“. . . We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us. . .”

~ Excerpt from “Eagle Poem,” by Joy Harjo

First order of business: food shopping. We need to re-stock. We are awake at 5, out by 6:30 a.m. By 7:00, the Stop and Shop is fairly crowded, but well stocked. I hurry through with my list, filling the carriage. Unpacking and disinfecting take a long time. I am so preoccupied with household chores I decide not to walk, but kayak later with the family. Everyone is up and working now; strange day, a cleaning day, and I don’t need to ask, it’s just being done: mopping, vacuuming, kitchen cleaning…. reminding me of weekends from my childhood and teens, helping my mother with the house on Saturdays. I have not been firm and disciplined about my kids and housework. And yet, here they are, showing up, pitching in, showing gratitude. We’re all in this together. My husband cleans the basement. Later, exhausted, I sit and work on a poem, one I haven’t touched since December when I went to a poetry workshop and it was critiqued, and I’ve known what I needed to do but haven’t done it. It’s a poem about a silent meditation retreat I went on some years ago for ten days one snowy winter. I am pretty sure i’ve made it better, responded to the feedback. I will share it next week in one of my possibly three workshops I’ll attend. Tomorrow, perhaps I’ll work on some more. A voice in my head asks why this matters now. What’s the point? I keep working anyway. I need it to matter. We go out in the late afternoon; the whole family, on the river in the kayaks and canoe. I didn’t want to do that; it was gray and cloudy and cold and I was warm and dry and wondered why bother. My son and his friend came too. I didn’t want anyone to be disappointed. And there were couch sitters, tired and comfortable, who didn’t really want to go. But I put on warm clothes and said, it’s time. And I went across the field to the river and everyone came and we got into the glassy river water, I took a single kayak, and in the gliding lost all my resistance. It was fresh, brown, gray and warmer than I thought and quite peaceful. Charlie and Suzi got to go in my husband’s canoe. We headed into the mild wind. We turned into the big lake, and there my husband, who has an eagle eye, pointed up to a tree: “Bald eagle!” he cried. And then I knew how lucky I was that I pushed through my resistance. We watched the eagle soar above the river from tree to tree. Like everyone, I wake into this new sense of mortality. So, I am grateful to find, tonight, the Joy Harjo poem, rounding out the morning inside me. There are two thousand in our country dead, a gruesome, tragic fact of loss. Tomorrow, we have the virtual memorial service for my husband’s mother. It rained, hard and heavy after our river run. I hurried back to put on the oven for cookies and potatoes and dinner. My daughter came in and helped me and we talked about what’s in her heart as she washed the potatoes and I mixed the cookie dough. My son and his friend cannot come inside, but they say goodbye from the door, and I say, I will make your dinner to go. I packed it up like door dash, put it in bags. Included cookies. He returned to take their dinner home. “We take the utmost care, and kindness in all things.” My son and I had a phone conversation earlier. It took me some time to hear what he was trying to tell me; I was distracted, a little tired. He was just trying to say beautiful things from his heart about what he’s feeling. So, I tuned in. I tuned in and I heard him. Today, I felt “no” and then I kept saying yes instead.