It was that old adage which caught her up on that rainy afternoon. ‘A fool and his money is soon parted’.

And so it was, she thought. She looked at the ledger in front of her, lying open and exposed on the table. Truth.

It was a poignant…lovely example of the human condition. She stretched a bit and yawned. ‘We are all in various stages of foolishness, it would seem…’

It happens every year. Every. Year.

Halfway through the lesson, a student looks at me and asks, ‘Hey! Are you a teacher?’

My standard go-to response is, ‘That’s what they tell me’.

This always seems to satisfy them…and we move on.

My one wish during this winter season is that my little student (whereabouts unknown since January) would land safely somewhere and would encounter a system, a district, a neighbor, a police officer…someone who would insist against all odds that this child be given the respect deserved; that school for this child would start again and that what was lost would be found. Perhaps our educational system will grind forward, lurching and complaining, weighed down heavily with all the students it can not seem to find the time nor resources to educate.

God bless and keep you my little friend, D. You have been deeply betrayed by adults in charge…those leading the bumbling systems we pay for.

Godspeed…

Sunshine, glorious sun streams over the front yard. It’s only 53 degrees but it feels like a slice of Heaven. We curl up in jeans and hoodies on the porch…the wind chimes bang wildly, madly in the sunny wind.

He’s listening to Salsa Vieja…a song about having fun in New York in the summer. I close my eyes in the sun and think about New York…those blistering sidewalks in August, the surging life steam rising off the walls. Eating an early dinner at The Heights on Broadway or feeling the energy at the dreadful time of 4am as we watch workers hustle to load supplies into a diner…they disappear through a rectangular hole in the sidewalk…up and down stairs at a 90 degree angle. Moving, lifting, swinging, shouting, sweating heavily, so fast, so fast…slamming the heavy metal doors…boom.

In a flash, they climb in and the large white truck lurches out fast at an angle. They’re gone. It’s 4:45am.

I wonder when we will go back.

I open my eyes and look out from the porch to the street. A few neighbors walk by, walking dogs, waving cautiously…people we don’t know, but we sense we are all in this together. ‘The ghosts are coming out’ he states simply. ‘The ghosts?’ I ask. He responds, ‘All the people we have never seen’.

The wind picks up again, slamming the chimes against the painted posts. It’s so fierce.

Blowing ghosts and viruses around…

What I think I hear is, ‘You’re dreaming with pregnant frogs’. I ask, ‘What?’ Eli replies, ‘You’re dreaming with pregnant frogs’. I pause and consider this ugly image. My silence spurs him on with a much needed clarification. ‘You just told me you are having crazy dreams and troubled mind trauma because of all of this virus nonsense; this Covid. I told you what we say in Spanish about that sort of thing. You are dreaming with pregnant frogs’.

I think about it and decide that this is a perfect description of all things virus related. Consider the image of ‘icky’ things dashing around in all directions and not running well because these dreadful ‘icky’ things are fat full with fear and anxiety and more parts and bits of ‘icky’ things.

I am not a fan of amphibians or reptiles for that matter. I am not a fan of this virus. The ‘ick’ factor surges strongly…

What she really wanted to do was sit silently and listen to the rain. The air was thick and grey with mist and wet earth and somewhere downstairs there lingered smells from last night…cooked herring and the lavender candle lit and smoldering as an offset to the curdling ocean smell.

The edges of the school year were beginning to curl and dry out…but the roots were still slightly damp and clinging. She wanted to tip the whole thing out and throw it on compost.

It was early still; the solitary indication that anyone was still alive in the neighborhood was the sound of one car, rising like a weighted vessel at sea…slowly around the corner, the gentle rocking sound of brakes sighing in the rain…full stop at the corner…a slight merging left as the car righted itself…the soft engine surging as the hill rose…large splashing and then the wide puddle by the mailbox lay breeched and drained…the slight squish of crunching gravel and tar…and gone…deafening silence. The lights across the street flickered off…there was a burst of rain…a soaking sheet at the edge of the porch. Even the birds were quiet. The silence was silver. Lovely.

‘Miss! Miss! You’re muted. I can’t hear you!’ She sighed. What she really, really wanted to do was to sit, immobile…watching the rain…’Miss! Now your camera is off’…the mourning dove cooed, a faint wistful cry outside the window…the rain fell more heavily…

As we continue to homeschool during this pandemic, Antonio and I have reached a truce, also known as an understanding…the agreement being that after 2pm, Auntie is officially ‘done’.

He, being the elementary student is therefore ‘done’ as well…after 2pm.

Auntie needs and gets some kind of sugar (such as cake) and therefore Antonio gets some sort of sweet pastry as well…although his portion is somewhat less than mine because I am supposed to be a good enforcer/example…or so they tell me.

It is a shaky sort of truce…all the way around. The intensity of this ‘truce’ is a touch less for Antonio…or so he tells me…

April does her thing; a muddy patch here, a small pink hyacinth there. The ground by the edge of the house is moist and beckoning, desiring that some work be done.

Upstairs, I opened two windows for the first time in months and hung up fresh laundered clothing. Yes, I own a dryer. I prefer the motion of lifting and hanging and smoothing my hands over the damp cloth; making sure it is perfect, with carefully placed creases, and hung correctly, maximizing air flow and shape. It takes time and my fatigue makes sloppy handling. But it is worth it. Of course it requires time. The joy lies in the process of the laundering, smoothing and hanging and the energy spent settles my mind.

There awaits me in our kitchen a ceramic mug of almond coffee laced with heavy cream and honey; along with cherry cordial cake slices for breakfast. Later there will be thick slices of potato cheddar chive toast with squares of butter.

This life is too short for badly boiled coffee and plain oatmeal. There may be mornings for that someday, but not today; not while April does her thing…

We have been learning English idioms. The little ones love them!

One cute little pudge approached me early this morning and told me with great earnestness that he ‘needed another idiot’.

So do I…all things considered.

At the corner of Grape Street and crumbling houses; a community held together by the vigorous street play of children and the two red towels hanging from a chipped back window, I see two of the largest horses I have ever seen. They clip clop with regalia and precision, ridden by two police officers; ram road straight…seated on the backs of these monster beasts…meandering quietly down the sidewalk.

I ponder their size as I drive by. When I was a very young child, we had a neighbor, an energetic chatty woman always dressed in a work smock covered with an apron. She fixed her hair, combing it tightly and fastening it together in a bun with black bobby pins. In warm weather she washed her long locks and sat out in the backyard on the grass in the sunshine, combing it dry. Her hair touched the ground as she sat stiffly straight combing and combing as the sun shone and dried. We as children, watched from our kitchen window, enthralled.

One day she let us in her home for milk and cookies and showed us a picture of her father. Strong, handsome and wirey…the photo was sepia in tone…melting into rivers of pink and faded orange…as if life were sweet and easy on that farm a long time ago.

‘He died when I was about your age’ she said suddenly. We looked at her. It was not polite to ask and we understood that. ‘How did he die?’ It slipped out of our mouths before we stopped ourselves. She answered clearly, ‘He was kicked in the stomach by a horse’. We stared at her. That couldn’t be right. ‘What?’ we asked. ‘He was kicked in the stomach by a horse. That took him’. She sighed and carefully placed the frame back on the shelf; the face of her father staring out at us.

Along the length of Jay Street, I’ve driven past the police officers and the huge horses. At the traffic light, I notice a crumbled woman wearing a jacket, a Covid mask and holding a cigarette…seated on a large indented and sloppily crushed traffic cone which lies on the sidewalk. She’s tipped slightly sideways…looking backwards…watching the horses approaching.

Their tails flare and ripple slightly in the breeze…