Just as spring makes an early appearance, the city is tip toeing about, re-cloistering ourselves. There's so much fear but it feels distant still. I'm lucky and we're young and healthy and.... I'm thrilled for state ordered cloistering. I dread spring every year--that feeling of the blankets being ripped off mid REM cycle--but maybe, just maybe, that won't happen this year. Maybe the CDC will shake loose from Trump's head in the sand and send the nation home. And I will be able to love spring again without being told to get out more, to meet up "now that the weather's nice", to be able to bask in my open window with my ample library. Has my home library been built for just such a cloistering?? yes.
The street outside my open window is quieter, emptier. We passed a few elderly people this morning walking to the park but not the usual amount. Just now I heard two groups of kids walking home from school--normally they blend in with all the other street sounds. But today it was quiet enough to notice the audible passing of hours. Not silent...I don't thing Chinatown will ever be silent. The lobsters still are being sold. The winkle shop is open. I think the winkle cat is giving birth, in fact.
And now my bambi is awake. And I have to decide if we should walk outside. It's not a gathering. Just her and me. But the playground could be coated in germs that live for days. The river could be safe.