#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Impression, CharlesRiver, Under the Trestle
How cheerfully I woke. Happy. Rested. Relieved to find myself effortlessly so. As if, for this day, moving into, settling into some kind of acceptance. An ability to feel rested. Most of the snow gone under the downpour of the night, chasing it away as if it had never landed. I went out by myself with Charleston and it was only mildly cold, and the sun wanted to work its way out. Trees in bud over the Charles River. Sign of hope. I skipped along, happy in the fresh air and quiet and birded landscape. So many mallards and geese filling the wetlands with nests and plans. I went over the trestle bridge, stood on the other river bank and looked at the river’s reflection under the trestle bridge, the painted graffiti rippling like an impressionistic painting. I just wanted to shout and dance for joy outdoors today; and nothing in this tragic scene of the world has changed. Just, for this few hours, changed in me. I wanted to be grateful. Aware. Appreciative for the day, as far into it, the short distance of it, the moment, that I could see and know. Another moment I very much loved today: the gang coming into the kitchen at dinner, hungry, enthusiastic, appreciative. The youngest says, “These meals you’re making remind me of the ones we had when we were growing up.” I have roasted the butternut squash in the morning. Peeled and cut it, with some apples. I have made this into a soup with coconut milk and ginger. I have baked potatoes and, best of all, baked a double batch of homemade popovers. Frank has grilled some chicken. They do the clean up. I figure out why I am finding my way cheerfully back to the kitchen: the ingredients are in the house; I don’t have to shop. And we are suddenly all on the same timeline for meals. After dinner, I disappear again into my new office and meet with my poetry pals, Marlon and Randy, in Mississippi and Texas and talk novels and poems. Tonight, we are miles apart yet on the same wavelength. Both their universities have closed and they are, like all of us, sheltering at home and teaching online. I was so happy to stop and appreciate the beech today and let its papery light inside me.
