Respite
(where I've been)
You haven’t seen much of me lately, and I’m sorry for that. I can’t say why, exactly, I haven’t visited and written. I’m writing, mainly offline, and experimenting with collage and watercolor and other artsy craftsy stuff. Sometimes it feels peaceful, but mainly I feel like some old dabbling woman. These are weird days. I get up as the moon goes down. I teach all day. I read and read and read all night and sometimes watch “Borgen.” I talk on the phone with my friends a lot. I talk on the phone with my sons a lot. I take care of Sophie and chat with the two Marias when they come and take care of her. I cook good things to eat because I am graced with ample food and skill. I piddle around in my garden. The lemons hang heavy from the little trees and the succulents are robust. I love The Bird Photographer. We’re hunkered down here in Los Angeles, under a new Stay at Home order. The death and destruction and economic suffering is so terrible. I practice tonglen but it feels aimless. I guess that’s the purpose. Last weekend — or was it a few weeks ago? — we did take a drive to Malibu and stopped at this delicious cove near Leo Cabrillo beach. Just a scattering of people, all masked. Little skittering birds, blue skies, sailboats in the cerulean distance. The beach was covered with the most beautiful flat stones, and the water was cold. The California coast is sublime.
Reader, tell me what you’re doing and thinking.
I used to think of limbo as a static state, but it’s not. It turns out it’s this. You describe it so well. I’m glad to hear you are creating in new ways. I can’t write much either. We are all changed by this. How could we possibly stay the same within such a tragedy? But I’m happy to read these words from you and so can think of you as healthy and still there, with your family, your love, your many skills and talents. On we go, for as long as we can.
It is good to be hunkered down with people you love. I think for me it’s been hard to write here because I feel in a state of suspension, watching, waiting, wondering what will endure when all this is over, then wondering will it ever truly be over. These past four years, this pandemic, they have changed us. Who will we now become. I love you.