Younger son: Hey Mom, should I put all my church clothes in the attic since I’m not going to wear them?

The news gives me whiplash. One day it’s dire and the next there’s all these positive signs and then — hang on a sec, things don’t look so good after all.

Whatever. I’ve decided we’re in this for the long haul, so that’s that.

I feel like I’ve adjusted, mostly. The panicky pain of my whole world constricting has faded. Now, I’m left with a shrunk world and, all things considered, it’s a good place to be: Family, health (fingers crossed it stays that way!), green grass, open space, good food, good books, good movies….

I like it that I’m in charge of three meals a day, no interruptions. I like knowing exactly how many people will be at the supper table: six. I like the seamlessness of our days, days largely devoid of transitions and transportation and scheduling hassles. I like waking up and knowing that we’re all here, together.

An unusually high level of sustained gratefulness dominates my thoughts. Some mornings I even wake up feeling like I could live like this for a long time.

Contentment, I think it’s called.

Which is not an emotion this restless, needy, often-bored mama is accustomed to at all.

You know what’s weird? Suddenly, for the first time in my life, my slow-paced, home-based lifestyle is mainstream. Watching as people make the adjustment to a lifestyle I’ve always known, listening to their observations and struggles, is akin to culture shock, but in reverse: my norm is now the norm and everyone is shocked.

It’s almost trippy, in an Alice-in-Wonderland sort of way.

I don’t know what to make of it.

From a quote I discovered in a book I’m reading:

“Barn’s burnt down / Now I can see the moon.”
—Mizuta Massahide, seventeenth-century Japanese poet

When I interviewed Kim, one of her pieces of advice for us was, “Try and wear a mask in grocery stores — to protect others.” I didn’t include her advice in my post, though. At the time, we were having a mask shortage (still are) and leadership was requesting that we save the masks for those who were ill, and for the medical professionals.

It felt weird though — dishonest, almost — to intentionally ignore the wisdom of people living on the front end of the pandemic, but what was there to do?

Now, nearly two months later, we’re finally catching up. Before, wearing a mask in public felt like a crime; now it feels irresponsible not to.

The other day, my cousin-down-the-road passed me several letters that I’d written to her when I was a teenager. At supper one evening, I read parts of them out loud to the family.

I got a kick out of showing the kids how much I wrote (and wrote and wrote and wrote) when I was their age. One of the letters was typed on an electric typewriter; that my 15-year-old self was so thrilled with that fact tickled my children to no end.

The things I wrote about — like, fixing up our new house which, to them, is the house their grandparents used to live it, and the oo-la-la dating news of the now-parents of their friends (“do you think anything will come of it?” I’d written) — had a weird circle-of-life feel to it.

But the best part was my matter-of-fact reporting on the subject of our family’s animals. Listen:

Pepper, our dog, got hit by a pick-up truck several Sundays ago. She yelped and yelped and would not stop. It sounded so like a human that I cried and cried. We all begged dad to shoot her, but he wouldn’t. Pepper is still alive. Her tail’s broken and she’s limping (her right, hind leg is really sore), but she killed a big groundhog the other day.  

Dad did shoot the cat, though. The cat had numerous diseases and was just plain sick. So we got two new male kittens — Tom and Jerry. 

Zachary’s crow died (we think it suffocated on a marshmallow that one of dad’s students fed it).  

We got a lamb that had pneumonia and it was getting better but now I think it’s regressing.  

So that’s an update on the beasts. 

By the end I was laughing so hard that I was honest-to-goodness weeping.

All this to say, if you need some dinnertime entertainment, consider digging that box of letters out of the attic. Chances are, you’ll find some gems.

I keep thinking about how, when my husband and I lived in Nicaragua, we went about batty with boredom. No NPR, no internet, no movies, (almost) no books, no English, no family, no stores, no car, no phone, no running water, no, no, no… Everything we did — all our play and work — we had to create ourselves. The mind-numbing exhaustion was intense.

Now, when I get grumpy and whiny and bored, I recall those years and immediately any tedium I’m feeling suddenly pales in comparison.

(I still get bored, though.)

Watching: Some Good News (we loved the second episode), Webber’s free shows on YouTube, You’ve Got Mail (the perfect family escape-from-reality movie), West Wing (a world in which national leaders are competent, imagine!), Self Made (so disappointing, and it had such potential, too).

Reading: Clock Dance by Anne Tyler and What I Know For Sure by Oprah Winfrey to myself, and Dicken’s Great Expectations to the two younger kids.

Wishing: I could get out all the books I have on hold at the library.

Listening: Fresh Air’s Cooking During Covid-19, and, since my older son’s in the house, lots of his music. (Me, on repeat: TURN IT DOWN.)

Looking forward to: Hamilton at Home, this Friday at 7:00 pm!! (Update: it’s been canceled, wah!)

P.S. Friends just told us about the special free National Theatre Live shows: this week it’s One Man, Two Guvnors with James Corden.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (4.8.20), oh please, oatmeal raisin cookies, answers, daffodils and horses, cardamom orange buns, writing it out.

This same time, years previous: missing Alice, a trick for cooking pasta, scatteredness, the quotidian (4.6.15), the quotidian (4.7.14), the quotidian (4.6.13), yellow cake, he wore a dress.

Yesterday afternoon, after sleeping on the sofa off and on for two hours, I needed to get out. Since it would soon be time to pick up my younger daughter from her job, I decided to first run into town for milk and a few other staples (which included cranberry cocktail for this drink) and then swing by the farm. If she was still working, I’d go for a walk there. It’d be a nice change of scenary from my regular routes.

By the time I arrived she was almost done, so instead of going on a walk, I explored the farm, poking my head in the different hoop houses to see what they had growing.

My daughter was in the tomato hoop house.

She was tying nylon twine to the poles running along the top of the house and then stringing them down, one beside each plant, and staking them into the ground. There are about 80 plants per row, my daughter told me; she’d been doing this for a long time.

When she first started working at the farm a few weeks back, I wasn’t sure she’d last. That first day, she was cold in the morning, hot in the afternoon, didn’t have enough to eat, got thirsty, and was, by the end, totally exhausted.

Listening to her fuss, I panicked a little. She’d initiated this job, contacting the owner to ask for a job, getting the references he requested, and setting her hours. After all that, just to quit? We wouldn’t let her, at least not right off the bat, but forcing her to keep working would be miserable, too. Internally, I braced for battle.

But that first day must’ve been a fluke. From then on, there’s been no complaining. In fact, she loves going to work.

I’m not sure why, really. Mostly alone (there are other workers, but they’re often not in close enough proximity for conversation) for hours on end, doing the same task over and over again, I’d think she’d die of boredom. But no. Instead, she’s quietly proud. She comes home tired, satisfied, and eager to hand me whatever gleanings she’s scored — a bag of spinach, a handful of carrots (they’re so sweet, Mom!), some radishes, a bouquet of flowers.

Yesterday afternoon, my daughter secured a few more tomato plant ties before calling it quits. While she cleaned up her tools and closed up the hoop house, I mozied along the trail by the creek, the warm sunshine and the burbling water lulling me into a sort of stupor. It’d be the perfect spot for an afternoon nap, I realized. If only they had hammocks….

Before we left, my daughter picked a little lettuce for a weekend salad. In the car, she guzzled water and scarfed the tail end of her lunch before we set out for home, with her driving.

This same time, years previous: kickboxing, caribbean milk cake, the quotidian (4.3.17), the quotidian (4.4.16), red raspberry pie, sun days, the quotidian (4.2.12), cup cheese, now.