How Can I be So Busy in a Vacuum

I hear from friends who are binging on Netflix while I barely have time to watch TV. Basically one program a night afterJeopardy.  It seems as if I have more todo, not less.  We’re doing things that other people did for us or that we could order on line and have it delivered in a day or two.  When I spend half an hour on line this morning, hoping to replace a defunct thermometer, I ended up ordering one that won’t come for several weeks – the quickest delivery I could locate and I’m not sure now that will work.

We’re always busy in spring.  Woody says we do all the work we usually do and then add a farm.  We have been planting and I have two more weeks of starting seeds inside.  I am hoping to plant beets Sunday in my garden. We have to shop for Pesach, although it won’t feel like the same holiday, my favorite of the year, as it will be a seder of two only. We’re enduring a storm and expect the power to go out as usual in high winds. The Cape is getting socked.  I didn’t anticipate so much rain when we put seeds in last weekend.  I hope the seeds don’t rot before they can germinate.  That happened last year with parsnips and beets.

My birthday was lovely in spite of isolation.  My friend Lilli gave me some very nice gifts including great salad tongs and some interesting books. .  Woody made me a beautiful birthday, some perfume and dresses and a lobster dinner with Constantine Frank champagne.  Now we’re back to work during the two-day storm. We expect to lose poqer; in high winds, we usually do. 

I’m reading the second volue,  RING UP THE BODIES, if Hilary Mandel’s WolfHall trilogy.  Also Joy Harjo’s new poetry book, AN AMERICAN SUNRISE.  My proofs for my new poetry book ON THE WAY OUT, TURN OFF THE LIGHT came Friday and I’m working on them.  Also came about30 pp of queries I have to answer. My editor Ann Close and I settled on a cover this week.

I mostly miss seeing women friends.  The phone is an inadequate replacement for sitting down together.  We will begin to use ZOOM soon, but that isn’t like being together. Nothing is. I find myself doing less and less suddenly and there is so much to do now. I must disciplinr myself to move more. It’s like being under siege with no help in sight. I do not sleep well most nights.  I worry.  Woody and I take turns worrying we have the virus – him even more than me.

The cats are enjoying our self-isolation.  They get more attention.  They think this is just lovely.  We don’t. How I miss the library and my women friends and my poetry group.

Woody planted leeks, some of the lettuce plants I’ve started indoors [half went to my garden; half to his], dill and parsnips. We’ve cleaned up my herb bed.  I’m hoping Woody comes back from shopping with pansies – I like pansies with faces.  Many daffodils are blooming, along with intense blue scilla siberica, still some crocuses, the witch hazel and theCornelian cherry [which is a yellow dogwood, not a cherry at all] are is full bloom.  The yellow dogwood isparticularly attractive.  Also dark blue hyacinths and little bulbs of white and pale blue whose name I have forgotten although I planted them a few years ago. We’ve used up a lot of our frozen veggies from last summer and we’re eating the sour cherries I preserved from our tree.  They’re equally great in cereal and plain yogurt.