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Today and yesterday were pretty good days. Is that…ok?

Yesterday, we walked over to my parents’ apartment to spend some time in their small garden. They don’t live here all of the time, and luckily they are currently home and safe in another state.

Over the course of this week, we realized that we could utilize this empty place so as not to go totally bonkers. We decided to split our day, one person would do school in the morning while the other would spend a few hours in a place that has another door. Then, we’d switch. Yesterday, I took the short walk to the apartment, opened the back door to the garden, lay a blanket down on the wooden deck and listened to someone playing piano next door. Or a someone playing beautiful and loud piano music on a stereo. Either way, it matters not. Nothing matters! I took off my shoes and socks, marveled for a moment at my own unshaven ankles, and lay down on the deck. I took in the sun like the vitamin it is and began to give thanks. I soaked up the birdsong, the magnolia tree in bloom, the voice of the mom a few yards away, barking a taut NO at her toddler who was probably trying to reach out to touch something. The intermittent sound of sirens receded back into the hum and a feeling of peace surfaced. I let it come (and probably cried a little). Two mourning doves called to each other, just short of unison, partners for life, finishing each other’s sentences.

This place might save our sanity. This garden is a place of refuge. Am I allowed? Can I have this feeling, this place, when there are tents being built as makeshift morgues a few miles away?

There was palpable joy in my heart at hearing the buzzer to the apartment ring and running to get it like everything was normal like when people would come to visit and you’d just buzz them in. My daughters entering, casually reminding one another to wash hands, wearing special costumes they’d donned to make the trip over, to be in another place for a different occasion. We all sat on the deck together, having let go of the need to complete our remote learning for the day, giving over to the beauty of a 66 degree late afternoon, feeling the peace together.

I’ll share a poem I wrote a while back because nothing matters and it is ok.

Once,
on the other side of the apartment
a dove flew into our kitchen,
stood on the stove
that still doesn’t belong to us.

There was no looking away.

He stood,
moved slowly toward the bird,
a kindly giant.
Made himself big
stretched his arms wide
open hands, palms
facing the small animal
with hollow bones,
loving.

Once,
this dove
flew through our window, and back
out the window

An open invitation.
An open window
I open the window,
I send the invitation

on a wing.