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.