We are on the cusp of something. The weather outside says so with its mellow almost-warmth, the green grass coaxed out of latency, buds starting to form on trees that should be dormant. At an hour that should be frosty, birds are already singing to the just-risen sun, and the sky reveals a careless blue. This could be March, that month of dramatic change, time to think of planting things, of growing.
I am outside in a sweatshirt, repairing a fence, snuggling our animals, letting my lungs fill with this peaceful morning. I putter and delay, finding projects to occupy my attention, holding tight to this moment.
When I return indoors, the newspaper screams of painful reality: sedition, pandemic, security, racism. It reminds me of the fortune I woke to: I am vaccinated but the world is not. I have space around me but the world does not. I have freedoms that much of the world does not.
We talk instead of things to do: roses to cut back, mowing to be done, painting, cleaning. Thinking. I have found myself more introvert than not, these last ten months of pandemic. Helpless to change the political pageantry, the degradation of national