Who would have thought — after riding the first 6 months of the first year in a new decade — we would be here. In our homes. Behind masks (I hope!). With our children. Our animals. Fighting for Black lives (may we continue to always learn how to be anti-racists). In a global freaking pandemic.
That isn’t going away. Right?
I have not been injected with a vaccine. And I will not feel safe until I am.
Will you?
I live in the center, middle America. Oklahoma. A woman yelled at my husband, in the vet’s office. For him wearing a mask. She said she wasn’t
“going to get him sick.”
The other day people yelled at our town mayor on Facebook — they had rights. No one could make them wear a mask. They had guns.
But why? Isn’t a mask a sign of mutual respect, a way to protect others? I don’t understand how anyone cannot wear a mask. It’s an act of generosity, of health.
Most things seem either very immediate or un-important. I’m not sure. But I have been chasing wonder, every day, for this wild and weird year. It’s why I have not written much here. If you enjoy Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, you might like my 2020 project. However, while parenting in quarantine, it’s been difficult to write each day. About the fireflies snapping mid-flight, the breath of a puppy, the song of cicadas. But every day I have turned my senses toward wonder. Most days have a bad iPhone photo, to capture. But some days, like watching my son drown in peach juice, there was no photo. Just delight, at the sticky sweetness covering his chin.
You can explore here: http://www.wonderyear.blog.home
I hope you can find wonder each day, no matter if its the taste of pickle juice. Something to enchant, surprise, delight.
Here is a photo of me eating a bean and rice burrito. I hadn’t eaten one, from San Diego, in six months. It was heaven.
