Day 288: Suspended

Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 5, 2021

And now the rain comes. It blows in sheets across the yard. It hammers at the door. Then, like a faucet turned, the rain is suddenly gone. By the time I run outside, the sky is blue.

I am like this tiny, cheerful fuchsia ballerina I found hiding beneath bigger leaves and cradling the last drop. I keep thinking that the worst is over and then we hit another storm - the president and his cronies up their crazy, dangerous, bat-shit game, the virus morphs, the vaccine rollout crawls nearly to a stop. And I am suspended once again, battered, balancing the weight, and waiting for my feet to finally reach the floor.

May these next few weeks go swiftly and may our country hold on tight.

Day 285: Turning the Corner

Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 2, 2021

The church on Church Street - St. Paul’s - is the anchor of our neighborhood and, oddly enough, most famous for a silly movie I’ve never been able to sit through, one incongruous with the building’s serious facade. For me, the spires of St. Paul’s point to home as we plummet down the hill from the grocery store up on Diamond Heights, and from descending airplanes as they bring me back to my adopted city. At ground level, and just a few blocks from our house, I used to sit on the church’s front steps when my hips were sore, and greet the crossing guard who guided me and St. Paul’s children across the street.

Right now this quiet giant is mostly that - quiet: the schoolyard empty, the bells silent, the madonna locked behind the gate. Now as I walk more quickly past, I remember the quotidian energy and life this place engendered just one year ago, the older version of San Fransisco gathering at its doors - Italians, Germans, Filipinos, come to celebrate their lives and mourn their losses.

Yesterday we turned the corner on the calendar in this time of solitude and trouble. And among the many hopes we’ve piled at the new year’s door is this: may there come a time (and soon) that more than gulls and pigeons find their comfort here.

Day 283: Sunshine

Shelter in Place, San Francisco, December 31, 2020

On the eve of the new year we should be experiencing rain. Lots of it. This is the time when our water supply needs to be replenished from deep snow in the mountains to the east, and when our garden needs to drink sufficient quantities to flourish in the year to come. Soaking rain is what we need. Bone-chilling dark days. Yet I cannot be sorry for the sunshine we are experiencing and for the optimistic African daisies that sparkle in the light. This is their best time of year, when the rest of the garden is mostly dormant, hunkered down for better days. The daisies burst on the scene when we are (usually) stuck inside.

What should we make of this spate of sunshine? Should we worry that the drought is getting worse? Maybe. But today I’m going to celebrate the end of 2020, thank goodness, and enjoy the sun-kissed daisies that have arrived.

Happy new year, my friends.