March Madness

 Despite the title of this post, I don't really follow basketball, but our son just started playing. His first game was last night. They lost, but he had fun being on the court. It seems March came in like a lamb and is going out like a lion.  The month started quietly enough, but here we are at the end of March with a full calendar.

As a "Journal of the Plague Year," this blog hasn't functioned very well. I am an unreliable reporter. As we have passed the one year anniversary of the initial lockdown, it seems appropriate to stop and reflect, but I don't have time to gather big thoughts about the world, and only a minute to reflect on how our lives have changed, which is as much as a great many people's, and probably in relative terms, about as much as they usually change in a year.  The biggest shift has been having the high schoolers at home doing Zoom school and having more family time, which has been wonderful. The kids have been more pleasant than usual. We haven't moved or had a major life change, as some people have, nor have we lost any family members, thankfully.  My husband is looking for a new job, but not because he lost his.  I had a long list of projects I was going to complete with all of this free time, and none of them has been finished. 

Now the kids are back at school two days a week. Many California public schools remain closed, but our district is small and well-endowed, so teachers were amenable to returning, even though the state teachers' unions still are fighting against returning to their jobs. Many teachers still teach from home, because half of the students are still are Zoom. Sports, however, are going full force, with practice every day and games on Fridays for football and throughout the week for basketball. Cross Country season lasted 5 weeks and is already over, but track has begun. Church is back inside. Religious education has started up again in small groups.  We have some social events on the calendar. My husband is vaccinated. We are traveling at the end of the month. Life is almost back to normal.

I know in other states life is almost completely back to pre-pandemic normal, but it is hard to shed the perception that danger lurks in every breath and on every surface. Masks and hand sanitizer will likely remain in use here for a while longer. I have a friend who just caught Covid a couple weeks ago, and one who got it in between her two shots. The first friend just lost her sense of smell; the second was pretty sick. Neither knows anyone they came in contact with who had been sick. And both are fully recovered.

Aside from the return to school and activities, the big issue commanding attention around here is my husband's job search.  He has had some interviews, and jobs are available, but not in the number that we had hoped. My top choice for him is a job for a university that has a hiring freeze. This lack of openings is one of the most challenging parts of the pandemic for us personally. He will find a job, but it may not be the job that I envisioned.  We are going to have some hard decisions to make about what to do next. I keep hoping that just the right thing will miraculously show up, but that hasn't happened yet, despite our pleas to St. Joseph.  We have been working on some discernment tools to help navigate this decision, and I know everything will work out, but I am having to let go of some romantic ideals.  The reality is our family life has shifted quite a bit since those romances first formed in my imagination, so those visions are ghosts, anyway.   

I return to the classroom next month for the second quad term, so I have some to do items on my job, too. I prefer the classroom for teaching, but will miss the ease of teaching from home. So now back to work. Below are some pictures from the last month. Spring is in the air, and I've been welcoming the return of our pink flowers around the house.  Lent is nearing its conclusion, all too soon; I still have more inner conversions to work on! But the kids are beginning to plan our Easter feast.  The difference between this Lent and last Lent is startling in retrospect. What will next year bring? 

A full calendar for this one: Swimming, ballet, religious ed, library visits and playdates

Hiking locally

A rock scramble to the top

The little free libraries in town celebrated the National Day of Unplugging with a scavenger hunt.

We visited 6 of the 12 or so in our town to find prizes - some of which we left for the next hunter, since we don't need more bookmarks and rubber band bracelets.

This one lives in a particularly colorful garden.

Seabee ball at home. Little did I know that when I skipped the ball two years ago to go on retreat, I wouldn't get to go again. Maybe someday we'll go as retirees.

Signs of spring

The climbing rose smells heavenly.

But its delicate blossoms don't do well as cut flowers.

I have kalanchoe in 5 colors around the house, but this is my favorite.

Runners!

Spoiled mongrel.

Hike 2. Three Sisters Falls.

This was great time of year to do this hike - it's often dry.

Hellebore on the path.

Lupine starting to bloom

A misty day kept crowds down and made greenery look magical.

To the desert

We just spent a few of our forty days of Lent in the real desert. Last weekend we took a trip to Tucson, Arizona, to see our oldest son.  The drive is about six hours, but other than a little traffic slowing us down leaving San Diego, the roads were wide open.  We've been planning this trip for weeks, but kept pushing the dates back because of this and that, until finally we decided to make it happen, although the visit was a shorter than we would have liked. But we did have time to share a few meals, get out on a hike in the hills around the city, and spend time with our adult son and his fiancée.  His apartment was tidy, if a little bare - my husband hung some pictures for him. And although the whole fam wasn't together, it's always comforting to have more of our group together than usual. 

The dog was a great traveler. I was a little nervous about how the change of scenery would affect him, but he didn't seem phased.  He's just happy to be with his people. And he didn't jump around in the car like this photo seems to suggest - he curled up in the back seat with the girls and slept the whole trip. This was just after a break at Dateland to get gas and snacks - our favorite oasis on the I-10 roadtrip.

Windmill farms on the way home.

Since our son's apartment is small, we stayed at Davis Montham Airforce base in their temporary lodgings. We had a little two bedroom house outfitted with a dog crate and dishes, and, to the delight of our youngest, it had a covered wagon at the playground.

AZ's state tree - the palo verde.

An ancient face ready to speak the wisdom of the Saguaro

At a certain elevation, we entered a new ecosystem, moving from desert to grassland with scruffy shrubbery. Another trail nearby with higher elevation shifts to a pine forest according to our future daughter-in-law, but we didn't have the time or willing participants for a longer hike. 

Resting near the site of a "waterfall" or tiny trickle. 

The sky really is blue here. The initial ascent was fairly steep.

No daffodils, but spring poppies were in bloom.

 

Beyond midwinter

The big storms in Texas last month occurred days after my husband submitted his resume for a job in Austin.  My good friend, who is hoping we will stay here, used the beautiful blue sunny skies of Southern California as proof we should stay here. And I won't deny that I don't love being able to walk out the door nearly every day to soak up some sun. Maybe it is a little chillier one day than the next this time of year. At night we pull on sweatshirts and comfy slippers. But the weather does little to interrupt our plans.

Except yesterday.  I was watering the garden boxes this morning, when my daughter peeked outside to tell me it was supposed to rain. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, so I kept watering, but by 10 am, the sky was ominously gray, and by 11, we had a downpour. And it continued to rain all day. I had two appointments and was late both times because traffic was slower than I anticipated, once because of a fender bender already on the side of the road. 

Driving in the rain here is dangerous.  Carrying groceries in during the rain is a hassle. But it is thrilling.  My middle daughter walked around all day in a robe. We ate popcorn and watched a movie after dinner, even though it was midweek. The youngest went to another home schooling friend's house - we usually play out in the yard a couple days a week as a bribe for them to get their school work done, but they, too, curled up on the couch with blankets and a movie and hot chocolate. Practices were cancelled. The dog doesn't want his long afternoon walk.  We milked the cold and blustery day for all the hygge we could muster from it. 

I mentioned the Onbeing transcripts in my last post; the podcast in particular that I was thinking about was one on "wintering" that a friend had forwarded after we talked about anticipating Lent. The interview is with Katherine May, an Englishwoman who wrote a book by the title Wintering about the importance of seasons of "rest and retreat," in which we figuratively or literally hibernate and soak up ideas. I think of Leo Lionni's Frederick who soaks up the sun all summer and then recites poetry to his mousy companions all winter long, bringing them a different kind of nourishment.  I think of my own desire to reorient during Lent, a pause from the usual, even if it's done badly. I have often expressed a longing for the change of seasons that we miss when we live in these sunny, temperate or tropical climes where there is no pause to the sunshine except the occasional shower. Not even thunderstorms.  Santa surfs or wears Hawaiian shirts and rides a carabao. 

There are no intense seasonal markers for spring, for the Resurrection, either, which is perhaps one of the best parts of winter - the time of rebirth that follows.  Of course, after our rainy day, we actually appreciated the sunshine. I saw a couple sitting in the park across the street just soaking up warmth. (Maybe they were afraid to go to the beach after the drama of a particularly violent domestic abuse incident there a few days ago.) 

If Katherine May were Catholic or of another liturgical faith, perhaps she would have written a book about Lent. But using the poetic term "wintering" shifts our perspective and makes our imagination work a little harder.  What does she mean? What is this season really about? She describes it as a period of germination, a time of "reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment." It's a time of transformation, which is really what Lent is about, a giving up of distractions, stepping away from busyness, turning inward, observing, listening instead of talking, so that we might experience Easter as a true renewal. 

May takes a more expansive than religious view of this practice, often forced upon us, as it has been during the pandemic.  Her lovely voice reveals to her readers the benefits of a winter season for self-improvement, but why do we keep trying to improve ourselves? That peace we are yearning for, that restored communion with ourselves and with our neighbors, is a yearning that feeds the religious impulse. And it finds sustenance in the practice of reliving Easter.  But too often our ways of describing faith are cluttered with overused tropes and metaphors. Even now I can't find the words.

So I'll leave off here. My brief time for reflection is over. The sun is out again; our day of resting on the couch with blankets a comfort, but one I realize is a luxury when compared to the real cold experienced by our family and friends in Texas who lost their power for days. My sister in law talked about not being able to get out of bed because it was so cold. While we play at winter, many people suffer it. Does it help or frustrate to say that spring will come?