Spring again

So many of us were reflecting last week as we hit the year mark that we all sheltered in place. I've been allowing myself to look back at my line-a-day journal entries and social media posts in order to mark the time, and to think about how little we knew and how far we've come. A year later, this scary virus now has a vaccine, and we are starting to think about bigger plans than our trips to the grocery store. As I look back,  I think of all the ways we have become stronger and more resilient, but also more tender and more sensitive.

One year later, I am still healthy. My parents never got sick. I still have my job. Joel got a new job. We got married. I have done 150 workouts in my living room. I haven't gotten an oil change. My blood pressure is back to normal. 

One year later, I have lost two family members without a way to gather in mourning. I missed my niece's wedding. I haven't seen my Boise family in person since 2019. I've become ever more aware of the decline of my dog's health as weeks pass and our walks become slower, and her face becomes whiter. 

On Monday, during my afternoon stroll on the bluff, a bird call caught my attention. In the tree above me were five or six Northern flickers. They squeaked and warbled at each other before a few of them flew off, and then the call became loud and persistent. I might have seen or heard these birds before, but I never knew their names until I consulted with my niece, an avid birder, who confirmed via text. They are so common, so it was amazing to me that I had never noticed them before now.

In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell writes of this shifting of attention, paying more mind to our bioregion, that is, the immediate environment where we live, walk, and generally inhabit. Context is important, which includes our physical space. In the past year I have gained a heightened awareness of the way my house creaks during the day, where the light hits during the different times of year, as well as the names of the weeds that pop up in the garden beds in March and June. And I'm still finding more to pay attention to. I've walked the neighborhood each day and have examined, lately, various houses' siding, as we determine how to re-do ours (and more! ugh). I've talked to more neighbors and watched their activities through the window like a true Mrs. Kravitz. I've hiked the bluff hundreds of times and, like on Monday, am still learning what nature does there, and the names of the plants and creatures that inhabit that space. It feels good to be sensitive and attentive to these things, after so much worry this year, after reading so many news headlines without the energy to read the articles themselves, and feeling a growing inability to retain information or to concentrate for any length of time. The other day at work (in my home office), I had a good idea -- a rare feeling lately -- and before I lost it, I shared it with Joel to make sure it made sense, then walked out the door for fresh air and to celebrate that fleeting joy of reconnecting to what I love about my work, hoping that adding a dose of sunlight to it would keep it from being spoiled by checking my email again too quickly. 

This year has important and life-changing, though it's just one year in the larger context of our lives, in the even larger context of the world around us. There's so much left to learn and grow from. After a year of isolation, mixed with grief and joy, I'm looking forward to the things we're all looking forward to, but I am doing my best to continue to use this time to form deeper habits that are keeping me grounded and are compelling me to pay better attention.

And yes, it's spring again. The year should begin on the vernal equinox because if ever there were a true feeling of turning a new leaf, this is it. It is the best season (where I've lived, at least), even though summer gets all the credit. Those first warm days, those first pops of green buds and the tell-tale yellows of forsythia and purples of crocuses, the return of the birds, the smell of mud, the sound of kids out on the sidewalks -- spring is a reminder that nothing is to be taken for granted but yet here we are again, greeted by persistent life and color and promises of brighter days to come.