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…

Pandemic homeschool memories: Antonio learned to thread a needle this morning and then sewed up several holes in some of his stuffed toys in the afternoon.

On Zoom later during the day: two students have taken their district chrome books and have left our snowy meadows to return to Puerto Rico for good.

We are sitting in snow. They are zooming in from the beach. Palm trees are swaying in the salty breeze.

I am not quite sure how state testing will be successfully administered…

Other than that, all else having failed, we naturally formed a committee…

Thoughts on April:

The reversal of expectations; grey winds with rain smatterings clash around the edge of the house while the porch chimes rage in metal fury. It’s April! It’s April! The chimes are upset. They try flying separate of each other but this gale forces them together. Their pipes, smashed into each other, are now hopelessly tangled up in black string. I consider them; these helpless chime children. This will require a ladder, stretching and pulling and a lengthy time sitting on the couch carefully unwinding each black twine, silver pipe and wooden weight. Not today.

I go back into the house and standing in the warm kitchen, I consider strawberries and a croissant; a medium coffee…lighter breakfast fare as it is April, after all. It’s April!

I hear the roar of the wind, watch the massacre of rain all over the windows. The birds fly slightly sideways in the air. No strawberries and sunlight. It’s time for a breakfast re-group…hot buttered garlic toast, dark chocolate coffee, the kind which places a wild ‘ping’ in your head and a lurch in one’s chest; laced with thick cream.

Fruit and sunshine can wait. I’m back in the throes of autumn; amber and butter and lux and gold; cheese and bisque and the heavier spoons…

It is rich indeed…that moment when the person who has snubbed or ignored you for weeks in the hallway (reasons unknown)…rounds the corner and greets you with a smile and a ‘Good morning’ while instantly realizing I wasn’t the person to whom that smile and greeting should have been directed.

But my nuance radar is up and I’m quicker. I look away before it can all be taken back. Or perhaps it was a dream.

But either way, I’m in my office and as I settle in my chair, I think…’I win’.

Rich indeed…

Overheard on Zoom…’Turn your camera on. No! No, I don’t want to see your ceiling. Lower your camera so I can see you. I want to see your face so I know you are paying attention. Okay. Thank you’.

‘Finish the paragraph about whales. No. No, it’s not ‘who’…it’s ‘wha’…no, we’re not going to end the paragraph by saying the whale is going to eat all the people…no. No!’

“I don’t want to see your ceiling…’

We are living in what I call outrageous grey. Countless days this winter and spring, endless hours of grey and slate and charcoal and lead and concrete.

I look at my potted dahlias sitting obediently in the window, doing what they have been instructed to do; reach for the sun! Higher! The package of seeds reads: dahlias thrive in six to eight hours of direct sunlight. Direct greying air pours in through the glass. Maybe I shall pour vitamin D drops into their faltering soil.

I step tentatively outside onto our porch. I fear being dive bombed by angry robins; those miscreants who have been busy building nests and forts on top of my large window ledge. 8am. All is quiet along the front edge of the house. There is one weak strand of nesting material hanging over the lip of the window and…a cascading shower of white breakfast remains all over one of the chairs and flowered cushion. A bird salvo.

They’re out there somewhere. Perhaps it’s just too grey and cold for them to build today. I swipe down the few strands of stems from off the ledge, remove the mess from the edge of the broom and stomp up to the door, not before stopping to grasp and rattle the wind chimes as a call to arms.

Round two…

When the cathedral burned…

Oh, Notre-Dame…my heart. Brick upon brick, life upon life, century upon century…and the spire, that spire.

You are burning…burning…and with the conflagration goes the best, the absolute best of what humanity can be…

10:28am…I hear a mad, rapid fluttering at the reading room window. I suspect the robins are back at it.

I take a final swig of cooling coffee and venture onto the porch with broom in hand. The porch is lit up with sun. The chimes are quietly churning in the wind and the window ledge is strangely empty. Not a twig or piece of nesting detritus in sight. I look around. Where are they?

It appears then that the robins stopped by our porch only to say hello, to flutter around the edge of the ledge…and then…are gone as quickly as they came.

The sound is distant, far above, a gentle flapping with purpose.

I look up and observe a steady stream of high flying birds, robins and maybe many others…heading into winds…ascending together in the direction of the tree line opposite the house.

They are off to mourn the cathedral…