Day by day, the weather warms in Vermont, gradually brights in the tiniest drops of green from last year’s brown. On my walk, I pass by a house with a whole garden bed of purple crocuses. Brilliant gardening, I think.

The kids have reappeared in yards and on porches. I pass two small brothers digging in the mud, enthusiastically leaning into the work, talking. Walking, I pass a few groups, but they’re all families — siblings, sometimes parents I hardly ever see, out walking, too. One small band of teenage boys roams on bicycles, and I sense my daughter’s resentment. Social distancing seems weird — I know this. We’re hardly in a war effort of knitting stockings for overseas soldiers, and yet its success relies on collective action.

It’s a strange lesson to learn at age 14, that as a kid you’re equally part of society, too. Frustrated with virtual high school, my daughter complains she’s not learning anything. But these lessons are deep and hard here, I think — lessons that will rut into her adult life.

Day by day, flower by flower.

…Be
careless of nothing.
See what you see.

— Philip Booth, “How to See Deer”

What’s happening at our house