Adventures During a Plague Year: A Full Corn Moon, First Trip to a Store (with Miyazaki), and First Visit with Family (and Unicorn)

Full Corn Moon, with Woodinville Trees

Adventures During a Plague Year: Full Corn Moon

This week, as I continue to feel better, was full of firsts “since February.” If you know me, you know I have an immune deficiency and I’ve basically been isolating since February. This week took me outside of my house, and empty outdoor areas, to a visit a gardening store (mostly outdoor, and practically empty, with all employees wearing masks correctly and social distancing) and a visit with my little brother and his wife in our front yard (also with masks and social distancing). These things felt so odd and awkward, and exhilarating. A little piece of normalcy returning in a town where we are still mostly not normal, not yet. Stores close early; salons and restaurants only hold a certain capacity; school, at least in my county, is all virtual for now.

The moon the last few nights has risen orange and spooky, veiled by cloud, still bright enough to make quite an entrance. Full moons can seem to presage some kind of change. I’m hoping these changes will be for the better. I don’t know about you, but like the moon, I’ve felt veiled with a heavy layer of foreboding and depression. The news is full of horrors, including wildfires in Washington and California; I’m worried about the election, too. It’s hard to see the light.

Me Feeling Better, Looking forward to Fall

Firsts Since February – a Trip to a Store, and a Visit with Family

Our local gardening store, Molbaks, which is largely outdoors (but also has an indoor component) seemed like a good first experiment for a foray into the so-called “outside world.” The last time I’d been there in February they had very little stock in, so I couldn’t build the garden I wanted this year. I picked up some herbs I’d been missing, some mums and pansies to give the garden some color after our sunflowers and dahlias finally fade, and a Halloween mask (in case we are able to celebrate Halloween? At least virtually?) It felt a little bit like a zombie video game, zig-zagging to avoid the store sparsely dotted with employees and shoppers, with signs posting “stay six feet apart from other shoppers” between the seasonal displays. Everyone was required to wear masks, which made me feel a little safer. To make me feel a little more invincible, I wore some Miyazaki-related clothing – a Totoro-themed sundress, Totoro shirt, and Totoro mask (Glenn has a Catbus one.) I wonder how much Totoro is too much? Here I am posing at home (pre-mask) and at Molbaks (with mask). Here are orange dahlias, growing outside the shop. Don’t they make you feel fall-ish?

Today we had my little brother Mike and his wife Loree over for a little rosé and skewers (all finger food, for safety, and plastic champagne glasses) and we introduced the inflatable unicorn rainbow sprinkler again. It was great to see their faces (and my little brother’s pandemic beard) but it was sad not to be able to hug them. We sat about twenty feet apart for most of the visit, to be safe. Is this “the new normal?” It seems so strange. Masks, hand sanitizer, outdoor furniture arranged just so – not things we’re used to yet – well, this was our first socializing in a long time! But the visit was definitely a bright spot in our long weekend. I took the most pictures, so I didn’t appear in that many of them, but I have fun taking pictures (masked and from a distance, of course), so it’s all good. It was a perfect day, not too hot, and so great to catch up. But the smoke from the fires is starting to creep into our area – by the evening, you could almost see it hanging in the air. Check out the moon tonight compared to the picture at the top, from three days ago.

Pileated Woodpecker Perched a Planter

I have to admit these modest adventures – which felt risky to me, but rewarding – did lift my spirits. The week ahead promises to bring record-breaking heat (in the nineties) and more smoke, so I’ll probably be acting more Emily Dickinson-y than daredevil-y for the rest of the week, a good time to write and send out work, and spend time with my cats and my birds instead of humans. Here’s one of my regular visitors – a pileated woodpecker. This week I saw a V of snow geese migrating overhead, always a beautiful sight (if a bit cacophonous). The hummingbirds were persistently hanging around us this afternoon, fluttering in front of us and zipping from flower to tree branch. It was like they wanted to socialize too!

I hope you all stay safe and find some joy in your week. I’m going to sleep after watching a little bit of the Last Unicorn on cable, which seemed appropriate viewing.