Tag: covid

2021, life, pandemic

inertia

etikser

A year in pandemic is a bit like a long afternoon on the front porch. The same kind of boredom, but without the pleasant sense of relaxing. The same kind of inertia, but without the sweet breeze playing at the hair on the back of your head.

After months and months, the possibility you’ll come up with some motivation to think, oh yeah, that’s what I want to do…that possibility’s remote. It’s more like, let’s see, you ought to get up and clean out a couple of drawers. The other day I found a dollar bill in an old purse I hadn’t used in years. There was a spark of excitement, sort of delight, that lasted about one minute. Maybe I hoped it was a twenty dollar bill. At least a five.

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John Prine, music

John Prine

etikser

[This is a re-post. It’s been a year since John Prine passed away, an early victim of Covid. He’ll always be one of my favorite songwriters.]

Singer-Songwriter John Prine Dead at 73 of Coronavirus ...

And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we’ve both seen

~  Hello in There  ~

John Prine
October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020
A legendary figure. One of my favorite songwriters.

[image from Vanity Fair]

2021, forsythia, spring

waiting for spring

etikser

Tall trees stand stubborn, dark straggly lines against a soft blue sky. It could be the middle of February. We … the humans … watch. We tap our toes and wonder. Isn’t it time for spring? Some small, discernible bits of newness? Some buds, or some green, some encouraging signs of a new season.

No, the trees look back, offering nothing more than a confident sway, as the uppermost branches, leafless, bend in unison.

They’re mostly oaks and a few poplars. And it’s like they’ve become defiant, adamant at least, about who’s in control. Plain, unadorned branches, move slowly left and then right in the breeze. Shouldn’t they be working on some green, some buds, even some pollen? I’ve watched this slow drama play out so many years, and yet I wonder impatiently what happens first. Tiny sprigs of green, or those long strands of gold pollen?

The trees, though, the trees stand stubborn, and they sway when they feel like it. They move with a swagger, resistant to every human wish for spring. We’re all used to waiting now, aren’t we? But It feels like it will be the 4th of July, and still those big old trees will be standing there looking like they looked in February. We … the humans … restless, watching, waiting for them to green up. And waiting for a life that resembles something like it used to be. Any day now, maybe next week, maybe in a few months.