that beauty that makes you gasp in wonder, for the growing plants and growing children. For all the good people in this world.
With love.
