Red bird

As I type this, we don’t yet have a shelter-in-place order here — but I have been, since I came back from the office last week. (And basically for the week before, as well.)

For the foreseeable future.

Everyone else who’s self-isolated seems stir crazy with the sudden smallness of their world — but really, until I fling myself across the globe on a trip (no time soon, alas), this is my normal.

For me, the days are mostly unchanged.* It’s harder to get a grocery delivery, but it’s not yet urgent either. And my hands are much drier than usual. Otherwise, my day to day is mostly the same. I work, from home, which is my strong preference anyway. I’m not having my parents over for dinner, which I miss, but I call them every day to make sure they sound okay. My sister and I FaceTime every so often. S and I talk pretty much daily.

It’s all pretty much the same old same old for me.

But one day this week, as I was going about my usual, I was really struck by the beauty of the bright cardinal in the ornamental plum just outside my office window. Surrounded by pink blossoms, flitting from branch to branch.

Beautiful. Delightful.

May your day hold unexpected delights to cheer you, as well.

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* I must admit, though, that there is a bit of a twinge in the difference between choosing to stay in and not being able to go out. Right now here it’s a choice, though it doesn’t feel like one (and until COVID-19 becomes a known and fully treatable quantity, it shouldn’t be one). I know in some places it’s not a choice at all. I know that subtle difference matters. Hang in there. We’re trying to save people’s lives, and we can do it together. Separately, of course.