And Kindness Helps in Everyday Ramblings

From midday today on my walk a little bit further afield. I know it is Mother’s Day and I hope you all are feeling valued and deeply appreciated by the appropriate parties no matter what configuration that comes in.

Today is the 10th anniversary of the day Mr. Finch died and he would have loved these colors. In some ways it seems like it really has been ten years and in some ways it feels like it was a few weeks ago. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about him. It is so interesting to think that I didn’t meet the most important person in my life until I was in my 40’s.

I have been crazy in love a number of times and had so many interesting and rich relationships but the one with Mr. Finch was unique on every level imaginable. Even the fact that we stuck it out for eleven years was remarkable. If we had met earlier we would not have.

Someday I will work on the book he wanted me to write, the poems he knew I had in me; but for now I feel grateful to have had the experience of knowing him so well and that he arrived with his pea coat, cigarettes, and boatloads of drama at just the right time.

We met in May too.

Yesterday, alcohol wipes in my bag, and with my mask on I got to see Frieda! She looks good and was as happy to see me, as I was to see her.

We met downtown in front of the church. There is still very little traffic down there and it was warm and all the street people were out. I thought mitigation efforts were taking place during the pandemic but there were still a lot of tents on the sidewalks downtown and this morning walking to where I caught this flower picture there were more, boldly spread six feet apart on Department of Transportation land.

Mrs. Sherlock and I both were a little uncomfortable down there and she was tired from working hard in her garden so we had a short walk and chat and I ran around with Frieda in a park that is usually full of people and she barked happily at me.

If anybody needs to do contract tracing on me it will be easy.

And now I am back in self-isolation with no current plans for any more social contact other than my weekly trip to the grocery.

I have been thinking wearing masks out will be good for preventing age spots and facial skin cancers but we are all going to have some pretty weird tan lines by the end of the summer.

As long as I am well and well provisioned and I am both I can deal.

My heart goes out though, to all of those struggling in the next few weeks with having to make personal risk assessment decisions constantly and worrying about paying the bills. This is a rough row to hoe.

Things fall apart, they change, people and things we love are no longer with us, but we still have the gift of memory and the ability to dream and best of all the curiosity to look for beauty, no matter how fleeting, hidden in plain sight in the midst of it all.

May our eyes be open and our hearts soft and ready for that unexpected thing that comes next.

Last updated May 11, 2020