Remembering Lockdown

Remembering Lockdown

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Five years ago we were two weeks into lockdown. Checking this blog to see what was on my mind I see that I wrote about the joy of finding toilet paper at the supermarket.

It’s good to be reminded of that time, good to remember how upended our world was. Though it feels upended now — and it is, in deeper and more important ways — the pandemic shredded our routines and shuttered our souls. Most everyone who could work remotely was working remotely, and in Virginia we could venture out of our houses only for essentials.

There was no NCAA Basketball Tournament, no baseball season openers, no concerts or movies. More importantly, there were no impromptu gatherings, no hugging of friends if you saw them at the store.

We tried to make the best of it, but it was a frightening, humbling time. We came through it, chastened and changed, and we will come through this time, too. I’m not sure when or how, but we will.

Coffee Table Books

Coffee Table Books

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I write this post with my feet propped up on our coffee table. I’m not usually so boorish, but this busy morning it seemed the best way to achieve the proper angle of laptop to wrists.

The coffee table on which my feet are propped is notably bare. We’ve had visitors and have tidied up in their honor. But I like the look of the polished wood so much that I may try to keep it this way: just one book and a few magazines. Often, it’s strewn with piles of printed material, which the kiddos love to slide and tear (see above).

One of my favorite (of many!) “Seinfeld” episodes features a coffee table book that becomes a coffee table. It has little legs that unfold and hold it upright. This post will not do that, creature of the ether that it is. But it will praise this humble living room surface and the items that rest upon it. In my case, often too many, but fewer moving forward, I hope.

Cool Spring

Cool Spring

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It’s one of those days that looks like spring but feels like winter. The Bradford pears are blooming, their white arms shivering in the breeze.

Hyacinths hesitate, wondering if it’s warm enough to venture above the soil.

The daffodils and cherry trees have made their decisions. They’ll brave the temps .. and last longer because of them.

Contemplating Discovery

Contemplating Discovery

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Late last week I met friends at the Udvar Hazy Museum, which is part of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space complex. Built in the shadow of Dulles International Airport, this structure walks, talks, eats, sleeps and dreams aircraft.

There you can see the Apollo 11 command module, Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Vega, and the 1903 Wright Brother’s flyer, which covered 852 feet in 59 seconds.

But to me the most impressive object on display is the space shuttle Discovery. It’s a hulking behemoth of a spacecraft, battered and brave. I found it strangely moving: its hoary hull and missing tiles. It wears its adventures and its miles — all 150 million of them — with dignity.

When I looked at it I thought of the optimism, even the naiveté, required for space travel. Although Discovery was retired only 14 years ago, it already seems a relic, the embodiment of an earlier, more optimistic chapter of our nation’s history.

(Photo: Wikipedia, courtesy NASA)

Up And At ‘Em

Up And At ‘Em

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Many nights I wake in the wee hours. Usually I read myself back to sleep. Last night was not one of those times. I had a burst of creative energy. I got out of bed and walked down the hall to my desk. I started writing.

I appreciate inspiration and am glad to go where it leads, even if it’s leading me at an hour when I’d rather be asleep.

So I followed the muse, brewed the tea, coaxed the words. And now … I’m falling asleep sitting up.

There’s only one way to deal with mornings like this: Keep moving. Which is exactly what I plan to do.

Bach to Basics

Bach to Basics

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It was only a few measures snatched from the radio but I’ve been humming them since Wednesday: the opening phrases of Bach’s English Suite Number 5. Who knows why a melody lodges itself in your mind, but this one made itself at home in mine.

Usually I’ll forget a piece in a few days — or, if it’s persistent and for the piano, find the music and play it. This time, miraculously enough, I already owned it. I pulled it out yesterday and started practicing.

To learn a piece from scratch is to probe the heart of it, to marvel at the intricacies of meter and harmony, the contrapuntal wonder of it all. I did that yesterday with Bach … only remembering this morning that March 21st is his birthday.

I can’t think of a more fitting reminder of his genius than to try and play one of his piano works, taking it apart and putting it back together again.

Happy Birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach! Your suite is humbling me.

AaaaChoo!

AaaaChoo!

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Spring arrives today and with it sneezes, sniffles and coughs. It’s high pollen season here in the mid-Atlantic, and scratchy throats and itchy eyes are the result.

I try to ignore seasonal allergies, which I can do since mine are middling at their worst, but some people can’t. They’re forced to stay inside during these lovely days, especially folks in Wichita, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Memphis, which were ranked the five worst cities for allergy-sufferers in the country.

Two Virginia cities ranked in the “top” (worst) ten, Richmond and Virginia Beach. The D.C. area did not, in part because rankings take into account the number of allergy docs, and we have a lot of them.

My remedy for all of this is simple: Have Kleenex, will travel.

Spring Speed-Up

Spring Speed-Up

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I remember a spring years ago when the March temperatures stayed stubbornly in the 40s (the highs, that is) and it seemed as if the forsythia would never bloom. This was in the old days, before I’d planted crocus and miniature daffodils, bleeding heart and buttercups. Back then, the forsythia was our only bellwether.

It must have been a long winter. The girls were young, maybe not yet in school, and we had been cooped up inside for what seemed like forever.

Every day we would go out in the chill and check the forsythia buds. Maybe we checked them too often. Maybe they were the watched pot that never boils. Whatever the reason, I remember the jubilation when they finally burst into bloom.

This year, that same forsythia bloomed almost without my noticing it. A result of warming weather patterns — or speeding time?

Steep and Narrow

Steep and Narrow

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Yesterday’s walk was along the Glade Trail, which lies in a protected valley but offers a workout at the end, two uphills and two downhills. I’m looking now for paths with elevation gain. The muscles grew accustomed to it over the last several weeks — and it’s bound to be good for you, in the way that all things that don’t kill you make you stronger.

Living near the fall line as I do, there’s only one direction I can head — west. Even in western Fairfax County the landscape grows hillier. In fact, my neighborhood sits atop a rise that is painfully apparent if you walk alongside Fox Mill Road.

Still, it seems strange to seek out the difficult. It’s so much easier to tramp the level trails, and there are plenty of them around here. I hope I can keep pushing myself to hike the steep and narrow. But I’m not counting on it.

(There’s plenty of hill hiking an hour’s drive west of here in Shenandoah National Park.)

Emerald Isle

Emerald Isle

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Already St. Patty’s Day. The grass is greening, but barely. The corned beef I usually start early in the day has yet to be purchased. And there is certainly no green beer in the house.

I’ll celebrate, then, by looking through photos of the Emerald Isle, searching for the greenest grass, the softest air. Not that you can tell the air is soft by looking at a photograph, but if I recall it was warm enough to remove a layer when I snapped this shot in Connemara National Park.

We were in Galway, the ancestral home of the Concannons, my mother’s people. It’s a beautiful, rocky place, more lovely to visit than to live in, I’m afraid. Then again, I’ve never lived there. Today, I’ll be dreaming that I’m back.