1. Morning walks. It’s reached the time of year when we no longer need a headlamp, but not quite yet when we need to wear our sunglasses first thing. I sure wish my dumb foot would feel better so I could go more often.

2. Wild Writing, both with Laurie’s 27 Wildest Days (which is free and available for sign up until May 11th) and once again with Mikalina and Chloe’ in Laurie’s Friday morning class. Just like meditation and yoga, this practice is essential, both magic and medicine. I’m so glad to be practicing it regularly again. If this is the end of the world, this is one of the ways I want to spend it.

3. Lilac season, which also means flowers in the bathroom after a really really long time. Every year when I was working at CSU, I’d pretty much miss lilac season because it was also the two weeks of the year that were the busiest for me. It’s one of the things I was most looking forward to upon retiring, being able to really enjoy the lilacs with ease, to truly inhabit the moment. That is exactly what’s happening this year, although with the additional element of a global pandemic.

4. Practice. The routine of it each morning has always been a good thing, sacred, but now it’s also necessary, essential in a whole other way, an act of survival.

5. The comfort of cooking and eating good food. Eric and I can’t stop eating these pretzels. Last week I ordered two zucchini with our groceries because glazed lemon zucchini cake and ultimate zucchini bread with toasted walnuts. I also accidentally ordered THREE dozen eggs so there was also breakfast bake.

6. Yard time, sitting in the sun with the dogs.

7. My tiny family. There’s no one I’d rather be with right now.

Bonus joy: weeding the flowerbeds (I know, I’ve completely lost my mind), hanging out with Chloe’ and Mikalina on Zoom, texting with my mom and brother, how green everything is right now, naps, good TV and movies, good podcasts, good books, good music, people risking their lives to provide food and healthcare for the rest of us, the buds on my irises and peonies that will open into flowers, the worms working in my dirt, the honeybees, the hummingbirds, HIIT workouts with Eric, watching Antiques Roadshow with Eric, laughing so hard with Eric that I accidentally farted which only made us laugh even harder, cuddling with Sam, playing with Ringo, reading in bed at night while Eric and the dogs sleep, chewable vitamins.

Image by Eric

1. May, a whole new month. This means pay day for Eric, paying bills for me, which gives me such a sense of calm, knowing that we still have an income, can pay our bills and buy groceries, get the dogs the care they need. It’s also the full shift from winter to working in the garden. Things are blooming and we are getting our vegetable garden ready for the seeds Eric started. This summer will be something other than we planned — we cancelled our trip to Oregon to visit family, the 10 days we were going to spend at the beach, and my cousin postponed her wedding — and yet, there will be summer.

2. Working in the garden. Weeding our garden at the start of the season takes at least a week, maybe two to get things under control, since the grass and bindweed are determined to own the front yard, and I have no interest in using poison to stop their spread. So that’s the focus right now, cleaning things up so we can cover it with mulch, which we got delivered this week. Isn’t it funny how you initially think you’ll be able to weed an entire flower bed, and you work on it for an hour but barely get anything done? I thought I’d do the whole front burm the first day, but only finished one small section. The next day’s goal was the center bed and I only finished one corner. Gardening definitely teaches you patience, but also a particular sort of joy.

3. My goofy sun hat. It’s kind of ridiculous, but I also kind of love it.

4. Morning walks. I haven’t been able to do as many of these as I’d like, as I have some plantar fasciitis in my left foot. Something exciting happened during one of them: there was a heron standing at the edge of the river fishing, and it caught one! Swallowed it whole and then bent over to put its beak in the river, shook it around like it was washing its face. I’d never seen one actually get a fish.

5. My tiny family. I’m so glad to be with them, to love them, to be loved by them.

Bonus joy: so much good stuff, still; such as a livestreamed poetry reading and Q&A with Andrea Gibson, Do You Need a Ride? podcast, Maria Bamford’s new comedy special, hanging out with Mikalina, texting with my mom and brother, comedy, music, poetry, movies, TV shows, food, books, podcasts, plants, water, animals, sunshine, sleep, practice. And the things I miss: swimming pools, eating food at a restaurant, coffee dates, browsing bookstores, group yoga classes, tea with Chloe’, other people’s dogs, the sauna, teaching yoga, going to a movie and getting popcorn, grocery shopping, the beach, hugging my friends, my family.