Saturday

I went to the Farmer's Market this morning.  Had been closed for a month?  I lose track of time.  I'd been looking forward to it, to supporting the farmers, but found I was anxious this morning.  I haven't left my neighborhood really, in the past 30 days.  I walked the extreme outer perimeter of the Lake last Monday, with two of my housemates, and it was crowded, we mostly managed to avoid people.  And I went to the bank 3 or 4 weeks ago?  I needed quarters for laundry, and all the banks near my house were closed to in-person banking.  But I haven't even been to the garden in two weeks, and I was going late afternoon, after work, and even then lots of people out on the sidewalks between here and there, much more than usual: walking or biking or jogging are what's left to do.

Last weekend the bigger parks were closed, including Green Lake.  I walked over to the edge early in the day, wondering how they would close it.  There was a park's vehicle slowly driving up the walking path, calling out via loudspeaker, to leave the park, the park was closed.  I was on the edge of the grass, and felt a twinge of entitlement (much to my chagrin) but turned and walked back into the neighborhood, because, of course that applies to me, too.

On Easter (was that just six days ago?) I went for a long walk, winding through the neighborhood, avoiding people, but enjoying the warm spring morning, and the bright blue sky, trees in bloom, birds singing.  Feeling any anxiety I had just wash out of my body and my mind.  Reminding me of the last time I felt that much freedom (aside from occasions on the Camino) was when I was a teenager/early 20's and in college.  Now, there's always something I should be doing, or need to get to that hangs over my head, doesn't let me enjoy the moment as much as I'd like.  Coming toward home, I saw someone carrying a big bouquet of flowers, and then remembered reading an email about a local eatery selling flower bouquets from some of the local flower growers, who had no market for them.  I went down and bought some, they are still holding up.  Did the online church service (and it was strange doing Holy Week alone), and later called home.

Anyway, it rained all night, was still raining when I walked over to the Market.  But a mask over my lower face as I got near the entrance.  Someone told me the line to get in wrapped around the block, she was walking away.  Found the end of the line, stood in the rain, moving up six feet every few minutes as they let someone else shop.  Probably 45 minute wait.  Most people wore masks.  Most people kept their distance.  Staff directing foot traffic and line-ups when people started to gather around the vendors.  It went fairly smoothly.  Probably half the usual vendors.  Hopefully, it was all safe enough, and it will continue on.

On Saturdays, I often would go out to breakfast at the nearby diner.  Last time I was there, before the official "Stay at Home" order, but lots of places had closed already, I said to one of the staff whom I'd been talking to a lot as of late, "See you next week, God willing." And then a couple days later they were closed, and now boarded up.  I miss them.  I miss the Pub, which was doing take-out, but closed earlier in the month.  I miss my bus driver.  I miss taking the bus.  I miss going into work.  I miss church.  I miss human touch.  I miss sharing meals/snacks/coffee.  I miss sitting across from someone.

On Thursday, we did a Zoom Happy Hour with work, that was nice.  I went to Happy Hour with a friend on Friday the 13th, I think, of March. We had tickets to a dance performance, but it'd been cancelled earlier in the day.  We shared the food, ate with our fingers.  Neither of us were sick, or got sick, but that feeling was in the air.

My mom mentioned my sister was harvesting the dandelions and using all of them.  I want to go pick flowers (almost bought some at the Market, but figured I could go to the garden and get some, though I did buy dandelion leaves and stinging nettle.  I ate the leaves for lunch today.)  She made dandelion vinegar, I think I will, too.  If you can find them unsprayed, the entire plant is edible, one of the most nutritious plants you can eat.  Lots of recipes online.

Anyway, getting out of the house was good.  I find I don't want to really engage much with anyone, save the housemates, whom I don't actually know all that well, two of them had just moved in right before the "Stay at Home" order, and we do keep our distance.  Most of my conversations are short, and with the coffee shop owner/workers, where I go everyday.  Pretty much only regular charges to my bank account over the past month.  Helps keep them afloat and keeps me sane.  I wonder how we will ease out of this isolation?  Cases jumped a bit at the end of the week.  There's an antibody test soon, but that may or may not be useful, news from the UK says to be cautious, we don't know if we can get immunity.  Though it's useful for working toward a vaccine, and for donating plasma.

Last time I worked in the garden, some crows stealthily got into my gardening stuff while I was at the shed, and stole some seed packets (they dumped out my bags first).  When I finally realized, I ran toward them, one hopped away, and the other grabbed a packet of zinnia seeds, and flew up into a low branch of a nearby tree and proceeded to ripped the packet open and consume the seeds.  When I finally got over near it, it flew back into the garden, dropped the packet, and perched on a water spigot.  Two seeds remained.  Then the two flew into another plot and dug around.  I think they are the breeding pair from last year, they had one baby which we often found sitting in someone's plot, but the adults didn't seem to care that we were around, like they normally would.  I think they've adopted us.  The nest is in the middle of the garden, and not all that high.

There's a plane flying over.  Such a rare occasion now.  The skies are really quiet from human noise.  Even the construction is only a couple times a week.  It's bird song, wind through the trees in the afternoons, and the distant hum of traffic from the freeway, when the wind is in the right direction.

It's the new normal, where nothing is as it was, nothing seems quite real, as if it will suddenly lift, or we'll wake up from a dream, where we were being stalked by something we couldn't see.