On waiting around
On waiting around
To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season
I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. Am I looking for a sign to tell me it’s safe to start living my life again?
“Doesn’t the air smell great today?” I say to my spouse Janyce as we are walking down a new road in our neighborhood. It’s 7:30 am and we’ve had two cups of coffee already, our step is quick on the pavement. The workmen are out, blocking the street with police cars and road closed signs, forcing us to take a new walking route. We’re not wearing masks, so we zig zag across the street every time we see another pair of walkers or a jogger approaching.
Janyce doesn’t answer, she’s got a slight frown on her face which lets me know she’s thinking about work. It feels like it has been days since I’ve moved my body, and I pick up the walking pace. Spring is in full force outside: robins are dotting the greening lawns, flowering trees are on the verge of exploding open, and brilliant splashes of yellow forsythia sway in every yard. We pass a lawn crew blowing leaves into piles and spreading mulch under bushes. I pull out my phone to snap a picture of the telephone number printed on the side of the truck parked on the street.
Just the other day, on Easter Sunday morning, we had no plans as usual. Janyce was working again at her computer and I was roaming the house in my pajamas leaving little messes of empty water glasses and books in my wake. It was exhausting watching her work. I kept shouting out pronouncements from the paper I was reading and walking in and out of the kitchen with a new snack and flopping back on the couch.
“What’s up with you today?” said my best friend in a text.
“Loafing. The extreme version,” I said.
I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. Am I waiting for a sign to tell me it’s safe to start living my life again?
The sun is out and the air is warm and it feels like everything is like it always was, but then again, not really. Massachusetts has recorded 2,221 new cases of the virus for a total of 34,402 so far with 159 new deaths today alone.
We round another corner, turning up a slight hill, and I start talking to Janyce about my desire to get back into action. “Let’s make some plans for the summer,” I say. “We can stay home. We can get the front steps replaced. We can get the leaves cleaned out in the front. Maybe the Governor will lift restrictions and we can get out there to buy small bushes of forsythia. We’ll get a bunch of vinca vine for ground cover, we can group tiger lilies by the stones.” And then I stop. A tiny speck of yellow catches my eye on the pavement right at my feet. I pull out my phone from my pocket and crouch down to move in closer to get a picture.
One single forsythia blossom, blown from a nearby tree, is flattened in the middle of the road in the shape of the letter K. My tiny initial. A hopeful, nascent sign from the Universe to me that maybe I’m on the right track here? That maybe it really is time to get back into action?
I snap a picture, smile at Janyce, and we continue on our morning walk.
Its early Saturday morning and I’m sitting at the computer with my cup of strong coffee watching large flakes of snow falling as the day begins to brighten in the yard. Mounds of snow cover the terra cotta firepit and the lounge chairs I pulled out of the shed just days earlier. It’s an odd juxtaposition for April 18, but it’s not like we haven’t been here before.
“What an ordeal, take it easy damp boy,” I hear Janyce muttering to the dog in the kitchen after returning from a walk down the driveway and back, now pouring herself coffee and making breakfast for our dog. I listen to the tinkling sound of dry kibble in the bowl and a knife banging out a steady rhythm on the side of the can. “Treat okay!”
She makes her way into the living room with her coffee cup and turns the chair and hassock to face the back window.
“The poor forsythia bushes are drowned,” she says, making a slumping gesture with her whole body. “This is a wet snow. It’s heavy.”
And there it goes. That brief feeling of lightness I had on my spring walk just a couple of days ago, along with the desire to lift myself, ever so slightly, out of the dark winter of my soul. That person in the White House would have us all believe it’s time to open up the country again, that it’s time for us all to get out there, start living in full force and get back to normal. Except I still don’t know what normal is going to be yet.
No, instead today I will take my cue from Mother Nature. I’ll take the deluge of snow in my yard as yet another sign to hold on just a minute more. And there is always the promise of another glowing fire in the woodstove, another chance to bake a bread with the three black bananas in the refrigerator. It’s not time just yet for the promise of spring. Not for me, anyway, and maybe not for all of us. And that, like the weather, is just how it is.
“It’s going to be 60 degrees tomorrow,” says Janyce. “But not until 4pm.”