These are weird days right here.  My house is full of piano runs,  guitar strums, and puppy calls. There’s also press conferences and updates breaking in through all of that. The south wind is perplexed — a mixture of warmth and frenzy. I wonder what degree panic idles at? How about peace? If one were to feel their forehead, what would the mercury read?

I stepped outside the coop into chandelier-like wisteria that draped over my shoulders like a fur shawl. Just a regal moment cut short by the bumble bee that followed right after. You may think I’m exaggerating but there’s a bird of a bee that favors my red hair. It must take me for a flower the way it chases. Since I was a little girl I have drawn the bees with my copper top. Red hair glows differently in the sunshine than other colors. I have been chased by bees (and wasps) as many summers as I can recall. Yet, I have a great big WHO CARES in my heart because really, who cares about being chased by bees in the midst of outrunning a pandemic? You see this back and forth?

I tuck the heavy and irritated parts of me inside the hammock, hiding from the wind that’s now swinging me. I consider spinning my slug self into a hammock cocoon until I’m ready for reemergence. Let nature craft its transformation inside my being. I have a disquietude that has little to do with what’s going on outside — a lull outside, a restlessness within. I am curious to know if it’s because my days are not being dictated and directed as they once were. Maybe we don’t pay much mind to what drives us (when schedule doesn’t) apart from this sort of dismantling. Maybe it’s much deeper than a calendar.

I half don’t know what to do with myself and it’s not for lack of options. It’s that I do not know how to prioritize in these days of watching and waiting. I could work the ground around the clock and still barely make a dent in it. I could finish my home improvement projects that I am notorious for walking away from. I could start a novel. I could finish one. I could make music, exotic foods, art… I’m definitely going to train our new puppy to be the best girl ever. Maybe I’ll even reinvent myself if I could only decide what I’d like to be. There is plenty of work to be done so why then this stuck? I have made the most of many moments and it does require effort. Maybe I’m just tired. I’m sure it’s nothing a nap can’t repair, but even that adds to the foreign-but-familiar feeling.

Am I panicked and unaware of it? Am I despondent and in self-protect mode? Am I even able to connect to what’s truly happening in headlines? I swear it’s science fiction — plenty of normal elements with a hint of odyssey. Just enough “off” for it to sit eery and far-out.

These are weird days right here. The weirdest normal days ever.