Daybook, Easter Week, 2021

Outside my window: the tulips and daffodils are up, but not yet blooming. My neighbors’ (fertilized) grass is dark green. Ours: not so much. The trees are on the brink of brilliance, though the branches I brought inside for our Easter tree are blooming.

In the kitchen: I am unmoored. Some days I make multiple dishes that have nothing to do with each other (Tuesday: roasted feta, kielbasa and halloumi with brussels sprouts and carrots, and green lentil mujadra with a side of farro) and other days I can’t bring myself to make anything at all (tonight: Owen brought us Chipotle.) I feel like I have unpredictable toddlers again, who one day will eat only string cheese and the next, reject string cheese as if it were poison. (Only a hangry teenager is stronger than a hangry toddler.)

In the school room: Phoebe and I are reading Connie Willis’s Crosstalk. Whenever Moriah hears me reading it, she snuggles up with us to listen. Phoebe and I have been building a raised bed for an herb garden. Our eyes were bigger than our yard, however, and we haven’t filled it with soil yet because we can’t figure out where to put it.

Seventh grade this week included both basic stoichiometry and plans for a Rube Goldberg machine. Our junior is super busy with both the SAT and ACT next week, and then has just two weeks until her AP exams, and our senior has only 5 weeks left of high school.

On my reading shelf: I have been plowing through Jenny Colgan’s books– so far I’ve liked all I’ve read. Her characters are just so likeable, even when they’re making stupid mistakes. I am working slowing through The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron and Make Change by Shaun King.

And a dear friend sent this poem by John Updike, Seven Stanzas at Easter. I have been reading it several times a day.

All the other things: I just got a jury summons again. It feels like just last week I was called last–and was the last jurist dismissed for a murder trial– but of course it was before the pandemic started. This time I won’t try to take my knitting in.

And I’ve just renewed my medical license. Colorado is requiring all physicians renewing to do several hours of training on how to combat the opiate crisis. It was very interesting and of course important but on top of everything else, just felt like one more straw…

However, it’s not all straw. One fun moment from the week: instead of hosting an Easter egg roll at the White House this year, the administration chose to honor frontline health care workers by giving them commemorative eggs, and our clinic was chosen to receive them. There was supposed to be a big ceremony at the end of March, but all the flights into Denver were canceled that day. When I got to work this week, my egg was on my desk.

I’m grateful for: Naps. Faithful friends. Spring. Our small group. Our excellent medical team. Vaccines and all the people involved in making/administering them. (Colorado is currently vaccinating anyone over the age of 16. If you want to get on my clinic’s waiting list for a vaccine, you can sign up here.) The healing of Mandy’s elbow.

I’m praying for: those who mourn; truly good use of our new church space; the mental health crisis in America’s teenagers; those who are lonely or frightened; graduating seniors; the grace to operate from a place of abundance and faith, rather than scarcity and fear.