Thursday and Friday, I was feeling poorly. Just tired, run-down kind of thing. Post-flu-shot malaise? Pandemic fatigue? Burnout? Depression? All of the above, to some extent or another. So, I took a couple sick days to rest. (It feels deeply uncomfortable to admit that in public! What if my boss sees? Will he think I am insufficiently dedicated?)
Anyway, I slept a lot. Played some video games. Made some motions towards improving my space. I tidied a bit. Dusted here and there. Stared at the wall. Friday evening, Erik and I took the pup for a walk in the park.
I have fallen in love with this park. It is long and narrow, and follows the local runoff creek. It is surrounded by wildflowers. Much of the park is given over to prairie; I’ve never realized how much color there can be in a field of grasses. There are many kinds of trees. We see fox regularly, and I swear I keep hearing what sounds like a wild turkey (maybe a quail?) in the biggest section of uncut grass. It is a pocket of space that feels slightly wild, two blocks from my home. I have started to learn the names of more trees and flowers, just to know them. Like the stars, the trees and grass have a rhythm to connect to, even when I feel ungrounded.
After the walk in the park, I made a fire. It went up first try. I was very proud.
Erik and I sat by the fire for hours. We grilled brats for dinner, and s’mores for dessert. Sitting by the fire encourages conversation; we talk about our future, and tell stories, in a way that we seldom make intentional time to do in the normal course of things. Before too late, it started raining, so we quickly went inside.
Saturday was Plant Day. I made pumpkin muffins, then Erik and I put up some metal shelves, and figured out how to arrange his plants for winter in a way they weren’t taking up too much floor space. I love Erik’s plants. I do not have discipline or patience for house plants to succeed under my care. But Erik has nurtured many of these plants for years. He feels a deep connection to them. This summer, his cycad flushed a new ring of leaves. Erik was so proud. Since before we moved here a year ago, he was like “it is totally beginning to cone! It will flush soon! Look at it!” (It all just looked brown and spiky to me at the time, tbh.) This summer it unfurled delicate little green leaves, and Erik would tell me the story of how he rescued it when it had only one leaf left. That was fifteen years ago.
So not only do I have houseplants, thanks to Erik’s stewardship. I have BIG ASS HOUSE PLANTS. Right now I have an an ACTUAL TREE in my dining room. A lime tree, I think. There is a pot that has ginger, and turmeric growing in it, from roots he planted from groceries. There is a pineapple; I think that is also sprouted from groceries. Some palm trees are labeled with names, but some are just random seeds he picked off the ground in Florida and has nurtured to a palm sapling. When we had everything akimbo in the library while we were working, it was like a jungle.
After, we went to my dad’s, and helped him organize his records. He has more joie de vivre than he has had lately. He told stories about the records. How he came by them, what they meant to him, who they reminded him of. It was nice bonding, but in hindsight, I don’t feel great about that from a COVID risk perspective. I keep my bubble tight so I can spend time with Dad, but that was 2 hours in an enclosed room. Masked, but probably closer to 4 feet of distanced than six. And I’d been feeling tired. What if it was more than just the list of psychological oppressions above? I ended up going and getting swabbed today, just to ease my mind.
After, Erik and I got takeout from Lazlo’s, which we devoured with gusto. I hadn’t had their food since the start of the pandemic. It was good comfort food, for sure. Then Erik and i watched Avengers: Infinity War and Captain Marvel. It was cozy. We half-joked about staying up to watch Endgame, but that would be 2 AM!!!
Sunday, Erik started bread early in the day. I spent until early afternoon alternating sloth and taking care of things around the house. I filled out my ballot; I need to return it still though, mustn’t forget! Midafternoon, we took Luca to the dog park. I am, in general, against dog parks. Too many unknown factors. But we let him play in the Mahoney one once when it was empty, and the look of PURE JOY on his face as he got to cut loose and RUN was something precious. So we tried him out once again when there were maybe 3 other dogs in the large space. He did a great job of wheeling back to us even when there was ANOTHER DOG to play with, and he played pretty appropriately.
We decided to step it up a little more. We took him to Stransky Dog Run, and it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. When we arrived, there were perhaps 6-7 other dogs in the run, including one identical to Luca! I was slightly hesitant, but there was no scrum at the gate. it was just a bunch of dogs, calmly walking with their humans with an occasional round of zoomies. We took Luca in, and he, once again, did amazingly. His recall was spot-on. When Erik and I stopped in the shade to stand still for a bit, Luca came and sat between us, tongue lolling out to the side. There was a gangly puppy, and Luca was gentle with her. We didn’t stay long; I have a motto “leave while everyone’s still having fun”, so after a few rounds of RUNNING, we went over to Tierra park.
Tierra has this little hidden walking trail in the woods. First, it’s a Frisbee Golf course, but if you go past that, it’s a long loop, that again feels like a pocket of wilderness in the city. We did one lap of that path, and then went home.
For dinner, Erik made a meal to my request: pumpkin soup and crusty bread. I’d been daydreaming about it, and idly spoke the whim aloud, and he took it upon himself to make it happen. We ate by candlelight (in the photo the overhead light is on, but we turned it off before sitting down.)
After dinner, we adjourned to the library, where we took a crack at the Christmas duet books I bought for Horn and Tuba (Erik and I hatched a potentially-crazy plan of Brass Christmas Caroling). Erik needs a deeper refresher on Tuba and music theory before we can get off the ground, but it felt good to have the project of “make music together”.
What more could I ask for out of a weekend? My space is cleaner than it was. I spent time in nature, and eating good food, and a dash of art. I woke up today feeling more ready to tackle things.
And this evening, after work, I went for a walk in the park. I admired the soft touch of grass pods on my fingers. I made tomato soup, which I ate for dinner with grilled cheese made from Erik’s bread (and literally four kinds of cheese). Before dinner, while the soup simmered, I practiced my horn in a way I haven’t for decades. Not just getting it out and tootling around with some chromatic scales and tunes to reassure myself I haven’t forgotten everything, but getting out my Method book and starting from the beginning on “exercises to build tone”.
The world burns around me. People die by the thousand a day. There are long-term effects of our current situation that I cannot even begin to fathom. Things will continue to be dire, even if Trump is not re-elected. There is every chance Trump will be re-elected.
But I can fill my life with trees and flowers and dog walks. With good food and nights by the firepit. With relearning how to make music. And maybe that will be enough to help me get up and face the morning, each day.
Notebook 