This week has been such an unsettling and world-upending time for us all. I don’t pretend to make sense of it fully yet, but I have been interested to observe my mind oscillating between fear and something else…call it “surrender” or “serenity” or “peace” or even “comfort and joy.”

On Monday, finally, my new computer arrived. On Tuesday, Tim helped me make it operational by installing software and loading files. I was feeling “back to normal,” preparing to resume these posts, especially happy that I would be able to embark on the Poem-a-Day challenge come April 1. Yet, also on that day, more and more of my daily plans (for library visits, Book Group and visits with friends, trips to museums, haircuts, and so on) had slipped, one after the other, into the vague postponement of the post-pandemic future. On Wednesday, after seeing Julia off on her next adventure (which commences with a journey of more than 1,000 miles,) I had a long and steadying phone call–our monthly habit–with a friend who thinks deeply and soulfully about our inner- and outer-realities. We faced the fact that our planned trip to the North Shore, our fourteenth yearly visit to discuss a year of shared reading and life and to explore a beautiful place, might have to be cancelled. But we ended the conversation feeling upbeat, planning to talk again in April, planning to exchange letters.

Then I settled in, for the first time in weeks, to a quiet day of preparing to receive a dinner guest–an intrepid visitor who opted not to cancel our long-planned evening to share a meal, discuss poetry and fiction, and view family photographs.

The meal I planned (quiche, the double-orange of julienne carrots simmered with orange peel, Chardonnay and fresh water to drink, followed by oatmeal and raisin cookies with raspberry sorbet) was satisfying to prepare, as was setting a table with white linen, old silverware, and blue and white dishes.

Because it was quiet and I had the leisure, I was able to notice, on my way to dispose of carrot peelings, two March hares leaping and grazing in the garden. I thought that whatever is happening in our human world now, the ancient love of rabbits for carrots surely still held. And it did! The bouncy rabbits calmed as I came out and offered them a ring of fresh peelings. It took a while after I went inside for them to sample the peelings–after all, I might have been Farmer McGregor springing a trap!–but eventually the scent of something fresh and nutritious attracted these young beings with whom I share a garden. Everyone deserves a windfall now and then.

Between trips to the window, I compiled the quiche and put on some music. It was still a day containing many texts and responses and many questions and worries, but I felt also a steady calmness, a steadily growing pull toward preparing to receive my guest.

About 5:00 p.m., Tim left to meet his own friend. They had a date to play the game of Go–they adjusted to new constraints by meeting in a private space for the first time, rather than the usual coffee shop.

I lit some candles and made a few last-minute adjustments to the table, then settled into a book. Before I knew it, the doorbell rang. My friend had arrived safely. I opened the door to see her smile and an armload of blush-pink pussy willows and red twig dogwood wands, bundled artistically into butter-yellow tissue paper, tied with a yellow ribbon. She had cut them from her own land south of Northfield, bringing them as proof that spring was really on the way.

This morning–technically the first day of spring–dawned grey, damp, and cold. Yet I felt renewal. I felt deeply grateful for an evening of shared food and conversation and the new sense of purpose that had emerged from that. I can see how I need to move mindfully into each new day, not only in this globally worrying time, but for the rest of my days, however many I have: slowly, noticing and appreciating the beauty and kindness around me. While I am sure that I will continue to have moments of being hypnotized by fear, worry, and anger, this newly strengthened conviction will, I sense, help me to return more quickly to a place of clarity and serenity, of appreciation for what and who makes my world not only wider but much richer and deeper. Well, we’ll see.

This afternoon, despite the rain (not a fan!) I got outside my house to notice the local pussy willows in their fuzzy, unfurling beauty.

Then I went inside to work on a surprise for another friend. Her birthday isn’t until November, so I will surely finish in time. Wouldn’t you know? The phone rang, and it was her! We had time for a leisurely talk about life, cooking, reading, and making art.

Now, finishing this first post of the new season just as the sun slips deeper into the grey clouds to the west, I can’t help put feel both soothed and excited, interested to learn what tomorrow holds.

I hope that you, too, are finding ways to see the beauty and possibility that reside within the altered rhythm of your life. I would welcome hearing from you about your own insights.

Be well, be happy, and be you!

LESLIE