Light Show

Light Show

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There is sunlight this morning! It matters more these days, the weather I wake up with. It will be with me all day, as opposed to office days, when I enter a box of glass and steel and often don’t leave it for nine hours.

But today the light pours into my house, and I know that in the morning it will come from the front of the house and in the afternoon from the rear. And as I sit here in the living room (one of my working spaces, being an office nomad of sorts these days) I can see both the front and back of the house in my peripheral vision.

It’s as if I can see the morning and the afternoon rolled up into one. A preview of the light show that is mine every sunny day, as long as I pay attention to it.

Drifting Westward

Drifting Westward

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Untethered by office routines, I find my days starting and ending a little later each day. This is especially true because I work closely with people in Central Time, so without the cues of the local office, I am being pulled into their frame of reference.

At some point, there will be a rude awakening. I will have to get up early, put on work clothes and make my way down to the office. But that time seems far away.

For now, we live in a netherworld where there’s work aplenty but not only can it be done from the living room couch, but it must be done from the living room couch (or some other remote spot).

So on this rainy Wednesday, as I sip my fourth cup of tea, I find myself drifting … ever westward.

(Not as far west as this photo would make you think, but a girl’s gotta dream!)

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

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Entertainment in a time of coronavirus: We need it, though we may be a bit reluctant to speak of it when the death numbers keep rising and the photo above the fold of today’s Washington Post is of a stack of caskets in Italy.

Nevertheless, entertainment is helping many of us make it through. The Netflix servers (if they have servers) must be groaning from the load these days. And the same for Amazon Prime and Hulu and of course all the cable news stations, especially the news and movie ones.

I began to watch a show called “Pandemic,” a Netflix documentary. It was made last year but is so spot-on in its depiction of what’s happening now that it’s worth watching for that alone. But I decided last night to try something different, and watched “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” a movie about Mr. Rogers and his relationship with a cynical journalist.

Turns out, there really was a cynical journalist. He really did write a long article about Mr. Rogers in Esquire magazine, and he and the journalist really did become friends.

Interested in how true-to-life the movie was, I read an article on its accuracy. It pointed out the differences, and also said that we don’t see enough of Mr. Rogers, that we don’t learn enough about his life. I saw the documentary about Mr. Rogers and found it boring, as I found Mr. Rogers (though my kids did not, and that’s what mattered).

But the movie’s story about Mr. Roger’s effect on others touched and inspired me. We see Mr. Rogers stooping to talk with a boy with cancer and assure him that he’s strong on the inside. We see Mr. Rogers swimming and Mr. Rogers praying for the people in his life, saying their names one by one. 

I took from it a simple truth: that there is always hope and that we must help each other. Not a bad message in a time of coronavirus.

(Photo: Screenshot of the Esquire cover from the 1998 article by Tom Junod. The film also contains a great scene of magazines being printed that I loved, being an ink-on-paper journalist at heart!) 

Solace of the Suburbs

Solace of the Suburbs

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The title of my blog has always carried with it a faint whiff of irony. The suburbs aren’t made for walking, as anyone who’s lived in them will attest. And I’ve never hidden my mixed feelings about living in the suburbs.

However … the pandemic has reminded me of urban density, suburban space — and why we ended up with the suburbs in the first place.

People moved out of urban cores for green grass and family harmony, to stretch their legs and put some distance between themselves and their in-laws. But they also moved for their health and safety, for clean air and open space.

The suburbs have no urban buzz, no throngs surging up the avenue. But if you’re looking for social distancing, the suburbs are the right place to be.

Sunday Stroll

Sunday Stroll

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So far, at least, we’re allowed to go outside, and I’m not alone in taking advantage of this privilege. The sidewalks and paths have been filled with bikers and walkers and rollerbladers. Today I found myself in a different neighborhood for a Sunday stroll.

It’s brisk, temperature in the 30s, but spring has sprung. The Bradford Pears are fully flowered, the daffodils are hanging on, and the forsythia is still sending its brilliant sprays skyward.

On this walk I found a swing and spent a pleasant few minutes pumping and flying, to the tune of Beethoven’s Waldstein, third movement.

Right up the path is a little lake bordered by flowering shrubs.— and there, I saw a bird I think could have been a scarlet tanager. It was a red bird with black wings, and it was gorgeous. Maybe it was a tanager, maybe it was not.* Either way, it was lovely.

(*Reason I will never be a birder.)

New Shopping Etiquette

New Shopping Etiquette

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The local supermarket opens at 6 a.m. I was there by 6:30. I was not alone.

Inside, the place was bustling, with many customers wearing masks and gloves. As expected there was no soap or paper products, and the meat case was almost empty, too.

There was little to choose from in the lettuces and greens section (one of my favorites). I managed to score a small container of arugula (it lasts a while) and a small bag of mixed greens.

Moving on, I was delighted to see the dairy case fairly well stocked. I grabbed what I thought we needed but am already wishing I’d bought more.

The new shopping etiquette makes for a delicate dance these days. If you grab too much you feel greedy. If you don’t take enough you feel foolish.

I tried for the middle ground. I hope I achieved it.

More Fragile

More Fragile

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On this day I will always associate with Dad (six years today), I think about him and his generation, what they had to deal with — a depression, a world war, polio, scarlet fever, random infections which could easily lead to death in those days before antibiotics.

It was a more fragile world but not a worse one.

Where will this worldwide pandemic lead us? Right now it’s to confusion and panic. But where will we be, what will we be like, when the dust settles?  Will we let fear transform us to meanness? Or will we become wiser, kinder, more prepared, chastened to a greater compassion?

For us, too, a more fragile world could, perhaps, be a better one.

Social Distancing

Social Distancing

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On a walk yesterday I spotted these well-spaced blossoms, which are part of an uncultivated weeping cherry, I think. There’s a tree like this at the end of our yard, too, though until the last few years it had no space to bloom.

I ponder the pale pink of these flowers, a d their delicacy and freshness. Surely they’re an antidote to what ails us.

And yet, when I look more closely, all I see is the space between blossoms.

These
        days
              even
                    nature
                            seems
                                     to
                                        practice
                                                    social
                                                              distancing.

Prison or Prism

Prison or Prism

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Midway through the first week of strangeness with the prospect of many weeks to come, we are looking for lifelines. One is staying in touch with family — and, I’m glad to say (dinosaur that I am), more through phone calls these days than through texts.

Another are the spiritual tethers that keep us connected. My parish church was open last Sunday but will not be next, so count it among the number offering online Mass. A dear friend who lives in Paris sends me links to the resources her church is sharing, which include music, reflections on Scripture and a complete Sunday service.

I’ve also been exploring the world of online sermons, finding one of my favorites, Forrest Church, whose books I read long ago and whose homilies I’d long wanted to explore. They do not shy away from difficult topics. From a sermon titled “How to Make the Most out of Hard Times,” he reminds us that in Greek drama the crisis is not the outside event but the way we respond to it. “The moment of crisis is the moment of decision.”

These days can be seen as a prison or a prism. We are either locked in by quarantine or freed by it to see the world in a new way. As I sit here marveling at the morning light, how it spills through the shutters and lands on the bookshelves, I remember … on a typical workday I would be missing this.

An Irish Lesson

An Irish Lesson

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Yes, we’re in a pandemic, but Saint Patrick’s Day shall not go unnoticed. Here there will be corned beef and cabbage, Irish music, and placemats with shamrocks on them. In my spare moments I’ll look at photos of the auld sod. There will not be a gathering of the clan, but we will be together in spirit.

The Irish are no strangers to adversity, having survived mass starvation during the Potato Famine (a fact you hear often when touring Ireland, a place where the past is more present than most places I’ve visited). But the Irish are also no strangers to joy.

You can hear these twin themes in their music, which alternates between raucous jigs and mournful ballads. In this the Irish are instructive: they can find fun in the midst of gloom. I’ll hang onto that lesson today.