Shelter in Place, San Francisco, March 12, 2021
As luck would have it, I fertilized the soil around the ferns and palm tree just before the rains. Three days later as the sun emerged, I found a miniature forest of toadstools hiding in the shadows right where I had been working. Clover, too, had cropped up overnight — not the four-leaf kind but serendipitous enough to feel like luck had landed at my feet.
We need all the luck we can get these days, and good sense, too. Hearing the president say last night that everyone can be vaccinated by May made my heart soar - but that success depends on everyone taking the jab when they can get it, and following good practices until we’re all out of the woods. What’s that saying? ‘Without hard work there’d be no luck at all.’ It’s hard to keep doing what we need to do to get us to the end, but I’m going to keep my fingers crossed - maybe, with luck and good neighbors, I’ll be able to see my kids and grandkids this summer, if we can all just hang in there to the end.
Day 354: Trouble?
Shelter in Place, San Francisco, March 10, 2021
Dramatic thunder clouds are rare in this neck of the woods, so I’ve been enjoying their roiling ebb and flow at this, the end of a winter storm that has brought (at last) much needed overnight rain and a morning spotted with sunshine. And in the thick of it, the crows have been unusually flustered and vocal overhead, careening and barking at an enemy unseen. It’s likely that they’ve spotted the red tailed hawk that sometimes rests in our neighbors’ tall redwood, too close for the crows who claim a nearby tree their turf and nesting ground. But as I watch them dive and sway and circle this morning, it almost seems these fierce and fearless birds have taken on the clouds themselves. I’m stretching the analogy, of course, to say that I am feeling like those crows but less courageous - finally having some protection from the virus that has haunted us for a year now, I find myself suspicious of what trouble lurks nearby. Would that I could screech and fly and chase it all away. Would that we ALL could see and celebrate the sunshine just now breaking through.
Day 350: Can We Fly Away?
Shelter in Place, San Francisco, March 6, 2021
As I work in the garden cleaning, mulching, and planting for spring, I am surrounded by birds - hummingbirds in full color buzz my head; a bright yellow Townsend’s warbler tries in vain to hide himself in the branches of the nearby ceanothus, now a budding, brilliant blue; sparrows begin their mating racket in the neighbor's bamboo stand; and it sounds like the mourning dove is back in the neighborhood and looking for a mate.
My sons asked this morning what we’ll do differently now that both John and I are fully vaccinated. Honestly, I don’t know. What will be safe and what we want are not entirely clear. But tomorrow evening we will celebrate John’s birthday on the newly opened patio of a favorite restaurant - our first San Francisco meal out in over a year. It will probably be cold, it may be rainy. But it marks a milestone, nonetheless. A baby step until we feel safe enough to fly out of our pandemic shelter, truly up and away.