My friend Wendy invited me to join a worldwide Facebook group called, “What Do You See Outside Your Window? #stayathome.” I suppose it’s meant to create fellowship while sheltering at home, a virtual alternative to what Italians are doing when they sing together from their balconies. I posted this iPhone photo that I snapped yesterday…
Writing in the time of COVID-19: Day Fourteen
I saw it again today, in a headline, a publication using an albatross as a metaphor to imply something negative, something long-lasting, something bad. Here’s the thing: An albatross isn’t a burden. Oh, sure, there’s Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner and that business with an albatross around a sailor’s neck. But it ended up…
Writing in the time of COVID-19: Day Thirteen
After carefully conserving certain food items—ahem, chocolate—and conscientiously eating leftovers to make our food supplies last as long as possible, I went to Costco for the first time in three weeks. (Truth is, we needed carrots and sweet potatoes to make Lulu’s food.) Outside the store, two employees were spraying and wiping down wagons with…
Writing in the time of COVID-19: Day Twelve
Once a week, I monitor a long stretch of undeveloped coastline for wildlife. I’ve been doing this for a dozen years. Lucky for me, even in non-COVID-19 times, I rarely run into anyone. Yesterday, under brightly sunny skies and cooling trade winds, I ran into a few creatures, and it was delightful. For a lovely…
Writing in the time of COVID-19: Day Eleven
In Jane Hirshfield’s poem, “Some questions,” she asks: Will you miss them \ the cruelty and hunger \ the manatees and spoonbills. I focused on the manatees and spoonbills. They draw huge crowds year over year in Florida the way albatross and humpback whales draw people to Hawaii. Like sandhill cranes to Nebraska. Grizzly bears…
Writing in the time of COVID-19: Day Ten
Sun-sun. That’s what greeted me this morning when I opened the drapes to see the mountain outside accept the full radiance bestowed upon her. Throughout all the weather our island throws at her, Kalalea stands. Full sun. Overcast sky. The shroud of rain. Kalalea is my first greeting as I open the drapes to the…
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