How is everyone doing? I think this is week 9. Though honestly, time has kind of ceased to have any meaning to me and I’m not sure. If someone had told us in mid March that we were going into our homes for a minimum of 2 months I don’t think we’d have believed it. I was walking near my house this morning and saw a sports bar with a sign out front about St. Patty’s Day and their specials. It was eerie, like the world frozen in time.
We are doing ok. I’m aware what a huge privilege it is to have the primary difficulty right now being frustrated and kind of sick of my family. We are all fine. I am in general enormously impressed by my childrens’ resilience and good humor during this time. They keep me laughing. Grace is in the middle of her four AP exams, which are now at-home and taken on the computer. Whit has a big paper due Monday and then is mostly done. Both of them are finished with school next Friday the 22nd. Matt has a BIG birthday on Saturday the 23rd. Time ticks on. I cannot believe it’s almost Memorial Day.
I’ve been doing So Much Cooking. I like cooking, always have, but still, this is a lot. Everyone fends for themselves around here for breakfast and lunch, but we sit down religiously for dinner at 6:30 or 7:00. What has it been, 65 or 70 family dinners in a row? We’ve been doing a lot of vegetarian curries, both red and green, some with tofu and some without. I’ve made Dinner a Love Story’s back pocket tacos several times, as well as fish tacos and enchiladas. Baking bread has been a joy: focaccia and regular round (no knead bread) loaves. I wish I’d started writing down what we were eating every night at the beginning, as I’ve already forgotten a lot of it. But I know we are eating well and we’re lucky.
We watched the final season of Homeland and loved it. I also watched Season 40 of Survivor and it was awesome. I’m literally sad it’s over. I’m a huge Survivor fan, and have been watching on and off for 20 years. The kids make brutal fun of me about that. I’ve been reading a lot. Since I switched to kindle books on my ipad about 4-6 weeks ago (when my big stack of library books ran out) I’ve been working my way through John Grisham, David Baldacci, and Brad Meltzer’s back lists. I m not the only person taking ebooks out of the library and there is a LONG wiat for many titles, so I’ve had to get creative with not-recently-published books. I also read two books by John Boyne, whose novel The Heart’s Invisible Furies, is one of my all-time favorites. I really liked both A Ladder to the Sky
I listened to Cheryl Strayed’s Sugar Calling podcast with Billy Collins, “There’s a Quiet All Over the World,” and it really made me think about the lines of poetry and song that exist within us, that we’ve memorized in some cases without knowing we had. I will write more about that a later date, but I just love the image.
I have been walking with my mother most days, keeping to being outside, and she’s well. The bird song astonishes me every time. I’m noticing things like never before, and I think I am someone who noticed things pretty carefully before. The world’s in spectacular bloom. Grace, Whit, and Matt are good company. We are all fine, grateful, and cranky.
How are you doing? I am genuinely asking. Steady on, world.
So much yes to all this: fine, grateful and cranky. I’m healthy, stir-crazy, kind of isolated in my studio apartment. Still seeing my guy and taking a few socially distanced walks with friends. Doing so. much. cooking. And baking. Sniffing lilacs whenever I can. So ready for things to shift while knowing they likely won’t, for a while. xo
In some ways, I want to reserve comment because we have been able to remain healthy and employed. On the other hand, like water smoothing stones, time (as your rightly note more abstract than ever) has soothed our family. Anxiety and fear have been largely replaced with adaptation and I hope the additional time together will support our resilience as we stare down the long road ahead.
Love hearing this update from you!
Also cooking, watching, reading . . . all the things.
Over here near Paris, the world is reopening little by little. It’s the same and it’s different. Some things are still stuck as in March (old magazines issues in the press shop because the trucks haven’t been able to deliver). Restaurants and cafés are closed with dust accumulating on the tables, but sometimes the door is slightly open to sell takeaway food and coffee. Everything is kind of weird and sad (those masks!), although nature is over the top. Since gardeners didn’t cut the grass, poppies, dandelions, queen anne’s lace and other weeds have taken over the normally manicured public gardens.
Grateful for a cheerful and calm family— I grew up in a dramatic and difficult one. Sad for what happened to the end of my daughter’s senior year of high school, although we’re grateful for the time with her. Glad I’m an introvert and a homebody— I think this would be a lot harder for someone who is extroverted and/or a traveler. And I’m a primary care doctor, so every time I call someone in from telehealth for an in-person visit for something that could be COVID, because they need an exam that can’t be done over Zoom, I guess I’m kind of determined and terrified at the same time, and counting down for 10 days afterward.