Day 301: Cleaning House

Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 18, 2021

The sun is out, the windows are wide open and we are enjoying the sound of neighbors cleaning yards and houses: vacuums, electric hedge clippers, and the like. Good noise. Maybe it’s the holiday; maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s the thought that in Washington for the next few days, the country will be literally and figuratively cleaning house, thank goodness, and not a day too soon. Whatever the reason for it, the busy-ness is a welcome buzz, the energy is catching.

So today I’ve started the task of trimming back the old Cecile Brunner tea rose, climbing over the lavender to reach the branches that should go. “Be bold,” the experts write. “The more you trim, the more your rose will bloom.” It’s good advice, I guess, but every year I find it hard to muster the courage to cut back the many knotted branches that have already begun to bud. So I take it slow. Over a week or so, I come at the rose from different angles. I bend and weave among the branches as thorns grab me every way I turn. I cut the most obvious and useless branches first and work my way towards daring.

Two more days and this is what I’m thinking as I duck and weave: may the clearing of the White House detritus be thorough and let's hope it will be fast.

Day 299: The Flower and the Tree

Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 16, 2021

This is the last petal on nearly the last blossom on our Princess tree (Tibochina), not a particularly pretty sight. We planted the tree against our neighbor’s wall because we loved the one that blooms profusely further down the street and we wanted some winter color of our own. Individual Princess flowers are somewhat flaccid even when they’re bright and new, but the whole tree effect - when healthy - glows an inspiring royal purple worthy of its name. Not ours, not yet. The few bright blossoms on our backyard tree are well hidden and barely hanging on.

I’ve been thinking lately about personal paralysis, and the relationship between collective and individual moods. I find myself easily distracted these days and - inconsistently - ricocheting between restlessness and lethargy, neither condition conducive to doing anything thing of interest or import. It feels an anxious sloth that’s bigger than myself - a nation, holding its breath, a collective paralysis that multiplies and spreads. This is not who I am, I chastise myself. This is not who we are, the pundits say, but the stress of mourning tragedies and waiting for the next keeps me in my chair and the country poised to fall apart. We are the collective and the individual, I surmise, the flower and the tree.

Day 297: Still Here

Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 14, 2021

We felt a little earthquake this morning as I was mulling what to say about this photograph - - just enough of a shake to make the house give up a tiny sigh. We’ve joked a lot about an earthquake adding to the list of tragedies this year and then suddenly it comes, one so small it cannot be counted among the top ten calamities this past week.

When, last Tuesday, I cautioned us all to hang on tight until the inauguration, I had no way of knowing that eight days later there would be hundreds of soldiers sleeping on the capitol’s floors and our president would be impeached. The speed at which we consume and survive bad news continues to accelerate, and though I feel relief that worse did not occur in Washington, I don’t pretend to think this tragedy is over; I don’t doubt that more is yet to come.

But I get some comfort this morning from documenting this potted jade plant on our deck - old and battered, but showing signs of growth. Yesterday, the State of California lowered the age for COVID vaccinations, and though there are not yet sufficient doses, probably, to soon reach those of us who’re vulnerable and waiting, I’ll take heart. It’s nice to think that better days are coming, and the tide of tragedies may at least slow down. Meanwhile, I’ll just take comfort in the fact that, though old and battered, I’m still here at all.